The Last Cruise Day

It's the 25th of June 2011, our last cruise day.  We have nothing scheduled today except for a quick "Disembarkation Presentation and Crew Farewell" meeting in the Mondriaan Lounge.  This is a two deck theater, located toward the bow of the ship, where the entertainment takes place.  I've mentioned the Rotterdam Dining Room several times in these posts.  It also uses two floors with a view from the stern.  

That's where we gather for breakfast this morning.  After breakfast with the rest of our group chatting in the Rotterdam, Ann attended the Disembarkation meeting to get all the good info. 

Dan and I chat about a variety of things over breakfast.  Much of the conversation covers what govt should and should not do.  I offer that I was surprised at how practical most FAA regulations are for aviation, and how many newer regulatory suggestions sound like they were instigated by people impressed more by their bureaucratic authority than by a desire to help us fly safely.  Fortunately, our alphabets (AOPA, EAA, et al) help knock the rough edges off most of the truly egregious suggestions before they are published.  Dan seems equally concerned that govt gets too intrusive from time to time.  Good conversation.

Ann gets back from the meeting and we go for a stroll around the ship.  Below you see the Front Office, or what would be the front desk in any hotel.  Just off to the right is the desk for making additional onshore excursions.  

The brass rail you see above circles the Atrium which has a three story, functional pipe organ.  If I didn't mention it before, each Holland America ship has a theme, and the Zaandam's theme is music.  As you move about the ship, you find famous guitars, other instruments and musically oriented artwork everywhere you go.  For example, we had some debate about whose lips there are below.

Ann and I wandered the ship on several occasions and happened on the Pinnacle Grill.  The seat below was our seat during an amazing meal.  Food was great, service terrific, and the experience was definitely above average.  This was one of the places on ship where they charged an extra fee for the additional service, but it was well worth it at least once.   

We kill time for the rest of the day and a good thing too.  We've had an active schedule for the entire trip, and some down time is much appreciated.  Ann and I have a little lunch up by the pool.  She spent some time in the hot tub (below and right of the dolphins).  I did some reading and made a few notes about the day's activities.

There are TVs in each state room and there is a channel which provides the ship's current location on a moving map much like the Garmin in our Cessna and Diamond.  This particular picture is from a large screen TV in one of the hallways near the Front Office.  Today it shows us headed for Vancouver.  It also shows many of our previous destinations.

At several points we appear to be passing interesting geography so we grab the camera and head for the foreward observation deck around the corner from our stateroom or elsewhere to get a better angle.  The pics to either side are of the Crow's Nest I've mentioned elsewhere.  Tonight, this is where the Karaoke finals will be held.     

On one of these dashes to get pics, I meet Luan, a fellow photographer.  He seems to be in a chatty mood so we end up heading indoors to warm up and sit a spell.  He's an interesting guy.  Born in China, came to the US at age 7, eventually becomes a chemist at Indiana University, and works for a few large firms, concluding most recently with Roche (a Swiss outfit)  for 14 years.  Roche acquired shares of Genetec with options many years ago and recently exercised those options to take control.  In the process, they consolidated research arms and did some downsizing and outsourcing.  He seemed genuinely surprised that they outsourced some chemistry, but apparently this was good for business. 

Luan is now looking to take his investment savings and matching company funds and buy a publishing brokerage company.  The parallels to our situation are interesting.  Here is a guy, probably around age 50, who wants more control over his life and is willing to build on an established business to get that control.  The publishing brokerage business takes book publishing jobs and arranges to have books and other materials printed to specification.  In this case, Luan is trying to buy a brokerage from a Chinese fella "A1" who has most of his printing business done by his brother "A2" in China.  It gets interesting in that A1 wants to move on, and apparently so does A2, but without A1, A2 could conceivably lose 80% of his business (totalling $1.7M / yr for A1).

Without this income from A1, A2's business loses substantial value.  Of course, Luan argues that he is willing to work with A2 and make certain guarantees.  A contract was to have been signed just before embarking on this trip, but at the last minute, A2 (I think) wanted to have his lawyers take a look at the situation.  So Luan apparently wanted an ear to bounce this off of.  As luck would have it, I have two.  Well, time flies.  Ann finally tracked me down and advised it is 1650 - ten minutes until our final dinner in the Rotterdam.  After giving Luan my Cap Holdings card, we head for dinner. 

Don and Janice, tablemates with our group of six in the Rotterdam for dinner each evening during the cruise, say this is always a special night.  We don't have long to find out what they mean.  The entire kitchen and serving staff puts on a show, marching in with flags flying to serve the first course.  Salads follow another march, but this time all the servers are spinning plates on sticks as they march around all the tables, and the salad mixing and preparation is a show itself.  Our two servers, Win who seems to be the head server for a few tables in our area, and Yunus, a particularly engaging young man, are interesting contrasts.  Win mentioned yesterday that he does not have any particular show skills, but I didn't know to what he was referring.  By contrast Yunus is playful and really gets into the act.  If we ever do this in the future, we'll have to remember to bring a camera on the final night.

Dinner is finally over, and a lot of pictures are taken of the six of us with Win and Yunus before heading off to start packing.  Bags need to be outside our door by 2400 this evening to be moved to a staging area for disembarkation.  Lot of little decisions to be made.  There were six bottles of wine in the room when we arrived, a gift from our travel agent, I'm told.  Even after inviting the other four in our party down for drinks one evening we still have 4 bottles left over.  Looks like our stateroom manager Abdul will be able to share some with the rest of the staff. 

Norma is competing again this evening in a karaoke contest, so after a variety show attended by the rest of our group we head up to the Crow's Nest to see the competition.  As a practical matter, its all the same folks who participated in karaoke a few nights back, but this time the crew set up an American Idol format with three judges and a mild critique for each performer.  Everyone has their own cheering section, so it gets pretty loud at times. 

Finally back to the stateroom for final packing.  Ann is not feeling well.  She has a runny nose and her throat is getting sore from drainage (recall how the lady said Bronchitis is not contagious). Not good timing, but we both take a sudafed and hit the rack around 1130.