Live from the Prinsendam as the wizard & witches cruise May 17 - June 17, 2013

[LuckyJ]

Busy Lady for sure!

 

I am so glad the Normandy tour was great, as I have keep all your tour info for our cruise next year, and going to Normandy is a big highlight for us.

 

So it's worth going to Bayeux and seeing the Tapestry?

 

So you must feel like a Queen on board:) And you are!

 

Hugs

Janet

[jgw321]

Well' date=' today is our final day and evening onboard. :( Tomorrow we head off for London for 4 days with Gigianne and Gerry.[/quote']

 

Hope you both (pairs) have a good time. London is so much nicer when it is sunny and it looks like you are going to have a fine spell.

 

We've had a WONDERFUL time with all of our new CC friends. Other passengers are envious of the good times we've enjoyed for the past two weeks. This trip was a dream and the ship was perfect. No complaints here.

 

Good news. We are so looking forward to it.

[jgw321]

So it's worth going to Bayeux and seeing the Tapestry?

 

We found it worthwhile going to the tapestry. There can be a bit of a wait to get going but it is soooooooo long it takes a while to read it all. It is easier to read if you know Latin otherwise you have to interpret the pictures.

 

The highlight for me in Bayeux was the restaurant behind the butchers next to the information office. Just benches and scrubbed wooden tables but the food was devine if you are a carnivore.

[jgw321]

We should be on our way in about two hours time. Hopefully a quick boarding, so we are in time for lunch. See you all soon.

[kazu]

Busy Lady for sure!

 

I am so glad the Normandy tour was great, as I have keep all your tour info for our cruise next year, and going to Normandy is a big highlight for us.

 

So it's worth going to Bayeux and seeing the Tapestry?

 

So you must feel like a Queen on board:) And you are!

 

Hugs

Janet

 

Janet - if you are going to Juno, Bayeux is on the way back:D. Ia the tapestry worth it??? Everyone on our tour all agreed it was!! Such detail. our Normandy day turned out to be a very pleasant surprise for me and Jose!

[kazu]

We should be on our way in about two hours time. Hopefully a quick boarding, so we are in time for lunch. See you all soon.

 

See you soon!!!

[kazu]

Sorry for the poor weather but happy the tours were so enjoyable. Hope your

second segment is as much fun for you. Of course, you'll have a new Hotel Director. Firmin is officially retired and headed home after a long and successful career. I hope he had a very special send off. :)

 

 

 

we saw Firmin leave Judy. Lots of crew handling his luggage.

 

The new HD came on board in Le Havre. I ran into Firmin and him in the elevator;

[sail7seas]

we saw Firmin leave Judy. Lots of crew handling his luggage.

 

The new HD came on board in Le Havre. I ran into Firmin and him in the elevator;

 

 

We, too, 'spoke' with him several times. :)

 

We sent our most sincere wishes he has a healthy, happy, wonderful retirement. How wonderful he was able to leave the ship 'at home'. Made handling all his luggage so easy. No shipping necessary. ;)

 

[gigianne]

We saw Firmin and his wife leaving through the port gate - with several stewards pulling his luggage - lots of it! The crew and passengers joined in a send off celebration on Wednesday night - very emotional!!

[gigianne]

Wishing all our CC friends an amazing cruise through the Baltics! We thoroughly enjoyed our time on the EE and are now looking forward to a few days in London and Iceland. Our private tours were amazing - thanks to the organizers - Jacqui and Ruth Anne for all their efforts on our behalf. The towns, cities, villages and beaches were everything I imagined they would be and much, much more!

[kazu]

Thursday May 30th - Le Havre, France

 

OK, I can see I was caught by a number of you!! Yes, it's the birthday today. Thank you so much for all of your kind wishes.

 

I hate to disappoint some of you but we DID NOT go to Paris. I'm not wasting 6 hours on a bus for a short visit. Instead, we had a private transfer arranged to go to Honfleur and see a bit of LeHavre. When I went to the Ocean Bar to meet our group, Georgina (gigianne) started them all singing Happy Birthday. (pretty sure it was all her fault). Very red faced - I thought I was going to skip this stuff!

 

I had a thought about a coffee or drink at an outside cafe in HonFleur. That was not to be as it was simply pouring rain! Our poor guide took us to a look out spot and we couldn't see a thing because of the rain and the mist. So off to Honfleur we went just the same.

 

We got an overview of this pretty spot and then all bopped around on our own. Had a small bite with Bobbie & Ken (sapper1) at a local restaurant. We thought we had ordered some type of local fish and chips and it turned out to be mussels and fries. Kind of a strange combination. A huge turine of mussels and we quickly found out why - they are much smaller than those we get back home. So, while it looked huge, it was just a lot of work to get those little devils out. HOnfleur is very pretty and a great spot. If it had been nicer weather I would hav potentially negotiated with our driver to stay longer if the group was so inclined, but with the weather we had, there really was no need. Rain, rain, go away!

 

Bought a bottle of their famous Calvados and some cheese and wine before we headed back to the ship. Unloaded our bags and caught the free shuttle supplied by the port and headed back into LeHavre.

 

Before I forget, something strange happened at the check in. When we boarded with out wine I was asked over to a desk - I thought he was going to examine my bottles but instead he wanted to know how many bottles of wine I had and our room number??? I've never seen this before and it didn't carry on all day, so I'm not sure what the purpose of it was. We also got a survey from LeHavre asking us to tell how much money we spent, what we did and that kind of stuff. Idon't know if the two are connected or not or if they are doing a survey for their wine policy. When we returned to the ship later that day, they were not doing the wine thing.

 

We did some browsing around LeHavre, grabbed some more pics and since the shuttle just happened to appear just as we were walking in that direction we decided to head back to the ship.

 

Once we got back I found something to put some flowers in I had bought in LeHavre (peonies and roses since I am going to miss my peonies back home). Well, the room became full with flowers as Jose had ordered some for my birthday. In came Nylo, the concierge with them singing happy birthday.

 

Ok, first of all I had decided to avoid the MDR to skip this happy birthday singing. Turned it out it was NOT going to work.

 

Happy birthday sung in the ocean bar when I went to meet my private tour group, then in the Crow's Nest later on, then by my friends, my stewards...it just went on and on. Just no escape for the wicked! All in all a very good day despite the rain in HonFleur and, besides the sun had come out once we returned to Le Havre. A lot of happy people to see that!

 

Had a great time with my friends and received some very nice

presents that I didn't deserve and most of all, we all had fun.

 

We were sure that we were bound to win at the Casino but it was not to be. (BIG SURPRISE).

 

Playing in he Showroom tonight was the all variety show featuring Back to Broadway.

 

The next day we found out that the faithful Canadian contingent finally won Name that Tune. We were happy for them as we knew they really wanted their pins!

[kazu]

Friday - May 31, 2013 - Zeebrugge, Belgium.

 

What a great day - first of all because I did not arrange a private tour today. Today, we went on Ruth Ann's tour (ncgolferette). She is one of the wicked witches as early on we decided that we would not re-invent the wheel so she took this port while I worked on St. Malo & Le Havre. Each of us did our own thing for Cherbourg as she was doing the American beaches and we the Canadian. It has been a lot of fun planning with the wicked witches and even more fun to finally cruise with them!

 

 

Got chocolates for our guide in Russia who has been so wonderful to deal with, some tapestry pillow covers for my friends who are leaving tomorrow and lace for my friend whose birthday is June 1st as she leaves. Mn

 

I'm going to miss all the great people who are getting off at the end of the TA - but a lot of our roll call is staying on and we have more great people joining us!

 

So back to this beautiful city - it is absolutely exquisite - if you haven't been go - taxi transfers are very cheap and much easier than the train that does not go often enough IMO and is quite a distance from the pretty part. Our taxi was a mere 15 euros per couple each way (with tip) and went as smooth as silk. Thanks Ruth Ann!

 

We stopped for a bite and found they had a daily special. Ready for this? white asparagus. I asked if it was any good and he told me it was high season. Jose had their fish soup (delicious) and I had their white asparagus special. I have never seen aspargus so huge. It was cooked to absolute perfection. Not too well done and not too soft. So big. absolutely incredible - covered with egg, parsley and some butter stuff. hmm good. Of course we had a couple of Belgian beers to go with it. Every beer here comes with it's own glass!

 

We were ready for our transfer back to the ship and a bit early so we sought a nice spot to share a glass of wine and use the 'facilities'. Two blocks off the main square was a little outside cafe. I knew I hit it big when I met two English ladies who had taken the ferry over a couple of days ago. They had ordered a tea and got some type of crumpet and some type of appertif (all included and not shown on the menu). I ordered our glass of wine which DH and I shared and it came on a silver tray with little pastries with filling and little cookies. What a presentation! All this for 4 euros. Really nice, quiet - absolutely perfect!

 

After a glorious day in this beautiful spot we headed back to the ship knowing we were going to the Pinnacle early. Last night for my friends so it was a must.

 

Another absolutely fantastic dinner. Another mixture of choices. Hmm hmm good.

 

In the room were chocolate covered strawberries - I am guessing because we stayed on. Unfortunately, while I buy chocolates for friends, I am not a chocolate addict like Ruth C so I am going to have to find someone to share them with or they will go to waste.

 

I didn't realize until I looked later that the Showroom at Sea was showing Oz the Great and Powerful. Oh well, no biggee. We were having too much fun to even worry about such things.

 

I gave my friends their little presents for their birthdays I wouldn't see or help them celebrate and I do believe a couple of us had some tears in our eyes as we knew we had to say farewell.

 

Georgina & Gerry are always a pleasure to cruise with and our other friends we haven't cruised with for over 20 years. Nothing has changed. We had a blast. Remember those silly horse races they used to do? and you dressed up the rider? She gave me a pic from more years ago than I care to disclose when she and I won for her being best dressed. So nice.

 

 

Tomorrow the clocks go back an hour which will really help a lot of people. We need to be off the ship by 9 am or we have to be escorted so I prefer to make everyone's life easy and we will get off and get back on later.

 

Having fun as I realize I don't have to have baggage out tonight and get to say, no we are staying on when people say good bye.

 

There are 300 people staying on the collectors cruise, so are roll call is a much larger percentage now since we have at least 55 staying on!

 

Signing off from the Elegant Explorer - oh - and my friends' opinion of the ship that we 'lured' on (and yes, I did lure them). They will happily sail again!

[SJSULIBRARIAN]

"We stopped for a bite and found they had a daily special. Ready for this? white asparagus"

 

Ah Jacqui, your comment on white asparagus brought back great memories of when we went to Switzerland in the 70s and 80s for conferences in which my husband's company was an exhibitor. There we discovered white asparagus and loved it. A couple of times I was able to buy it in the States but my preparation was never as good. Yum. Barbara

[Vict0riann]

And "Moules Frites" - my favourite. Yum, you are lucky!:)

[JamesEM]

Thanks for your reports..........

[erewhon]

Thanks for the reports of your cruise.

 

Belated Birthday Greetings.

[sail7seas]

"We stopped for a bite and found they had a daily special. Ready for this? white asparagus"

 

Ah Jacqui, your comment on white asparagus brought back great memories of when we went to Switzerland in the 70s and 80s for conferences in which my husband's company was an exhibitor. There we discovered white asparagus and loved it. A couple of times I was able to buy it in the States but my preparation was never as good. Yum. Barbara

 

 

Our local Stop & Shop (major grocery store chain) has white asperagus and though I buy them, I don't prepare them as well as we had in Belgium. :( They are a treat but more of a treat when they are prefectly prepared by the professionals. :)

 

I still marvel at my memory of the lovely lace curtains on every window in Zeebruge and how clean every window sparkled. It struck us immediately going through the streets. We also remember a small boat ride through the city that was lovely. :)

 

Happy you had such a lovely birthday celebration, Jacqui.

 

 

[startwin]

Jacqui, your reports are just great, I'm so enjoying them. And now you are bringing back memories for me from (many :o) years ago trips around Europe. Looking forward to the next installment.:)

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thursday May 30th - Le Havre, France

 

OK, I can see I was caught by a number of you!! Yes, it's the birthday today. Thank you so much for all of your kind wishes.

 

I hate to disappoint some of you but we DID NOT go to Paris. I'm not wasting 6 hours on a bus for a short visit. Instead, we had a private transfer arranged to go to Honfleur and see a bit of LeHavre. When I went to the Ocean Bar to meet our group, Georgina (gigianne) started them all singing Happy Birthday. (pretty sure it was all her fault). Very red faced - I thought I was going to skip this stuff!

 

I had a thought about a coffee or drink at an outside cafe in HonFleur. That was not to be as it was simply pouring rain! Our poor guide took us to a look out spot and we couldn't see a thing because of the rain and the mist. So off to Honfleur we went just the same.

 

We got an overview of this pretty spot and then all bopped around on our own. Had a small bite with Bobbie & Ken (sapper1) at a local restaurant. We thought we had ordered some type of local fish and chips and it turned out to be mussels and fries. Kind of a strange combination. A huge turine of mussels and we quickly found out why - they are much smaller than those we get back home. So, while it looked huge, it was just a lot of work to get those little devils out. HOnfleur is very pretty and a great spot. If it had been nicer weather I would hav potentially negotiated with our driver to stay longer if the group was so inclined, but with the weather we had, there really was no need. Rain, rain, go away!

 

Bought a bottle of their famous Calvados and some cheese and wine before we headed back to the ship. Unloaded our bags and caught the free shuttle supplied by the port and headed back into LeHavre.

 

Before I forget, something strange happened at the check in. When we boarded with out wine I was asked over to a desk - I thought he was going to examine my bottles but instead he wanted to know how many bottles of wine I had and our room number??? I've never seen this before and it didn't carry on all day, so I'm not sure what the purpose of it was. We also got a survey from LeHavre asking us to tell how much money we spent, what we did and that kind of stuff. Idon't know if the two are connected or not or if they are doing a survey for their wine policy. When we returned to the ship later that day, they were not doing the wine thing.

 

We did some browsing around LeHavre, grabbed some more pics and since the shuttle just happened to appear just as we were walking in that direction we decided to head back to the ship.

 

Once we got back I found something to put some flowers in I had bought in LeHavre (peonies and roses since I am going to miss my peonies back home). Well, the room became full with flowers as Jose had ordered some for my birthday. In came Nylo, the concierge with them singing happy birthday.

 

Ok, first of all I had decided to avoid the MDR to skip this happy birthday singing. Turned it out it was NOT going to work.

 

Happy birthday sung in the ocean bar when I went to meet my private tour group, then in the Crow's Nest later on, then by my friends, my stewards...it just went on and on. Just no escape for the wicked! All in all a very good day despite the rain in HonFleur and, besides the sun had come out once we returned to Le Havre. A lot of happy people to see that!

 

Had a great time with my friends and received some very nice

presents that I didn't deserve and most of all, we all had fun.

 

We were sure that we were bound to win at the Casino but it was not to be. (BIG SURPRISE).

 

Playing in he Showroom tonight was the all variety show featuring Back to Broadway.

 

The next day we found out that the faithful Canadian contingent finally won Name that Tune. We were happy for them as we knew they really wanted their pins!

 

Glad you had a wonderful birthday in spite of the rain.

 

Strange about the questions concerning the wine.

 

A couple of years ago we got surveys about a couple of Caribbean ports (and we had been to those ports many times and never had gotten anything before).

[Krazy Kruizers]

Friday - May 31, 2013 - Zeebrugge, Belgium.

 

What a great day - first of all because I did not arrange a private tour today. Today, we went on Ruth Ann's tour (ncgolferette). She is one of the wicked witches as early on we decided that we would not re-invent the wheel so she took this port while I worked on St. Malo & Le Havre. Each of us did our own thing for Cherbourg as she was doing the American beaches and we the Canadian. It has been a lot of fun planning with the wicked witches and even more fun to finally cruise with them!

 

 

Got chocolates for our guide in Russia who has been so wonderful to deal with, some tapestry pillow covers for my friends who are leaving tomorrow and lace for my friend whose birthday is June 1st as she leaves. Mn

 

I'm going to miss all the great people who are getting off at the end of the TA - but a lot of our roll call is staying on and we have more great people joining us!

 

So back to this beautiful city - it is absolutely exquisite - if you haven't been go - taxi transfers are very cheap and much easier than the train that does not go often enough IMO and is quite a distance from the pretty part. Our taxi was a mere 15 euros per couple each way (with tip) and went as smooth as silk. Thanks Ruth Ann!

 

We stopped for a bite and found they had a daily special. Ready for this? white asparagus. I asked if it was any good and he told me it was high season. Jose had their fish soup (delicious) and I had their white asparagus special. I have never seen aspargus so huge. It was cooked to absolute perfection. Not too well done and not too soft. So big. absolutely incredible - covered with egg, parsley and some butter stuff. hmm good. Of course we had a couple of Belgian beers to go with it. Every beer here comes with it's own glass!

 

We were ready for our transfer back to the ship and a bit early so we sought a nice spot to share a glass of wine and use the 'facilities'. Two blocks off the main square was a little outside cafe. I knew I hit it big when I met two English ladies who had taken the ferry over a couple of days ago. They had ordered a tea and got some type of crumpet and some type of appertif (all included and not shown on the menu). I ordered our glass of wine which DH and I shared and it came on a silver tray with little pastries with filling and little cookies. What a presentation! All this for 4 euros. Really nice, quiet - absolutely perfect!

 

After a glorious day in this beautiful spot we headed back to the ship knowing we were going to the Pinnacle early. Last night for my friends so it was a must.

 

Another absolutely fantastic dinner. Another mixture of choices. Hmm hmm good.

 

In the room were chocolate covered strawberries - I am guessing because we stayed on. Unfortunately, while I buy chocolates for friends, I am not a chocolate addict like Ruth C so I am going to have to find someone to share them with or they will go to waste.

 

I didn't realize until I looked later that the Showroom at Sea was showing Oz the Great and Powerful. Oh well, no biggee. We were having too much fun to even worry about such things.

 

I gave my friends their little presents for their birthdays I wouldn't see or help them celebrate and I do believe a couple of us had some tears in our eyes as we knew we had to say farewell.

 

Georgina & Gerry are always a pleasure to cruise with and our other friends we haven't cruised with for over 20 years. Nothing has changed. We had a blast. Remember those silly horse races they used to do? and you dressed up the rider? She gave me a pic from more years ago than I care to disclose when she and I won for her being best dressed. So nice.

 

 

Tomorrow the clocks go back an hour which will really help a lot of people. We need to be off the ship by 9 am or we have to be escorted so I prefer to make everyone's life easy and we will get off and get back on later.

 

Having fun as I realize I don't have to have baggage out tonight and get to say, no we are staying on when people say good bye.

 

There are 300 people staying on the collectors cruise, so are roll call is a much larger percentage now since we have at least 55 staying on!

 

Signing off from the Elegant Explorer - oh - and my friends' opinion of the ship that we 'lured' on (and yes, I did lure them). They will happily sail again!

 

DH is not a fan of asparagus -- but a couple of years ago it was on the side of his entree and he loved it.

 

Another great day for you and great reading for us.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Did Jacqui enjoy her birthday one night and Pinnacle the next night that she forgot about us today?

[sail7seas]

Did Jacqui enjoy her birthday one night

 

and Pinnacle the next night that she forgot about us today?

 

Seems so. :)

 

Were they at sea or in port today?

 

[English_in_Spain]

Seems so. :)

 

Were they at sea or in port today?

 

 

Sunday 2nd June they were at sea (see itinerary post #36).

 

They are due to arrive in Copenhagen at 1pm today (Monday). Don't forget they are on European time.

 

[MissShelllly]

We have docked in Copenhagen and I suspect many have gone ashore. This is my first time on the Prinsendam and my DH and I love it. Our room is larger than expected and everyone is so friendly. It's easy to see why people love this ship.

 

Michelle.

[rafinmd]

We have docked in Copenhagen and I suspect many have gone ashore. This is my first time on the Prinsendam and my DH and I love it. Our room is larger than expected and everyone is so friendly. It's easy to see why people love this ship.

 

Michelle.

 

You said it!

 

Roy