ottahand7

Good morning from windy Phillipsburg. Captain warned us yesterday about the winds and we may not be able to port. We made it into the port but the waves bang against the ship and make it shudder. Needless to say our ski lift tour was cancelled. Our friend knows the port well and he told us there is a convenience store near the port so we are heading there. I had found a large grocery nearby but hopefully we can get some junk food salty snacks at the little store. Otherwise we will hit the big grocery in St. Kitts. Thanks for the Daily and maps Jacqui and Roy! Prayers for everyone on our care list, thanks for keeping this for us Vanessa. @ger_77 so happy to read your DH got a cancellation appointment. Prayers for the people in war zones, Ukraine, Israel and the Innocents in Gaza. BBC just had a bottom line that 17,000 unaccompanied children in Gaza. For lame duck day. Some photos of Phillipsburg and last night's food porn.

Our favorite waiter and Facebook friend Aframe drew this pencil sketch of John and I and delivered at dinner in the MDR last night. We met him on the Volendam and were thrilled to find out he was on the Eurodam when we were on board. He departs the same day we do. He has a happy countdown until February 24, ours is less so.

Thanks for sharing the photo of Ren @StLouisCruisers!

How about some food porn from last night. Dressy night with the 150th anniversary menu. We have really enjoyed the MDR. Our waiters know our preferences and we have 5 o'clock seating and get our meals hot and quickly. Not really our preferences but with a full ship you have to do what you have to do. Yesterday every public space was packed due to poor weather.

Good morning from the Atlantic. We will be having more rough seas today while we are on our way to Phillipsburg. We have an early shore excursion tomorrow to Rockland Estate and chef's table. It involves riding a chair lift to the top of the mountain. I have a fear of heights but I didn't have a problem skiing in Utah so I hope this lift will be similar. @seagarsmoker congratulations on starting your new position/job today! Thanks for the Daily Reports and maps today and every day. I love the quote. I don't get doing put together puzzles, can't even recall the exact name. If I did one inside on a bad weather day I would be constantly staring out the window with my ADD. I love my Scrabble like game where I play against the computer. Thanks for the cares and celebrations reports each day Vanessa. Prayers for everyone on our care list especially Vanessa, Tana and the spouses who are struggling. Prayers for the people of Ukraine. So happy to see on the BBC news a couple of days ago the EU sent them a huge shot in the arm 💶💶💶💶. Thanks for the lovely photos of Montreal. We were supposed to board the Zaandam there in September 2020, not to be. Here is a Facebook memory from a year ago today. We were in the Drake Passage with 19' swells. We got a great view from the cabin we were in on Dolphin deck. Our veranda cabin had been flooded.

Yesterday the weather was windy and rainy. With a full ship and the Seaview pool basically unusable every public area was packed. For our meet and greet we had to be shoehorned into a small space on the port side of Explorers Lounge. HA provided coffee and it was near impossible to get any beverage at the bar there. Multiple coffee orders bogged down the service. As far as we have observed other than dining areas this is the only area to purchase specialty coffees. A long walk for us at the aft of the ship. We are fortunate to have the Neptune for our coffees but the machine is broken down a lot because people will put their travel mugs under the spout and run 4 drinks in a row into them. We talked to the repair man in from the port and he said that doesn't allow the machine a chance to cool and it caused malfunction. Here we are leaving Fort Lauderdale on Saturday waving from our cabin. Facebook photos were taken by Bill Raffel as the ship leaves the port. He shares them on one of the HA Facebook pages.

The rest of the Daily.

@canadarocks I was going to search today's lunch menu, it is brunch today. Same menu I posted several days ago. I am fairly sure the lunch menu will be a repeat.

Last night's dressy dinner. The menu was the 150th anniversary menu. Potato dumpling soup, flounder, tenderloin with shrimp and lemon cheesecake torte. All were excellent.

I should have added Bill Raffel posts the sailaway photos on Holland America pages on Facebook.

I am on Facebook mainly for equine rescues, nature photography and Holland America groups. We have a slot pull coming up set up through our Eurodam 2/3 Facebook group. @Crew News had set up a well attended meet and greet and we met some nice people. Always nice to do early in the cruise. Thanks Roger! I am sharing a sailaway photo that Bill Raffel took. On weekends he takes dozens of photos of HAL ships departing. Yesterday was a picture perfect sailaway day and he got John and I.

Today's sea day MDR lunch menu.

We are on a full ship and the service in the PG suffers for it. It is not our usual time to dine at 5pm but that has been the only way to get ahead of the service lag. Last meal there was Friday and we had a 6:30 reservation but PG Sommelier Josephine saw us carrying our corkage bottle into the Pinnacle bar so she said she would have it at our table. We no sooner got our cocktails at the bar when she came and asked us if we were hungry as they had a table. That was 5:40 so not that late it would seem. Soups arrived quickly but there probably was 30 minutes after soup was cleared was when we got our lamb and steak. We had another PG reservation for tonight but we cancelled. I had booked it to get away from dressy night in the MDR. Seeing the varied amount of "dressiness" in the MDR we are fine for dressy night in the MDR. Our MDR reservation is at 5pm and even it is not our preferred time we have our waiters' undivided attention so we get our food hot and quickly. Last night was first night of the cruise in the MDR so it was crazy at the check in at the Maitre d.

Good morning everyone. We are at sea with two days to get to Phillipsburg. We have a CC meet and greet at 11, first one for this long voyage and a slot pull arranged by someone on our roll call at 1:30. We had a dinner scheduled at Pinnacle that I booked pre cruise but since I didn't get my Mariner discount refunded I am going to cancel all my prepaids and rebook. More to do beyond that so we will get there when the Neptune concierge opens at 8am. Thanks for the daily reports and maps Jacqui and Roy! Prayers for all on our care list and the people of Ukraine. @JazzyVthanks for doing this for us each day and continued prayers for some relief from your leg pain. Have a nice day! Nancy

Last night's dinner in the MDR. Croquette and pot roast for me, John had a cheese tray as a starter and a big Caesar salad for his main. We had dessert for once, I had no sugar lemon torte and John had a fancy rolled meringue filled with cream.

Good morning, we are at sea on our way to Phillipsburg, St. Martin. Here are today's Daily Activities. Happily there is Happy Hour today in Billboard so getting an afternoon cocktail will not be so problematic. Usually we go to the Neptune Lounge for our pre dinner wine but the line for the concierges was so long it was impossible to get to the honor bar so we went to the Ocean bar and stood at the bar and got our drinks. We have a CC meet and greet at 11 and then line up for the slot pull at 1:30. We have never done one before.

We will have one more sail away in 11 days. We are Deck 4 Starboard in an aft Neptune. I will try to sign on early for our next time in Fort Lauderdale. 😿

Our sailaway was absolutely beautiful. Warm and no wind! Princess followed us out. Seven ships in port.

Looked like a regatta when we sailed out. A beautiful day for a sailaway.

We are ready to depart Fort Lauderdale. Our facial recognition process went smoothly and we were back in our cabin by 10. 300 passengers and 47 contractors went through the process. Ship is completely full. We are heading on an Eastern Caribbean itinerary. At this point all menus are on repeat so I will only post one offs like the brunch menu yesterday but I will continue with food photos as we enjoy our meals onboard.

@Bgwest welcome to the Daily! We are ready to depart Fort Lauderdale waiting for port approval. Our face recognition went very smoothly this morning we were back in our cabin before 10. About 300 passengers and 47 contractors went through the process today. We have a completely full ship. Here is our upcoming itinerary.

@jlawrence01 regarding the Brunch menu it was my first time seeking out what was going on in the MDR at lunch since we had two sea days strung together. Usually we just do Lido or Pinnacle for lunch on sea days. Will keep an eye on it on our upcoming 21 days.

Eurodam arriving in Fort Lauderdale this morning. Photo thanks to @ski ww.

@0106 sorry you are missing Punta del Este. It was a beautiful city and area. Good morning from Fort Lauderdale!

@jlawrence01 we were able to order multiple starters in Tamarind but as @oakridger stated it is still one entree without extra charge. I can never finish my first entree and never can eat dessert. We ate in the Pinnacle last night. I really don't care for tenderloin so I can only put a dent in my 15 ounce ribeye. I think you would really enjoy trying Tamarind.