Tues June 10, 2025
Hi Gang! Well true to its name, Day 13 proved to be unlucky! If you’ve been reading close and noticed both the title above as well as my ending comment yesterday, we have a sea day today but we were supposed to be at the Isle of Man today. It must have been because I said they were part of Scotland but they’re not! Lol
We were rudely awaken early this morning by an announcement in our cabin from the Captain stating that due to high winds and swells, we would not be able to tender into the Isle of Man. Bummer! And we wanted to ride on that old steam engine train, see the Manx cats with no tails as well as see the Manx Loaghtan sheep with four to six horns! Oh well, that means two sea days in a row so lots of R&R to catch up on from those 8 hour marathon excursions!
So we did get to sleep in after the Captain’s announcement and had a nice relaxing day. They had to quickly throw some additional onboard programming together since normally on a port day most people are off exploring so they don’t have a lot of activities. But they did partially redeem themselves by offering unlimited chocolates at lunch!
So we spent the day getting some sun (yes, the weather was nice!), listening to some classical music and attending the Q&A with the Entertainment Director where he discussed life on board a cruise ship. Yes, he said someone once asked if the crew sleep on the ship! Lol. He answered them and said no, the crew is flown in every day via helicopter (Lol) and someone complained the helicopters we waking them up! Lol. Gotta love it!
We then got ready for dinner. Tonight was “Orange Night”. The color orange is associated with the House of Orange (the Dutch Royal Family) in honor of Holland America’s Dutch heritage. So of course we wore orange. Kathy wanted me to wear the little Dutch Boy hat, but I drew the line on that one! Lol.
The food at the main dining room had some Dutch items. For dinner, we both had the Green Pea Soup (Dutch!) as the first starter and the Bay Shrimp Cocktail (with a Dutch boiled egg!) for the second starter. For my main I had the Dover Sole (not Dutch but close!) and for dessert I had the Lindt Chocolate Tulip (tulips are definitely Dutch!!). After that meal, I felt a little Dutch!
After dinner we went to the show which was a comedian named Paul Adams. He was really funny and made lots of jokes about all the old people on Holland America (he called them the “slow walkers”!). Not sure they’ll invite him back again but I hope they do! Lol
After the show we went to the Orange Party for a little bit. They played some good old time music. When’s the last time you heard “Play That Funky Music White Boy” by Wild Cherry? Lol. Tomorrow we have another sea day so we’ll get even more R&R! Hope everyone had a great Tuesday!
The Wandering Italian 