The Happy Wanderer (reprise)

[ldog]

Thanks to both of you for reporting on this cruise. It wasn't one that appealed to me before but you've made it very interesting. Another one to add to my wish list!

[RuthC]

When I listened to the commentary as we sailed Prince Christian Sound I never would have dreamed that it was given by our recent entertainer David Levesque. When I learned that this man who does a very good comedy/violin act is also a graduate of the US Coast Guard Academy and has studied with Sergei Khrushchev and astronaut Scott Carpenter I was impressed. Today I attended his lecture on "New England, New france, New Worlds" and was glad I did. It was informative and entertaining.

David was the last in a series of excellent lecturers.

We started the cruise with three lectures by Nadine Fabbi. She is the Associate Director of Canadian Studies Center in Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. (Whew, that's a mouthful!). She spoke on

1.) Sovereignty Movement in Quebec: It's History and the Origins of St. Pierre and Miquelon.

2.) The Inuit in Canada:Northen People/ Northern Lands

3.) Early Exploration in the North Atlantic

We also had the opportunity to hear biologist and photographer Danny Catt speak on

1.) Polar Bears, Walrus, and Unicorns

2.) Arctic Mysteries

3.) Around the World & Back Again

I enjoyed Geological Engineer John Splettstoesser on my Antarctica cruise and was pleased to have the opportunity to hear him speak on

1.) Commotion Under the Ocean---Plate Tectonics

2.) Ice is Nice...

Radio and TV correspondent and talk-show host David Abbott gave a talk on

What is a Norwegian?

One of the best series (IMHO) was given by Tom Logston. Fresh out of college in 1959 he joined NASA as a mathematician. Yu:confused: p! A real rocket scientist. He made it all sound so easy as he spoke about

1.) Postcards From the Edge of Space

2.) Blue Whales, Silver Satellites, & Our Colorful Northern World

3.) Six Simple, Creative Solutions That Shook the World.

And last, we had three lectures by Barbara Sjoholm on

1.) Early Norse Voyages in the North Atlantic

2.) Two Norse Women Explorers and Settlers in Vinland

3.) Sea Serpents & Other Mythical Beings of the North Atlantic

She is editor of " Steady As She Goes: Women's Adventures At Sea" and has written of the folklore and true tales of women at sea. She also writes under the name Barbara Wilson.

The lecture series on these longer cruises are always jam-packed with info. And people, too! Get there early or you may not get a seat. These cruisers are not just tourists. They are travellers. And they're always ready to learn.

Now, I'm off to get ready for the Farewell Ball. And no, I won't be in before Midnight. ;)

[jhannah]

Man alive! I hope they gave you at least 3 hours college credit for attending!! Those lectures sound wonderful. So glad you had the opportunity to hear these folks.

[kryos]

I am so glad to hear you had some wonderful lecturers onboard. I am one of those people who loves learning new things on a cruise, and I was really hoping HAL packed the longer voyages with interesting lecturers and subjects.

 

Sounds like I won't be disappointed in January.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[Sowega]

Thank you Ruth for the wonderful commentary over the last few weeks. We are now in Boston and will board for the APHC cruise as you get off. Although for only seven days we are looking forward to a great time.

 

 

Dean & Donna :D

[the2ofus]

We enjoyed David Levesque's entertainment and lectures several years ago on a Circle Caribbean cruise. Would love to hear more of his lectures on future cruises.

[Robert AG99]

Ditto on the thamks for all the reviews over the past weeks. We too are looking forward to getting onboard soon.

[RuthC]

A few ramdom thoughts at the end of week 5:

1.) The faucet in the Upper Promenade Ladies Room that was dripping when we boarded is still dripping. It's the one next to the "water is precious, please conserve it" sign.

2.) My favorite spot (daytime:D ) is outdoors on Lido, aft, the other side of the elevator bank. I call it "the office". It's been a popular spot this cruise, and now others are calling it "the office", too.

3.) The treadmills should either be repaired or replaced without waiting for SOE. There is at least one thing wrong with each one of them.

4.) The Internet Center had several 2-hour periods of 50%-off on minutes charged.:) Unfortunately, too many of them were cancelled when the satellite was down. :(

Nice try, though.

5.) We had two shipbuilding sea trials this cruise. The first one was very sophisticated. People packed styrofoam, wood, and saws when they came. Wasn't the idea supposed to be having fun with materials found on board?

As usual, this last day as sea has been warm, sunny, calm---too perfect to come indoors to attend to all the fun activities and business. Would it sound greedy to say I could spend a few more days just like it? Well, I could.

The crew of the Maasdam has been excellent. There were some special stewards from the past (Lukman) and new (Musa) who made it almost easy getting up for. Their smiles and greeting every day were special. Lido cook Rolando had a cheery "hello" and a special request waiting when I arrived every single morning.

It's always a pleasure to see Cruise Director Rick Hinkson. He does a great job.

So now I return to real life. Grocery shopping, laundry, paying bills :eek: , and returning to work are clearly in my future.

'tis a pity.

[elmorejj]

Well Ruth I think it was fun while it lasted...eh? About the ship building, I quit going to watch that when I realized how many pax were bringing ready made ships from home.......I`m with you, use some coke cans, styrofoam, coasters or whatever.............jean :cool:

[Ziggy7]

Welcome Home Everyone tomorrow !!!!!

[sail7seas]

Welcome Home, Ruth, Liz.......everyone.

 

I have so enjoyed your posts and appreciate your sharing with us.

 

Sorry it has come to and end but you can now (hopefully) look forward to planning your next.

 

[i sure hope that get that leaky faucet and the broken treadmills fixed before our next set of b-to-b's on the beautiful and elegant ms Maasdam...... :) [/b]

 

For those of you who are flying, travel safely.

[mariner]

WELCOME HOME RUTH et al.

 

Enjoyed your postings very much.

 

 

Noticed you stopped mentioning the Piano Bar. Did it improve or stay the same?

 

When we were aboard MAASDAM in February, we noticd the music in all the lounges reflected more of the 50s and 60s insted of the 40s.

 

This likely is a result of the demographics shifting to the Baby Boomers.

 

Granted, it wasn't like the VOLENDAM three years ago whe the band in the Ocean Bar played YMCA and the dance floor was packed. But we swear the time is coming when we'll be sitting at the Piano Bar and hear ``Freebird.''

 

Hope time flies until your next voyage.

[rkacruiser]

I want to add my thanks to all aboard the Maasdam who took the time and spent the money to allow those of us at home to share your voyage! I do appreciate it so much and will try to return the favor when I sail aboard the Statendam next winter from Auckland to Osaka.

[jazz22]

Thank you for all the time and money you spent sharing your cruise with those of us at home. We have enjoyed traveling with you.

[kryos]

I want to add my thanks to all aboard the Maasdam who took the time and spent the money to allow those of us at home to share your voyage! I do appreciate it so much and will try to return the favor when I sail aboard the Statendam next winter from Auckland to Osaka.

Ditto from me, too. I really appreciate the chance to take this voyage vicariously with you all, and I will certainly return the favor when I am on the Amsterdam in January.

 

Blue skies and a safe trip home ...

 

--rita

[TedC]

Much thanks to RuthC and LizB for sharing their expertise with us newbies on this very interesting itinerary.

 

It was a real thrill for us to visit these fascinating ports - most of them for the first time.

 

RuthC did a teriffic job arranging CruiseCritic gatherings for both legs, as well as reporting on our adventure almost daily on CC.

 

And thanks to O'BrienDan for chronicling the Rotterdam to Boston leg on CD for us.

 

We hope that all the CC gals and guys (and everyone else) had safe and comfortable journeys home.

 

As Ruth might say: "Till we meet again..."

[HeatherInFlorida]

Yes, many thanks to all who contributed to Ruth's thread! It was fun reading and sort of following them all along.

 

Welcome home to all!:)

[obriendan]

We appreciated the words of encouragement concerning the burglary of our home while we were on the Maasdam. We returned home late Saturday night to quite a mess. However, we were quite lucky. The thieves took 2 TV’s and DVD players, a gold watch, and a charm bracelet, but ignored more valuable items such as two computer systems, one with a very portable and expensive LCD monitor. Also they ignored a collection of Hummel figurines and did not find the silver that was hidden in a shopping bag wrapped in towels in a closet.

 

The detective stated that these type of thieves are after only those items that they can turn into a quick profit. The thieves also were kind enough not to vandalize the house. There very carefully removed the power plugs and cables from the electronics when they could have ripped them from the wall. From one aspect of this event, we found that the cure was almost as bad as the disease. The investigating detectives made very liberal use of very powdery charcoal to try to obtain fingerprints. This is very hard to clean up and has left several black stains on the white rug in the family room. We had just had the rugs cleaned in July!

 

There are good lessons for all of us who travel in this event. First, improve your security perhaps with and alarm system. Let your neighbors know that you will be away. Store especially valuable items in a secure place. Also, compile a list of valuables with the serial numbers if applicable. This will help the police recover items and also be useful with insurance claims. In this digital age, it is an easy task to photograph and put on a CD pictures and descriptions of valuable items. I’m in the process of doing this now (closing the barn door after a few of the horses have left!).

[obriendan]

Now, about the cruise we took. Did everyone get home safely? TedC has reported in. What about the other CC’ers?

 

We thoroughly enjoyed the cruise. Thanks to RuthC we had two CC get-togethers to visit with other CC’ers. We thought the food and service in the dining room were excellent. We dined at the Pinnacle once and found it to be excellent also, but no better than the main dining room. We were lucky to have Shy as our dining room steward. Our room steward was also very good.

 

The entertainment was mostly average with the classical guitarist George Sakellariou and violinist/comedian David Levesque being well above average. Levesque showed his versatility by presenting an excellent lecture on the settling of North America and giving the narration while we sailed through Prince Christian Sound. We thought the Maasdam cast shows only average, with the decibel level much too high for these old ears. The highlight of the entertainment was the several nights we spent in the Piano Bar listening to the talented Bill Forrest.

 

We enjoyed all the ports (That’s why we chose this cruise!). We mostly toured the ports on our own. We particularly liked Torshavn, a beautiful small port easily toured by walking for about two hours. Qaqortoq is quaintly beautiful and Prince Christian Sound spectacular. We took a HAL tour in Corner Brook. The very old bus broke down 50 minutes into the four hour tour. After waiting for about an hour, we returned to the ship on a replacement bus. HAL is to be congratulated on how they handled this cancellation. A complete refund was made to our onboard account within 12 hours! The highlight tour that we took was in Isafjord, Iceland. It was a non-HAL tour that we found on the dock. It took us, at a very reasonable price, about 50 miles west through the West Fjord part of Iceland, over two mountains and three fjords to view a spectacular falls.

 

All in all, it was a wonderful cruise. O, I wish we had another booked! Here are some of my favorite pictures

[obriendan]

And a few more pictures.

[obriendan]

And here is RuthC in her favorite haunt.

[Linda Mona]

RuthC- I was on the cruise with you for the first half of the Voyage of the Vikings and remembered your cruise critic name. Enjoyed reading all your threads and agreed with you on most counts. We had a group of 24 people and generally they had a great time. Our biggest disappointment was the piano bar as Bill played only what he wanted to play and generally he made the songs unsingable. We tried 3 nights and gave up and wents to the crows nest instead and generally we were the only group there!

 

I was almost across the hall from you and could usually be seen with my 90 year old Mom who was awesome on the trip. My husband and I were on the Scademia with you and enjoyed all our discussions.

 

We're sailing again in February with HAL to the Caribbean. Thanks to you and your cohorts for the fun threads and I'm glad my husband was alot better roomie than your nightmare.

 

Hope our paths cross again sometime.

 

Linda from Minnesota

[RuthC]

I was in the last group called to disembark at 10:10, and was home a bit after 11:30. Gained six pounds (which I don't consider bad at all), but still have all those pillow chocolates (and the chocolate gifts :D, thanks guys ) to eat.

I noticed when it was 4:00 PM today and my vacation was officially over. Back to the salt mines tomorrow. :(

 

One thing I got out of this cruise that I can take with me is a taste for some new foods. Since it was already paid for I tried some heart-healthy foods on the cruise that I've learned to like. Even bought some when I went shopping.

 

Roomate pulled one last stunt the final morning (surprise! surprise!) She had to get up at 6:30, and so did I. So I set my alarm for 6:00 (and had gotten to bed at 12:30:eek: ). I figured I'd be out of the bathroom by the time she needed to get in. (I'm so considerate.) As usual, she got up when my alarm went off and dashed like a bat out of Hades. So I got to sleep a bit more.

Her alarm went off after she left the cabin. Since it was packed I couldn't turn it off; I had to listen to it until the battery ran down.

You can believe I didn't give her a letter of recommendation, either! :D

 

Glad you found the CC site, Linda; welcome to our merry little group. I hope to run in to you again some day, too.

[longtimecruiser]

Ruth,

VERY nice picture of you taken in the Piano bar.

[RuthC]

Thanks, Adele. Does it beat the one of me in the Viking horns? :confused: Folks said that one was the real me. ;)