Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Last night they had what they called the most successful
Pirates Night of the season according to the crew. I can understand why. There
was at least one and possibly more holding gripe sessions/cocktail parties in
various places onboard for a long while before dinner. Many were clearly drunk.
It is good to see them at least trying to enjoy themselves.
Early this morning, we entered the Netherlands. I don’t know
what time. A bit before 6am I looked out and I think we were in a large sea-going
ship sized lock. I went to the bathroom and when I looked again, we were
exiting it. No one said anything about any locks here, but there is a lot we
are missing being informed of, so that doesn’t mean anything. We went to breakfast about 7am right after
they opened it. We watched as the landscape changed from the polder to a city.
The city was Utrecht. Then just after 8am in a cold, drizzling rain, we docked.
In Utrecht. There were some confusing announcements and finally it was clear
that they announced we were docked in Utrecht. They announced that the tours
and independent sightseers would be bused to Amsterdam at 9am for about a 30
minute ride. It was an hour ride, but it was scenic along the Amstel River part
of the way and included a photo stop at an old windmill. Our first stop in
Amsterdam was in front of Central Station to load a canal boat for a tour. It
was fully glass enclosed and had good visibility and was comfortable. After we
had another short bus ride and we were let out to have a guided walk through
the Begijn former convent area then to have 20 minutes free time to walk a section
of Singel along the floating flower markets. Clay got a cone of fries with
mayo. Hot and delicious. We reloaded the buses and drove to meet the boat moored
not far from the Central Station. It had started raining by the end of our free
time and it was colder every time they let us out of the buses. Our guide told
us they had predicted a light snow. We turned on the BBC World News and there
is a big earliest of the season European winter storm all the way from south of
Paris to past Amsterdam. I just checked outside 15 minutes or so ago and it was
still very cold and windy but the rain had stopped and it wasn’t snowing, not
even lightly. We have the afternoon free here and we’re in Amsterdam but no one
was willing to go out and do anything. Not even to eat Dutch Pancakes. We ate
lunch in the dining room. The daily program said they were also serving a light
buffet in the Panorama Lounge, but they didn’t. We ate hamburgers and
sandwiches in the restaurant. So, I got mostly packed up and Clay slept with the
TV on.
We disembark tomorrow morning. There are 5 of us onboard
that we know about that are transferring to the Amadeus Diamond tomorrow in
Paris. We all have our train tickets. The train leaves at 11:17am and arrives
at Paris Nord at 2:35pm.We were contacted after lunch with the news that there
is no boat in Paris. They said there is a broken lock on the river and that it
will take at least 48 hours to be repaired. The other issue is that we all got
another printout of our train tickets last night, but still no mention of the
details of our included transfers here or in Paris. Today, since they told us
there was no boat they also said someone would meet us at the train station and
we’d learn more there. One of the others who will be with us is older with trouble
walking distances. He told me he’d inquired of reception the details of the morning
transfer and he’d let me know what he heard as he knew all 5 of us were waiting
to hear. After we returned and got the call about no boat, Clay realized we
still had no word of morning luggage transfers to the Central Station. Now it
is supposedly about 200 meters away. It may be as the crow flies. I mean you
can see it from here. But it is about 2 city blocks long itself and to get there
from here with luggage, you have to find a sidewalk and watch for bicycles, scooters,
cars, trams, buses, trains, tracks. It would not be an easy walk and as Graham
points out, our ability or willingness don’t matter because we all purchased a
package that includes all transfers. That is certainly underlined on tomorrow’s
itinerary in our final documents. Clay went to the desk to inquire before
lunch. Alexandra was there and told him no they would not provide a transfer
for us that it was 200 feet away (not, but immaterial) and that we could walk.
He balked. She basically called him fat and lazy and that he should haul
himself and his luggage over there on his own. He balked again, more forcefully
this time by pointing out that we had paid for transfers and expected them
regardless of how fat and lazy we might be. She said she would check and see
what she could find out. Then our male dining companion had basically the same
conversation. He and Clay and I all walked by the desk later when Alexandra was
not there and the receptionist there called us all over separately as we passed
and told us that they would order a van for us to transfer us and our luggage
to the train station they just needed to know what time we wanted to go. Graham
said he wanted to go at 10:30am and that he would settle it with the front
desk. He learned all of this from us during lunch since he missed the whole
thing by not going to his cabin before lunch. There is a disembarkation talk at
6:30pm tonight so I guess we’ll see if it gets addressed then. At 6:45pm is the
Captain’s Farewell Cocktail where maybe we’ll find out who the captain is now
that we’re leaving. At 7pm is the Farewell Dinner. We aren’t dressing for this
one either even though we’ve had the afternoon free because we packed up most
everything except what we are wearing now or tomorrow. I suppose that while I
have Internet, I’ll go ahead and post this now.
