At Home, Dec 10, 2014

It is like coming back to a cave, dark, cool and wet. There is a reason why we disappear in the late fall. Yes we live in a rain forest and there is a reason why it is so green here but come on as we land we hear that over the next three days it may be a good idea to build an Ark - heavy rain, high, king tides and very high winds, hmm maybe we should get back on a ship....

Zydnea was vary happy to us, so that part is great and of course it is great to see our family and friends but the the pitter patter of the rain on the roof does cast my thoughts back to the ship.

The wrap up....
This was our fourth Grand Voyage and I would say the best to date. The itinerary was great, the weather for almost the entire voyage was excellent as was the Sea and Ocean conditions. The ship and its crew exceptional, special thanks to, Captain Eversen, Hotel Director, Henk Mensink, Cruise Director, Gene "Moimoi" Young and of course, Guest Services Manager, Cristel Mensink, we will see you again.

This was our longest voyage to date but it seemed to be the shortest, a true sign of a great time. Thanks, under the direction of Paul Kerr and Daniel Hrgic, for the great menus and meals over the past 78 days, entertainment and special events during our days at sea were also exceptional, thanks to Gene and his team for keeping us active entertained. I will need to get the cobwebs out of my didgeridoo so I can start practicing all the things I learnt from the on board lessons. Speaking of which, I will need to get out my dancing shoes and start practicing our dance steps, thanks to Roger and Carie. And this list goes on and on, hmm maybe that why the voyage went by so quickly. The flights home were just fine even though we had to puddle jump (literally) through Seattle. Great to get caught up here but stayed tuned we may have some news next week on our future plans. I will be posting our plans here in the blog prior to Christmas, in the mean time, thanks for the many e-mails and comment postings and all the best to you during this holiday season.

Special mention and thanks for your attention to detail and making our stay on the MS Amsterdam so exceptional and moreover your friendship; Jonathan and Julie Bailey, Tom Grindlay, Ian Taylor and Grace (congratulations on your retirement), Shiv Charan, Willy Tubog, Raymond, Enrico, Manny, Tomo, Jaye and the many others that touched our lives on this Fantastic 2014 Grand Asia / Pacific Voyage...

One last amazing sunset for you and picture of our little girl, soooo happy to sea us.

At Sea, Dec 7, 2014

Last night was the tearful goodbye reception, ah, all good things must come to an end. Grand Voyages wrap ups are great, Captain Eversen does his usual great speech, giving all the crew the great recognition that they deserve, then Barbara presents all our ports we visited in a wonderful postcard slideshow format with excellent commentary and Gene once again does a great job of summarizing our voyage in an excellent video presentation - to see this you will need to visit our YouTube Channel (will let you know when available and how to access then). Jan and I had a wonderful table for two dinner in the Pinnacle to round out the festivities...

A wonderful night, here are a few of our pictures, hope you enjoy...

At Sea, Dec 6, 2014

The last few days were catch up days including final editing and production of two DVD’s I am doing, one for dance and one for Tai Chi. These are now complete and in the process of reproduction to many who have found me out wanting me to copy to Flash Drives for them. Oh hang on, someone at the door asking if theirs is complete, yup, all good. So yes today was the last Tai Chi and Dance classes as well as the Chef Buffet Extravaganza, so much food, prepared in so many ways - and all with exceptional presentation. Culinary Manager Paul, Executive Chef Daniel and team did an amazing job in completing what I would say is a monumental task, hats off to you. Unfortunately, or in our case fortunately, all depends on how you look at it as we were not able to participate in the consumption of this Grand Show Buffet as we had our hands on cooking class with George Geary. Google him, George is great fun as he lets you go at it in the Holland America Show Kitchen. We diced and sliced, mixed and got our hands definitely “on” into a few of his recipes. In four teams of three we started with a Pineapple and Peach Ginger Noodle Salad, Crunchy Herb Fish Filets, my team’s creation of the Fresh Tarragon Macadamia Dressing and Jan’s team finishing the meal off with Island Treasure Cookies. We had a great time as we finished up and headed into the Pinnacle to sample our creations (well not the ones we made as it is against the rules, but the chef’s prepared version). Simply delicious as we washed it all down with a few glasses of wine. Thanks George, great to see you again. Now it is time to pack... A few pictures of today’s fun.... hope you enjoy.