Saturday-Sunday 12-13 April 2025
The North Atlantic has been whipping up for the past several days and the outside decks have been closed since Sunday. It's nothing to be alarmed about, but one must be careful when walking about since the ship continually rocks from side to side. I can deal with the side-to-side motion pretty well; it's the forward up and back down movement that gets to me. But so far, through Monday, all is good.
On Saturday I enjoy another breakfast in the main dining room: yogurt, berries, eggs Benedict, good potatoes, coffee, and juice After breakfast I watch, The Dry, an interesting Australian mystery-procedural with Eric Bana. Although the plot is not very surprising, the setting in southern Australia's drought region is rendered quite well. For lunch, I walk up one flight to the Lido Deck to order a burger and fries at Dive-In, the poolside grill. But it's gotten much too cool to sit outside, so I take my food to a table inside the Lido Marketplace.
Before my regular 7:30pm dinner, I stop at the Ocean Bar for a dry martini. Tonight's dinner is "Dutch" themed, although a variety of choices is available. I begin with an appetizer of steak tartare, a Dutch favorite, followed by a Dutch salad with Bibb lettuce, hardboiled egg, and honey-mustard dressing. The main course is lightly breaded Dover Sole and dessert is creme brûlée.
All the sea days have fallen into a familiar pattern, with my biological clock focused on food and drink. We have been turning the clocks forward one hour almost every night at sea, resulting in somewhat shorter sleep sessions--I make those hours up with naps.
I have a light breakfast in the Lido Marketplace today: smoked salmon and cream cheese on an everything bagel, with blueberry yogurt with sliced fruit. I skip lunch in order to attend afternoon cupcake tea (a different theme is served everyday). There are finger sandwiches as well as the expected cupcakes. I sit with a friendly couple from Ontario.
Tonight's dinner menu offers some new appetizer choices, but the main course has become a bit repetitive. This is also the first night I make a complaint about the service. I begin with a nice bowl of butternut squash soup and order a serving of tomato and mozzarella caprese for a salad. But instead of bringing the caprese, the server brings the main course of salmon (the same preparation as a previous night). I send the salmon back and re-ask for the salad. And just as I predict, after I eat the salad, he brings back the same salmon plate, now ice-cold. Of course, I send it back again--but there is not a single world of apology. In fact, in over a week of dining, the server has hardly said a word to me at any time. After my creme brûlée dessert, and for the very first time on my many Holland America cruises, I make a complaint to the Dining Room manager, who doesn't seem particularly interested.
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