October 2 our first day at sea; I wasn’t worried one bit about what I would do but I think Dan was! Our first night was a little rocky and we felt movement but we slept till 7:30 which for us is late and with a window! The night was so quiet and so was the room; no creaking or noise from above or below. Dan made his way up to the lido and got us coffee. We awakened to find out about the terrible shooting in Las Vegas where so many people were killed and injured...our hearts were heavy.
We had our first scheduled event at 10:00 at the Crow’s Nest with the meet and greet for the Cruise Critic group. We got there about 10:55 and already the room was packed. We found our name tags and located a few seats by the window. The morning fog lifted and the skies were blue and sunny. We met many of the folks were only knew from their online screen names which was fun. It was almost 11:30 before I got out of there and back to the cabin. Dan noticed we were at that time directly across from from Morro Bay where we had stayed in the camper a year ago Labor Day. We had a few errands to do; one was taking money to a gal for an excursion on Fiji at Suva; the other was giving folks money back for our arranged tour on Komodo Island; we let them know they don’t pay us but pay the vendor. Then we had to go to guest services and present them with a letter from Holland America stating we would be disembarking at Beijing and then re-boarding in Shanghai after our trip to see the Terracotta Warriors. We also presented them with a letter from our tour vendor in Komodo for the 25 of us that will get out to tour the island and go to the Pink Beach and snorkel. By that time it was 1:30 and we had not eaten at all so off to lunch we went. This ship serves you just about everything from behind the glass dividers. It is much healthier than having all the passengers handle the serving utensils. I had a nice salad with fresh tuna and Dan had soup and a piece of pizza. We hurried down to hear the guest speaker today speak of the history of the Polynesians. He was very interesting with a bit of humor and trivia; at 2:45 we snuck out of the theater and made our way to the movie theater onboard which was very large. Fresh popcorn was available and we watched The United Kingdom, a true story about an African country, their king and his marriage to a white British woman in the 50’s. The film was excellent and we really enjoyed it. By that time it was 5:00 and some of our Arizona friends invited us to dinner with them in the dining room. We decided to join them and had about 20 minutes to change into dining room attire and meet them at the front entrance to the dining room. On our way there we ran into another AZ couple and so we ended up with a fun table of 6 for dinner and a good visit. We all left about 7:30 for the Queen’s Theater which was a do wop group called the Alley Cats. They sang songs of the 50’s. And 60’s and. were fine entertainers. They received a standing ovation and came back to sing “Let There Be Peace On Earth” with this being dedicated to the folks in Las Vegas.
By 9:00 we were heading back to our room. Earlier in the day we asked our room steward if he could put a foam pad on our bed. We think we must have a new mattress because it is very firm and hard. He told us he would do that right away and he did. He leaves us chocolates on our pillows and a cute towel animal each night. Already we are spoiled and can see that a grand cruise is different than others we have taken in the past.
Always beautiful fresh flowers all over the ship a HAL signature.
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