cruisn71

The medical evacuation was successfully completed off the seaview pool deck using the helicopter's hoist.

I will finish updating this no longer Live from when I am back home. We currently have a medical emergency on board. We are heading to the coast of Oregon at full speed to rendezvous with the Coast Guard for a helicopter evacuation this evening. We will still make it to Victoria on time. There have been calls for a blood donors and a general surgeon to provide a 2nd opinion. Not sure if it is a crew member or passenger who is injured.

April 16 Kona This was our first port day. CBP was on board to clear everyone through customs. They started with people on excursions and then went deck by deck. We had been given a schedule and they were much faster than expected. Normal tendering procedures with tickets. Our 4 star status let us get off the ship quickly. We have been to Kona before and spent the day wandering the port. We went up the hill tothe shopping centers for some supplies and Ube softserve. The line for the return tender looked long, but moved quickly. Today's menus s_pacific_lido_lunch_2023_-_menu_12_en.pdf kodm-lido_dinne-menu.pdf hawaii_dr_dinner_2023_menu_12.pdf

April 15 The Cellar Master Bernardo held a popup wine market and tasting. Holland America has revamped their wine program and stranded some wine inventory on the ship. For $29 pp, we tasted 15 wines over the course of an hour and one could have multiple samples of each wine. The wine varieties were as follows: 2 rieslings 1 gewurtztramiener 2 chardonnays 1 sauvignon blanc 2 rosees 1 tempranilo 2 pinot noirs 1 shiraz 3 cab sauvignon 1 port Theses were fairly high end wines that were deeply discounted. One of the cabs was marked down to $81 from the original price of $135. Some of the wines were fantastic, but we will stick to our wine package bottles. I neglected to photograph the wines. I must have been too excited about the day drinking 🍸.

Catch up mode yet again.... April 15 The lido corner was Cheese and Fruit. They had a nice selection of fruits and cheeses. I missed the menus on the 15th.

We have had cruises with late dining and late entertainment. They usually do that on European itineraries since they tend to eat later. I do prefer the 9:30 shows best. 9:00pm shows are too early s we rarely finish dinner before 9:00.

The 6 and 8 showtime work well with the fixed dining schedule. If you have the late 7:30 seating, you go to the 6 pm show before dinner. The 8pm show lines up for those with early dining at 5:30. Some of the other events that get scheduled at 7:30 aren't so great for late fixed dining.

There was an Ice Cream social pop up today. The lines were crazy long. You would think it was the last ice cream ever. I just got a vanilla cone from the Sweet Spot.

April 14 Today's corner is French corner. Primarily mussels and frites. Lunch menus: brunch_hawaiian_v.2.pdf s_pacific_lido_lunch_2023_-_menu_10_en.pdf Dinner menus: hawaii_dr_dinner_2023_menu_10.pdf s_pacific_lido_dinner_2023_-_menu_11_en.pdf

April 13th Today the corner is Oriental corner. It us a collection of Mediterranean and Indian dishes. Lunch menus: _dr_lunch_day_8.pdf s_pacific_lido_lunch_2023_-_menu_09_en.pdf Dinner menus: s_pacific_lido_dinner_2023_-_menu_11_en.pdf hawaii_dr_dinner_2023_menu_10.pdf

Catching up yet again. April 12 Today's corner is Snack corner. I only got a shot of the menu and missed the food. I am missing the rest of the menus for today. Another lovely day on a day ship.

Dinner menus from April 11. Tonight was a dressy night. Our table of 6 all enjoyed the Tenderloin. kodm-mdr_blue_gala_1.pdf s_pacific_lido_dinner_2023_r_vis_sig_v1_-_menu_08_en.pdf

Another catchup post. We have been doing well in trivia. A good team has come together and we often win or are runners up. The Lido lunch corner from a couple days back was Paella. Regular Lido lunch s_pacific_lido_lunch_2023_-_menu_06_en (1).pdf

I will ask.

On to today! I worked for a few hours this morning. Was able to use Teams and VPN with no issue on the Premium internet package. A post work to trip to the thermal suite was followed up by tying for 1st place at 1pm trivia and losing on the tie breaker. Tie breaker question was 'How many studialbums did the Beatles record?' The correct answer is 12. Today's Lido Corner is Dim Sum. There were an assortment of bao (steamed buns) and pot stickers. My dim sum favorites of Har Gao and Sui Mai were MIA. All in all they were tasty. At this afternoon's lightening trivia our team had a respectable 25 out of 20 score. Three teams tied for 1st with a score of 27.

April 9th - Mazatlan No particular plans today. We left the ship late morning so no waits for the port shuttle. Decided to walk to the central market. Google maps suggested a terrible route. It was the fastest, but the roughest. Wandered around the market and bought some souvenirs. Walked a different route back to the ship and it was much better. Made it back on board in time for trivia. Overall a great day. Weather was pleasant and not too hot. Today's music trivia was Motown. Our team won with a score of 14 out of 15. I was of no help. The evening entertainment was a musical wife and husband duo. I didn't attend. Lunch menu for the Lido (no Corner today) s_pacific_lido_lunch_2023_-_menu_05_en.pdf Dinner menus hawaii_dr_dinner_2023_menu_6.pdfs_pacific_lido_dinner_2023_r_vis_sig_v1_-_menu_06_en.pdf

Falling behind again. After the eclipse I spent the afternoon relaxing and getting some photos off the DSLR and on to my phone. Ate dinner in the MDR that evening. Menus attached.s_pacific_lido_dinner_2023-menu_05.pdf hawaii_dr_dinner_2023_menu_5.pdf The entertainment that evening was a comedian. Leyland Klassen from BC in Canada. I thought he was great. One of the best comedians I have seen o board for a while.

I have seen something similar on the Oosterdam when we did Antarctica in 2022/2023. They had one of the salad stations set up for special lunches and dinners on sea days. I think longer cruises with lots of sea days have these special lunches. We also had them last year on the 150th anniversary sailing.

They are doing a special 'corner' in the lido at lunch on sea days. They had American on the 1st sea day. They call this one Heritage. I am expecting French, Italian, German, Japanese, Chinese and more based on previous cruises. It is being held in the port side Sweetspot across from Rise

Today's special corner in the Lido was Heritage Corner. This was Indonesian and Philipino specialties.

Last night's dinner menus attached. I had the chilli releno, one of my favorites. It was quite good and very large. The appetizer was the thai spring roll.kodm-lido_dinne-menu-_mexican_them_dinner.pdf hawaii_dr_dinner_2023_menu_3.pdf

Photos from the eclipse. Start of the totality The eclipse with Venus to the right.

I am falling behind in my posts. The Eclipse was spectacular. The skies were pretty much clear and the captain positioned the ship with the aft pointed straight at the sun. We had perfect viewing for the whole event. I have pictures on my big camera and will post them later. I did observe a new type of chair hog today. All the chairs at the tables of the sea view deck were dragged away.

We arrived early in Cabo today. There are two other ships here today. The Explora 1 and the Sapphire Princess (subject to correction, might be the Emerald). line ups for tender were done by 10:45. We have a nice long day here today. All aboard is 10:30 pm.

Last night was our 1st of four dressy nights and we were served the Silver Gala menu. At the table we received the normal menu folders and not the 'fancier' menu cards one usually gets on dressy nights. Our waiters were overworked and dinner service was slow and our food was warm at best. Dinner menus attached below. The Captains Welcome and Humanity were the shows last night. silver_gala_2024_dr_menu_02_updated.pdf s_pacific_lido_dinner_2023_r_vis_sig_v1_-_menu_02_en.pdf