Up early at our final breakfast at what has been the best breakfast on the road in this observer’s memory. Afterwards, some go for a last stroll along the canals, some go shopping at Guggenheim Museum Shop; Frank tracks down a camera store for a charger cord for his camera. The entire crew assembles back to the hotel by noon for our transfer to our ship. The bags are all tagged for ship and then we wait.
Two water taxis arrive at 1:30 for the transfer to Ship. After a quick 15 minute ride, we schlepp out and watch our bags disappear onto ship, and all is well except Mark’s pocket knife (confiscated) which didn’t make it through the shipboard TSA-like search. We are to learn that this is standard operating procedure each time we reboard the ship.
Our vessel, the ms Oosterdam of the Holland America Line is a 1,900 passenger ship of 11 storeys. On board ship, all bags reappeared in our cabins except Howie’s carry-on (wine bottle broke, saturation no clothing - pink underwear.)
We begin to explore ship, and end the day with dinner in main dining room, Don Hosford nearly laughing to death. We had all opted for open dining rather than 1st or second seating. As on all cruises, lack of food or feeding opportunities are never an issue.
We stroll the decks after dinner, variously taking in the classical music quintet, the rock & roll bar, the casino, or just sitting quietly enjoying a drink. After a long and busy day, we are finally under way on this Mediterranean adventure.
