sailingdutchy
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Posts posted by sailingdutchy
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Question :
So for the 4 and 5 star mariners would the Pinnacle be 50% of $ 39.00 = $ 19.50
Plus the 18 % on the regular price of $ 39.00 service charge = 7.00
Total per person. $ 26.50 instead of $ 46.00 what 1 to 3 star mariners pay pp
The same principle as what they have been doing with us buying the wine packages ?
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From the same cruise I posted yesterday some pictures from on the Zaandam Antarctica cruise we also landed in Montevideo , Uruguay . This is a very nice and easy port to start exploring either on a good walking tour or on your own because the heart of the city is so close by.Without too many comments today I hope to show you a few nice pictures of the city and the different customs in this South American country
What kind of stuff is in your pipe …………she is thinking……...
And when we arrived back on board , after seeing all that meat on the BBQ’s in the city , more meat on the Lido deck . Bet you we will not be able to see that anymore …………...
Another lovely day to remember ...Tony 😄-
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Good morning / afternoon to all Daily-ites , Rich and Roy and all contributors , I was happy to see that today it was the turn for another nice port we had been to on one of the Holland ships , Puerto Chacabuco . We were there on Feb 2nd , 2015 with the Zaandam on our cruise from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires.In a way we were a little bit lucky to do our small group tour from the port that day because on the last cruise before ours some upset local fisherman had been on strike and occupied and blocked the bridge which was near the port and none of the groups or large tours were able to get past the strikers .Beautiful scenery when we approached the port which is very small and where we had to tender.
After a short walk out of port we found our mini bus and met up with our guideHere we are crossing the bridge which was guarded by a number of local police so there would be no disruption or occupation by strikers .
After a nice scenic ride we entered the National Parc where we admired the beautiful flora and fauna and scenery .
After another short ride we stopped in the middle of nowhere had to walk through some fields and grazing lands to end up at a large hall converted from an old barn where we were welcomed by the locals with a drink
In the fire place a lamb was being roasted for those who chose lamb for lunch while I had a couple of delicious empanadas , with two different kind of fillings .
After lunch it was time for a lovely show of a Folk dance teacher doing a number of dances with some of his pupils .
At the end of this lovely show a couple from our tour were chosen to participate , here is DW , Martha , glad I did not have to perform .
It was than time to start to go back on a different scenic route to port .
A wonderful day was had by all , leaving than to go through all of the many channels and fjords towards Ponta Arenas where we would arrive 3 days later
Hope I did not take up too much space today but it was very hard to choose from the many pictures I had , while describing a little bit of the wonderful day and our story of Port Chacabuco.Tony 😄-
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Good morning to all contributors and friends of the Daily , I always look forward to read about the special days , the quotes and the care lists and of coarse where all of the BHB’s are at the moment .Today will be another day closer to being able to get back on board of one of those Blue Hulled Beauties ……..but when ………(sigh ) ?I will do my part and show a couple of our pictures , from back in 2009 on board the Eurodam , of some places on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence a beautiful part of our country and from which I would love to see more of.
Have a great day everybody , no weeding for us today but we will be enjoying a nice BBQ at our DS and watch the big soccer game .Tony😄-
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2 hours ago, rafinmd said:
Today's sunrise is the last from my 2009 Blount Chicago to New Orleans cruise. On June 13 I disembarked in the Big Easy:
Roy
Love you picture Roy , gorgeous !
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1 hour ago, richwmn said:
As everyone already knows Rotterdam's premier voyage got cancelled today. The email didn't give much hope for me to be on a premier voyage this year.
Feeling very bad for you Rich@richwmn , all of the others that had booked the Rotterdam Premier Cruise and even for ourselves who had been so looking forward to that cruise for so long it would have been our 3rd Premier cruise of a Pinnacle Class ship !
On top of that all of the changes now with a number of other ships in Europe .
All of the work that went into this cruise , the many flights that had been booked , were cancelled and had to be rebooked a number of times because of conditions in the different countries , so sad .
But most of all I just can not imagine the total chaos the Holland America employees are having to deal with , having to shuffle crews, passengers etc etc . Credits , refunds trying to keep track of all of these things this must be an unbelievable nightmare .
It is easy to spout off at this and many other companies having to deal with the same problems , so I just hope that in the near future we get back to normal .
Yes we will not soon forget the year of the Covid . Please Take Care and Stay Safe .
For one thing Rich @richwmn I believe you might have set a record with the Roll Call you started for all of us for the Rotterdam cruise with more than 1350 posts !
Tony
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Thank you very much for your replies to me @daisybertie and @erewhon they were about what I expected . I will stay positive for a Mar 31, 2022 cruise on the Oosterdam from Auckland but think that if there are no cruises down under at all for 2021 it might not make much sense for HAL to send the Oosterdam there for a shortened season , the first 3 months in 2022. But we'll keep hoping !
Much appreciated ,
Tony 🤔
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Good morning to all of the Daily people .Today I am a very happy man , finally was able to get a haircut yesterday after 3 months when my barber came to visit me here at home with his tools and after a lot of buzzing my head feels a lot lighter and I look a lot younger again !Than this morning DW Martha woke me up with a huge surprise with a flat of our very first strawberries of the year that was another thing on my wish list , after being able to step on board a BHB of coarse ……… but there is hope …..maybe soon , I have not given up
Thanks for all the pictures of Abu Dhabi , hope to get there one day also .Take care everybody we are getting today our second jab 6 weeks sooner than expected , Canada is catching up with lots and lots of vaccinations another thing which makes me feel a lot better ! Almost 65 % of our population have received at least one dose !Tony 😄😃-
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6 hours ago, erewhon said:
Hopefully you will visit "down under" in the near future.
@erewhon and @daisybertie May I ask you a question please , we have planned a cruise from Auckland to Australia to San Diego next March from what you have heard from the two governments down under do you think there will be a cruise season there between October and March ? From what we have been reading here things are still very tightly controlled other than the travel between the two countries themselves but very little of when they will possibly open up to outsiders like us to visit .
Thank you , we have been amazed that things have been so much better there than most of the rest of the world .
Tony
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For the farewell in Shimizu I need space to show you this totally unexpected show…………...All of a sudden three special kindergarten school busses showed up right next to the ship , they looked as if they just came out of the factory a Red , a Yellow and a Blue one
Very enthusiastic kids in their finest “uniforms “ with not a mark on their little white shoes or freshly pressed clothes while listening very well to just half a dozen teachers ran to their spots for what they came for , for us …..
It was getting to be a little cooler so the special jackets came out ….
And than the musical instruments and flags
They sang and played quite a few numbers for all of us , but it was almost time for “ All on Board “ when they started playing and singing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy “ in Japanese which was composed by Beethoven in 1785 as it represents the triumph of Universal Brotherhood against war and desperation …….. when I think of this moment in Shimizu I am again getting emotional ………. I will never forget this day …….. 😍I have a couple of short videos I don’t know if I am able to post that on this roll call I might try later …….The kids and many of their parents stayed on shore and watched us slowly push away …. our Captain gave a few big toots
Tony 😍This little guy but bigger than his classmates caught my eye as he was waving up to the people on their balconies on the ship
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Good morning , and for others, afternoon Rich , Roy and all contributors to the wonderful Daily that is keeping my dreams alive to sail again one of these days on one of the wonderful HAL ships .On Oct 14th , 2017 we landed in the Port of Shimizu on the Volendam we were only in Port for a very short time from 8 am until 2 pm so no time for a nice long tour but had a very nice welcome by the local dancers and an unforgettable rest of the day which I will show in a bit ………With our friends that were on board we make a nice walk to the local seafood market where we saw the most incredible dishes , when we came back to port I enjoyed a nice Japanese tea ceremony and saw many ladies and also men trying out Japanese costumes .A special painted sign just for us ....
After this friendly welcome we walked to the local large fish market
They will eat almost anything from the sea in Japan …..Let us taste some stuff ...
Wow they eat the eyes ???? Kind of advertised as a delicacy( I realize the picture is upside down , picture from an iPad , but had to show you this , you get the picture ?? )
Back in port , I am going for a tea ceremony .
while the ladies and a lot of the crew are checking out Japanese costumes
In a separate post I have to show you the departure from Shimizu in a few minutes ……… it was incredible .........-
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Being born in the Netherlands a couple of weeks before Liberation Day which was on May 5th in our part of the country we are forever grateful for the young men and women who took part in the D-Day invasion in 1944 .On our cruise on the Rotterdam from Florida to R’dam we had a fantastic tour from Cherbourg with a historian to the beaches of Juno and Gold. Thank you to all of the forces that took part in this ! We Will Remember !Generals De Gaul and Montgomery’s headquarters June 1944
The concrete caissons are still there in the water …..
Canada House
Tony , sailingdutchy , a proud and grateful Canadian-
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Good morning Daily-ites and thank you Rich and all contributors you all are keeping our dreams to go back to cruising alive .Growing up in Holland ( proper name The Netherlands ) I grew up with a bicycle , there are more bikes in Holland than there are people . ( The extra bikes are hanging around on the bridges in Amsterdam or in the canals ......!)
As a teenager my friends and I made big trips during the summer holidays to Belgium , Luxembourg, Germany and one year even to Paris, France and we stayed in Youth hostels which costs us a guilder , less than a dollar a day , mind you we had to make our own bed and breakfast and do our own dishes ! We did ride almost 1500 km’s in a couple of weeks per holiday and it was very adventures , that way in the early 60's we were one of the firsts in our families to visit a foreign country .I have a few pictures today of Copenhagen , Denmark from our Baltic cruise from 10 years ago on Rotterdam VI
Royal Palace
And Tivoli
Almost ready to take off to Northern Germany
Tony 😄-
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2 hours ago, Vict0riann said:
Good morning, all , from a warm Victoria! Yesterday, I must not have said "rabbit" in time, the day was a disaster! I took Pat to the hospital at one for his "Roto-Rooter" appointment at 2, after all the miserable prep. That was fine. But at 2:30 the electricity went off at home. I had no idea that the phones wouldn't work! I expected a call around 5, and wasn't too worried, but it got later and later and I went to a neighbour to see what was going on there. They had no electricity either, of course, but said about 300 homes were involved and it was due back on at 9:30. I was preparing to go to the hospital and just hang around outside when Pat rolled up in a taxi! He had been calling from about 4, and also emailing (I had 11 phone messages and 2 emails this morning!) The nurses had finally got him a voucher for a taxi ride home. He was not happy. DD went out and got MacDonald's for us for dinner (all the food she had prepped and was marinating is still in the fridge), and the lights eventually came on at 10:10. By this time, Pat had gone to bed, and evidently the lights went off again sometime after. Pat woke me up to tell me the Russians had hacked the electricity again - I've never seen our room so dark. I lay awake for some time worrying about all the food in the freezers - fortunately, thanks to CC, I had transferred all the ice in the ice maker to the freezer in the fridge, and this morning it was still intact, so I think the food is okay. The doctor's report says Pat will not need to have another colonoscopy, although he removed 4 polyps - I guess they will be biopsied.
Anyway, we are happy it's all over, and we are just hoping the Russians don't hack us again!
We have been to Phu My, my pictures a much like the others - enjoyed looking at them, especially Tony's very colourful ones. I found it a rather sad country, and have no yearning to go back. I'll include in my prayers special ones for everyone who needs them among my Daily friends.
To celebrate we are going out to lunch - probably Timmie's!
Sorry to hear you had quite the day Ann @Vict0riann but Pat should be very ,very happy that the hospital did not run out of power while they did the procedure , I just can't think about that snake being ...............that would have been just terrible ! Let's hope that he comes out with a clean bill of health !
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Phu My part 2 , Jan 2020
On our way through busy traffic going for lunch…….in Ho Chi Minh City on eleven Tri-shaws …..
Wrong turn off …... turn around guys otherwise we will never have lunch .....
We made it to Pho 2000 the place that American Presidents ( Clinton and Obama ) have made famous !
My inside pictures came out all upside down , blame it on iPad , we had a nice simple lunch ......sorry
After lunch to the market ........ lets try this on …..what….. $ 15.00 ….DW bought the nice red one ... wonder how often she will wear it ....looking good dear !
For New Year everybody was buying large flowering branches or trees .
To the lacquer place .... standard tour stop .
The former Palace now the Independence Palace , we chose not to go to the war museum .
Than to the Post office and to see the exterior of The Notre Dame of Saigon both from the old French Indochina days .
A great day was had by all .
Hey those guys look familiar from this morning .Farewell Phu My
Tony 😄-
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We have had the pleasure to get to Phu My a couple of times and the last time was on Jan 23, 2020 , which was our very last cruise ……...on the legendary Westerdam , the ship that the BBC on the news called the “Phantom “ ship because we were roaming the sea's for so long trying to find a port that would except us to get back on land .........
This was just a couple of days before Chinese New Year so I might need a couple of posts to show my pictures going on a small group tour with Nguyen Tri Dung . From the port we went directly to Ho Chi Minh City ( the former Saigon )
On the Rooftop garden of the REX Hotel with our group of cruise friends....... @bobpatj
Ho Chi Minh
Dressed for the New Year
In the background from the French Colonial time the railway station
Thousands and thousands of bikes weaving between the traffic
On my special request Dung took us to the " Heavenly Lady Temple “ which happened to be in a very festive state !
All this excitement before lunch time , lets get on board our tri-shaw
To be continued …………..Tony 😃-
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Good morning all and thank you Rich , Roy, Jacqui and all the contributors for my morning “ newspaper “ The Daily !Like many of you we also have been a few times to Hawaii so today I expect we will be bombarded with lots of pictures , I will look for a few only from the Island of Oahu because I suspect the other Islands will get a turn on another "Port of the Day " .From this port I enjoy in particular the arrival and departure scenery and the nature outside the big city .
The pineapples at the Dole Farm were more expensive than what we have ever paid here in Ontario for a pineapple ..…………but it was nice to see all of the different varieties .
We are longing for a scenery like this ……
Tony and Martha 😍😄-
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We were in Marseille in October of 2014 on the Noordam and made a small group tour on a beautiful Fall day ! Our tour took us from a nice walk in Marseille to a beautiful market in Aix-en- Provence and to an amazing Carrieres de Lumieres in Les Baux-de-Provence .
We just had to buy some nougat from this man !
In an old dug out limestone quarry where they extracted the limestone which was used to built the Chateau in the village of Les Baux they have an incredible light and music show you walk into from the dark and are surrounded from floor to ceiling by images from different artist . The year we were there it was all about Gustav Klimt but other years they show Cezanne , Van Gogh or Renoir .
After this incredible show we went in the the nearby old village of Les Baux
We than enjoyed some delicious French Crepes
And did a little bit of shopping for chocolate and honey
Another wonderful day on one of the BHB ’sTony😄-
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Good morning all and thank you for the Daily , Rich , Roy , Jacqui and all contributors .
Before I forget @VictOriann wish Pat a Happy Birthday ( again ) from Martha and me . May the next 363 days be more exciting than what he is preparing for today and tomorrow ........
I will now start digging for some nice pictures of Marseille where we had a very nice small group tour a number of years ago , might take me a bit .
Our thoughts today also for all who fought to protect our freedom !
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53 minutes ago, Vict0riann said:
Haha! Tony, I accused him of having a clone on board, he seemed to be everywhere at once....
Yes you are right Ann , than to know , from what I was told that he never used the elevators he went all over the ship only using the stairs , he was in great shape and mentioned that in his retirement he was going to make long long walks like in the Austrian Alps , in Scotland or in Spain the Santiago de Compostela ( The Way of Saint James )
Once on the Zuiderdam in Split , Croatia I believe it was we had to walk off a very long pier and who came running by in shorts and running shoes and at good speed , you guessed it Captain Chris .
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11 minutes ago, St Pete Cruiser said:
Thanks for the pic of Captain Chris Turner. I met him onboard the Zaandam returning from South America to San Diego. We talked like we had known each other for years and i saw in him a dedicated Holland America employee and very decent person.
I agree fully Captain Turner was always seen going around the ship , chatted with the guests if he was approached and noticed almost everything if something was just not right and had it corrected . We have had the pleasure of being on 4 cruises with him on 4 different ships and besides a couple of dinners had some nice chats . When in port and if he had a chance he used to love going for a long run. .
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37 minutes ago, rafinmd said:
So you were on the Volendam. I was right behind you on the Amsterdam, getting worried because our next port was Hong Kong and I had to fly that day to Rome to catch the Prinsendam. Fortunately, Captain Fred really put the pedal to the medal and I made my flight with no problems.
Roy
There you are Roy @rafinmd The Volendam is up front here and the Amsterdam behind her , she was on the special 2017 Grand Pacific & Far East Voyage !
You were allowed to leave first …………going backwards for a mile or so
To than start to make the turn where the river is wider
Here are we leaving also being guided backwards by the tug
……and fitting just under the bridge
Captain Christopher Turner was not a very happy man with what had happened in Shanghai with the authorities and the pilots …….
But he took us out for dinner a few days later ! We loved Captain Chris wonderful man and a great Captain !Tony 😃-
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We were in Fukuoka with the Volendam in 2017 but because we were shanghaied in Shanghai ( The authorities kept the Volendam completely locked up in port for an extra fourth day which is a long story for another day , we could not get off the ship that day ) so we missed being on a Cooking and Walking tour that I had booked for Oct 30th and instead on Nov 1st did an organized small group walking tour and went exploring on our own for the afternoon .
We started the walking tour from the Nakasu subway station and visited the Jotenji Temple , the Tochoji Temple , the Hakata Folk Museum and the Kushida Shrine .
Mom who are those strangers ……….. the little girl actually started to cry ......
After a nice Japanese lunch we went exploring on our own by subway to the beautiful Ohori Park and the Japanese Gardens …….. had to ask for instructions to get on the subway in sign language ………it was surprising to me how few Japanese people speak any English .
We did it ….
Young lady celebrating a very special occasion in the Japanese Garden it was a special birthday or graduation .
…..and a very nice day was had by all , despite this major change in our schedule .
Their husbands were also on my tour , but I thought this was a nice picture !Tony 😃😉-
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7 hours ago, Vict0riann said:
I'm not supposed to tell you, but Pat will be 85 next Monday - definitely a senior. We will have missed out on two years of cruising by the time all this is over, so I'm telling him, in cruise years he'll only be 83.
Hope you have a couple of bottles of his favourite wine in house Ann , and does this also mean he will also get his favourite Irish meal on Monday ? Pat's age might make him a senior I guess but sometimes I have trouble keeping up with him and also his quick wit . Best Wishes !
Cheers , Martha and Tony 😍😃
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The Daily for Thursday Jun 17, 2021
in Holland America Line
Posted