Day 5 - At Sea

Day 5 – At Sea

Dec 6

Very rollercoaster day today. No, the ship is not rocking … I am … well, me and the slot machines! I am down some, but this morning I won $500 on a random spin! I was on cloud 9 for quite a while. Now, after an evening in the casino … not so much … ah well. I am enough of a statistician to know I am just playing for entertainment and there is little hope of walking away ahead of the house.

I have to talk about the walking. We are really getting our exercise. The Noordam is three football fields in length … 935 feet, to be exact. As I have said, our cabin is at the very aft … looking out over the aft of the ship. The Lido Buffet is directly above us, three decks up. Otherwise, we walk at least half the length of the ship to get anywhere. The Main dining room is completely forward. The casino and lounges are mostly mid-ship. The crow's nest is completely forward. The Neptune Lounge is a little forward of midship. See … we are getting our exercise. Perhaps we won't gain that average of a pound a day that everyone talks about!

For those of you who have asked for more pictures, Holland America Line does it much better than I do. So here's a link to some beautiful pictures of the ship and facilities:

http://experience.hollandamerica.com/ships/noordam/NO_slideshow2/index.html

The first room picture is the type of cabin we are in. The hydrotherapy pool is the one I head to every day. We have eaten in the Lido Buffet and the main dining room. Tomorrow lunch is the Pinnacle Grill. I will take more pictures of things that aren't in this slide show. Especially the art work … amazing!!

Today was pretty calm, other than the casino trips. I spent some time in the Neptune lounge, sending off today's blog, checking e-mail, and knitting. My knitting is drawing some attention, so I have begun carrying around the pattern as well as the WIP. People want to see what the finished product will be like.

We had a nice lunch in the Lido Buffet. Salad, nothing too fancy. After a while you just have to have real food! Then Scotty went off to a movie and I headed to the casino. She enjoyed “Larry Crowne” and I played the slots … 'nuff said.

We spent a little while in the cabin prior to dinner, sitting on the verandah and reading. I admit, I snoozed off a little while in bed! Dinner was at Caneletto. HAL turns part of the Lido Buffet into a very nice, but informal, Italian restaurant at dinner time. We took advantage of it and had a great Italian dinner. My Chicken Marsala was wonderful and her Cod looked pretty good too!

Time for tip # 7

7. If your tablecloth is wet at dinner, you should prepare for rough seas. Restaurant staffers have been known to slightly dampen the tablecloth to keep plates and glasses from sliding.

This is another one that is outside my experience. Given how rough the seas were at the start of this voyage, I would have expected to see it then, but didn't … perhaps this is the sea-going version of an urban legend? Have any of you experienced dampened linens??

Headed off to bed now. We dock in Bonnaire tomorrow. We have lunch scheduled for the Pinnacle Grill, but we will also try to get off the ship and see what we can in town.