Part 2 – DAY 1 Jan 13 – Fort Lauderdale Embarkation

With a clearer head now I can reflect on our first day on board the Prinsendam, our home from home for the next 70 days. Here I am hard at work trying to upload pictures to my blog using the ship's wireless system. It hardly works through lack of bandwidth or whatever. It will have to be Internet Cafe for me later today!

The first impression was how compact and cosy the ship felt after being used to traversing the Atlantic pond twice a year on ships nearly four times this size (look-up Independence of the Seas to see what I mean!).

There was no doubt that the ship could have done with a few more days in dry-dock. The new aft deck and bar area was far from complete as is shown in the photo below. This was despite the absolute assurance we received from HAL earlier in the year when I first wrote to the President of HAL, Mr Stein Kruise, expressing my worries that such major work being undertaken might not be completed before we sailed. Most people posting on ‘Cruise Critic’ at the time suggested that HAL would let us all down and not have the work completed in time. They were right and HAL have badly let themselves down here!!

I must say that the public rooms and bars on the ship all seem to be, at first glance anyway, in fine condition and very attractively laid out and furnished. What I have seen in these regards is very agreeable indeed.

A letter from Captain Albert Schoonerbeek headed ONBOARD MAINTENANCE was soon delivered to our stateroom apologising for the mess and saying it should all be finished on Friday afternoon. We will see!!

The ship is basically covered in dust and in parts rust, signs of the extensive work that has been going on. Even our balcony has a thin layer of dust some of which has penetrated our cabin. However we know this will all quickly be put right so we are not particularly concerned. Of course there will be the perennial ‘moaners’ some of whom we have already heard. It’s sensible to stay out of earshot of these people so as not to be infected, so to speak, by them.

Some of our bags were delivered to our room before dinner and Maria did begin the task of unpacking and stowing away a wide selection of clothes. The walk-in closet shows some of Maria’s wardrobe (more to come) and my sole jacket rescued from the bottom of a bag. The luggage containing her shoes was one of the first to be disposed of. The picture below shows “Emelda’s” considerable shoe collection verses the solitary pair of mine!!

We (I use the term advisedly) broke off from the unpacking to go and meet out dinner guest at table 305 for the 8.00 pm sitting. Margaret, Keith, Bruce, Mary Ellen, Bill and Mary Ann were all there. However we will not be getting ‘free wine’ on formal nights on this voyage as the two ‘free’ seats were taken by another couple from Southern California called Gerry and Gary.

We ordered a 12 bottle wine package from the wine waitress and were pleased to note that we would be getting a 25% discount off the (inflated) price as we were ‘3 Star’ status passengers! (Note we will be 4 Star at the end of this voyage…yippee as that means a 50% discount on future wine packages!!)

What with the bar set up we have in our cabin (see photo below), the various cocktail parties we will be invited to on board and the wine package just purchased, we might need to detoxify a bit once we get home from this 70-day cruise!! Of course with HAL allowing passengers to bring wine on board and the scheduled ports of call we have in Chile and Argentina there will be a big temptation to regularly replenish supplies. I personally love Chilean wine and have recently started to enjoy some good reds from Argentinean. Oh dear our poor livers!!

After dinner we found that all our bags had been delivered so we (Maria I mean) returned to the unpacking although the actual stowing away of much of the mountain of clothes was left until the morning.

We met out Indonesian cabin steward Deden and his assistant Edgar who brought us more hangers and laundry lists so we could send off our jackets and pants/trousers for pressing in the morning. They couldn't’t have been more helpful and the feeling was that nothing would be too much trouble for them.

At 10.30 pm, to the enormous sound of the ship’s horn, we slowly moved off our mooring and our South America adventure had begun. An hour later I had my tired head down on the pillow while Maria carried on the unenviable task she was engaged in.

Yes we were certainly back on a HAL ship with the uniqueness of the smiling welcoming crew we had now met.