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As is our normal routine, we spent the night at Dori and Aaron's
house in Lake Worth. Gosh Suvi has grown so much! When we left
for the 2015 world cruise she was a teeny baby, but now she's
a verbal 3-year-old with a love of dinosaurs, trains, and trucks.
And what a head of curls! What fun!
The next morning we headed down to Ft. Lauderdale—early
to avoid rush hour. We spent a couple of hours in the hotel lobby
across the parking lot from the Budget rental car office. After
turning in the car, we took the shuttle to the port. Even this
far south is was pretty cold (low 40s), but at least it wasn't
raining. Once in the port, we were allowed upstairs to wait because
of our 4-star mariner status with Holland America. It was lunchtime
by the time we boarded the Amsterdam, the same ship as the previous
2 world voyages and our Alaska cruise. So, it was a homecoming.
Plus we know some people who been on cruises with us before. Very
cool. Still, we took some photos around the ship to see what had
changed and what had not...
There was a mariners' welcome reception at 2:30pm with complimentary
wine & Champaign around the Lido pool area.
That evening at 7:30, they threw a big sail-away party with a
full complement of drinks of all types.
We chose margaritas.
 
There were special, varying colored lights around the perimeter
of the pool deck. The Station Band, which provides dance music
each night in the Ocean Lounge, provided more of a party atmosphere.
Orchids were arranged around the pool.
As usual, the floral arrangements were outstanding. At the end
of our own floral tour we ran into Eddy, the head guy from Dianthus,
the Dutch company that manages the floral arrangements. He has
been on our previous world voyages. We told him how much we enjoyed
all the flowers.
 
Eddy demonstrated his floral arranging skills on a sea day after
the Panama Canal.
We were happy to see the navigation screen in the Crows Nest,
so we can see what the ship drivers see as far as other ships
in the area and more detail.
An extra young chess player (a child of one of the officers) frequents
this chess set at one end of the Lido pool area. A set of 6 cherubs
were outside the fitness room (also the entrance to the spa/salon),
which we'd not seen before. The spa manager told us that they'd
always been there, but had mostly been obscured by huge floral
arrangements.
A set of 2 carpeted walls face each other in this pass-through
area from one side of the ship to another on the 5th deck. They
decorate the area where the port location guide and future cruise
consultant have their desks.
The huge timepiece in the atrium is 3 decks tall and is topped
by the zodiac constellations. Of all the other atria sculptures
on the Holland America Ships, this is still our favorite. One
of the lecturers on the first leg of the cruise gave a lecture
on its significance and how it works.
On the second day of the cruise, we dressed up for the captain's
reception where the Amsterdam Orchestra played dance numbers while
people filed in through the reception line. Complementary wines
were served.
We were pleased that Jonathan Mercer is the captain again for
this voyage. His detailed introductions for the ship's officers
is always impressive because in addition to their names and titles,
he knows where they are from, their family situation, and their
hobbies. All without notes.
 
We attended the mariners' wine tasting session at 11am one morning
on a sea day. 2 whites and 2 reds—very nice.
 
Making a shell lei was one of the immersion activities.
Brown boobies in formation at the side of the ship ...
 
While the boobies were nice, it was the close encounter with this
tropic bird that interrupted our 3-mile walk around the promenade
deck one sea day. Magnificent.
As for other grand voyages, Dean has kept a log, which has more
details on both our shipboard life (including the entertainment
& lectures) and the port adventures. I divided it up into
portions that correspond to the photo log for each page plus the
sea days until the next port and provided a link to it at the
bottom of each page. Dean's
Log—Beginning.
A graphic of our itinerary is on the next page,
so let's get started!
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We
were very excited to go on this world cruise, our third, because
this itinerary contained 20 new ports for us.