Tuesday 25 June 2013 At Sea

There was a time change back to Pacific Time overnight, we were up just after 8 on the new time, losing an hour. After breakfast, we took in a Microsoft seminar about the features of Windows 8 and a memory seminar, but I forget what he said. Actually, he had some good tips, but you need to have a good imagination and not be lazy. That lets us out.

We returned to our room and took the laptop down to the indoor pool to blog and manage some pictures while grabbing a snack. They had a Mongolie grill arrangement set up. Celeste really enjoyed their tasty sauce.  Later we returned to our room and found some official looking mail. Yesterday we received an official looking invitation to a brunch with the Captain in the dining room today, but we forgot and went to the memory seminar instead. Actually, we had a late breakfast so we weren’t real hungry and we did not expect it to be too exciting, so we skipped it. Well, it turns out we were to be presented with nice pins recognizing our accumulation of a certain number of cruising days with Holland America. Since we missed it, they just dropped the pins off in our room. Might have been kind of fun. Oops!

We frittered away the afternoon until we finally went up to the Crow’s Nest at 4 for Happy Hour. We spent an hour and a half watching the world go by as we navigated through the narrow straits between Vancouver Island and the mainland. It was kind of interesting to observe the strong currents and turbulent water in some places. We then went down for our last dinner, this time at a table for two. [Note to self: Must learn to make Pavlova. So good! – Ed.]

After dinner we went to the live theatre show. The program said something about Dancing with the Stars featuring the Volendam singers and dancers. I did not make the connection despite the fact they had been talking about it all week, but part of the entertainment was a competition among several guests paired with cast dancers. The judges were the comedian and magician from previous shows and the band leader from the house band. One of the contestants was pretty good, another not bad, and three were entertaining in other ways. Of course the judges were also very humourous. All in all, it was pretty entertaining.

We finished the evening with a stroll around the deck, some music from the classical duo in one bar, and the jazz combo in another. Finally, it was time to pack and hit the hay.

 

Weather: Mostly overcast with an occasional sunny break, temperature about 15, quite windy while in open water, but not bad when better sheltered. Rain showers by late evening.