I was up well before the crack of dawn on our first port day so rather than sit around in the cabin waiting for T to wake, I went down to
the International Cafe for some sustenance.
I just love that place already....the IP doesn't have one so it's a new
Princess experience for us. How great is
it to be able to have a fab latte & a muffin at 3.30am?
T eventually woke (at a much more reasonable hour) and once we were
both ready we hot footed it (aka got the lift) up to the HC for some
breakfast. Omelette for me and a (mini)
full English for T. I think I prefer the
"cook the eggs to order" serving station on the Island Princess but everything
tasted good.
We saw our server from the previous evening and I need to
make a correction - her name is Elena not Helena. She was telling us that although she was working during the morning until 11:00am, she had the afternoon to
herself & was planning a trip into Rotterdam before her evening shift started.
Don't they all work so hard!
After breakfast we had a walk around the shops and then
went out on deck to say hello to Holland.
Q. Hands up all those people who sang the Beautiful
South's "Rotterdam" as we sailed into port?
A. Me, me..........I did 🙋
Travelling toward the terminal was actually a bit surreal.
I've never been to Rotterdam in my life but because I've been checking out the
webcams for months now, it seemed very,
very familiar - the strange shaped buildings, the quayside....everything - very
deja vu-ey. The only thing that didn't look
quite the same was the Erasmus bridge.....it was much closer to the water
than it looks on the cameras.
By 12:40, we were off the ship and heading towards coach
18 - it would be taking us to Amsterdam for the day.
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| Can't go to Holland and not take a pic of a windmill |
We also wouldn't have found out some "well, I never"
facts
1) Amsterdam re-introduced the Olympic flame w-a-a-a-a-a-y
back in 1928 when they hosted the games
2) Amsterdam invented the P sign for parking
3) AND that Amsterdam has 825,000 residents and over 1,000,000 bikes
We had 2 hours to tour the city by ourselves and so we
made our way to Dam Square to have a look around. As I'd forgotten to bring the maps of all the
places off the square that we'd researched - including a bar named after me! - the
only thing left to do was to buy some souvenirs, have a drink and watch the world pass by. So that's what we did.
We didn't get back to the CB until 8:40 and desperately
needed something to eat so we made our way straight to the MDR.
 |
| Those clog slippers went in the bin before we left the ship - really uncomfortable |
Singapore beef satay and jerk chicken for both of us - with
T having some kind of chocolate dessert and me, cheese. A couple of drinks followed and then we were off
for some shut-eye.
Cruise - Day 003 - At Sea (7th September)
After eating so late on Tuesday night, neither of us felt
like breakfast yesterday so we went down to the IC for a cuppa and then planned
to go to the morning trivia quiz. We had
the cuppa but didn't make the quiz.......the couple we're having dinner with
tonight arrived and all four of us sat chatting til 11am when it was time to go
to our Meet & Greet.
What a turn out that turned out to be - the place was
packed and not just with us roll callers.
 |
| Captain Mario |
I think the whole thing lasted about 40 minutes and then
people started to drift off.....once we'd discussed final plans with Barbara for the cabin crawl that's taking place during the transatlantic
crossing, we drifted off too & went to the Crown Grill for a pub lunch of
fish, chips & mushy peas.
The last time we had that meal (on the IP), I did nothing
but moan because the peas weren't proper mushy peas (they'd mashed up garden
peas.....yuk). They weren't totally
right this time either but they were much better - the fish was perfect though so
that made up for it.
 |
| The colour of the peas is right, just need to get the taste sorted now |
After lunch we went on a floor by floor tour of the ship
& visited every area we hadn't yet seen - I'm totally impressed with
Skywalkers.......we'll have to go back when it's dark to take some pics, I
think it'll look amazing when it's all lit up.
We had a couple of drinks in Crooners and then got
invited to join a group in Club Fusion for the afternoon quiz - we didn't win
but it was good fun.
At 6:30 we met up with L and C and had a fantastic
night. Both of the blokes were suited,
booted & dicky bowed - looking all handsome - and us girls looked pretty
damn good too - no proof of that though because, even though I had our camera
with us, I didn't even turn it on......never mind take a picture.
L had booked a table for us in the MDR - it was perfect,
right by a window in a corner section of the dining room.....it made it seem
just that bit exclusive.
Listing four people's menu choices would take forever so
I'll just say that every course was delicious and we all thoroughly enjoyed
every morsel.
The whole dinner was such a laugh and after we left the
dining room (we were the last to go), it was off to Crooners for a final drink
or 3.
We kept a steady countdown of how long T had to go
until he reached the big six O and at 11:54, I made my way to the piano player
to ask if he'd play happy birthday at midnight.
He was just closing the lid of the piano and said he'd finished for the
evening (apparently his shift had finished half an hour earlier) but, after a
bit of cajoling and because he's a just so wonderful, he agreed to stay around
to help us wish T a very, very, very happy birthday......and at exactly 12
o'clock that's what we did - even the other customers and all the bar staff
joined in.
After a celebratory glass of champers and a few more
off-key renditions of happy birthday, we called it a night around 12:30/12:45.
Check out the blog when you can - I pre-scheduled a post
that should automatically be published at some point on T's big day......you'll
be able to see the birthday boy 😉
