Day 1 - Rotterdam to New Statendam

 I had a wake up call set for 6:30 am after going to bed at 8, but during the night returning to bed from the bathroom in the dark at 12:30, I missed the bed and fell on the hard floor and cut my head above my right eye and I could not get it to stop bleeding. Every time I thought it had stopped and I was in bed I felt the blood running down my face and I would have to get up and clean it off my face and change bandaids. I finally gave up on sleep around 3 and got up and worked on my blog and read. I managed to get it to stop bleeding for short periods of time and managed to get my bags outside my door at 7 and went to my included breakfast at 7:15. After eating, I returned to the room and read until 10 when I checked out and sat in the lobby until the bus came to take us to the terminal at 10:20.  Check-in was a breeze since there was a separate line for Priority passengers and I went to the waiting area until they started boarding (about 15 minutes). After boarding, the cabins were not ready yet so everyone had to go the Lido deck. I finally went down to deck 8 and found my cabin was ready. I got my bags fairly quickly and  met my cabin attendants. Before unpacking, I had to go to the Promenade deck to check in at my muster station which took about 15 seconds. I returned to the cabin and unpacked my suitcases and found a place for everything. The last occupant of this cabin had left the safe open but locked and I had to have guest services come and unlock it before I could put in my lock code.  We set sail around 4 pm and I went to the sail away around the Sea View poolside. I had a margarita and watched all these older folks dancing like they were on a Carnival Cruise ship. There were too many people for me so I went to guest services to find the trick to changing my internet plan to multiple devices since I could not find the secret on this ship. The internet guru got me fixed up in no time and for $230 I upgraded to 4 devices and didn't feel bad about it since I had $1720 in ship board credit.

 I returned to the cabin and took a shower and got ready for the singles and solos gathering at 6. It was much the same as previous ones but the cruise director held a game among the 25 or so women and 2 men where you had to tell 3 things about you where 2 were true and 1 was a lie. Sort of interesting. Later I went to dinner and shared a table with a couple from Britain and a couple from New York and Florida as well as one of the women from the singles and solos meeting. She was in the movie business with Sony pictures and was now retired and living in Arizona. After dinner, I did some shopping and bought a HAL polo type shirt and some seal and heal band aids. I went back to the cabin to update the blog. I plan to get some real sleep tonight.

My cabin 

My view of Rotterdam from my verandah

My Verandah

Day 0+ DFW-Amsterdam-Rotterdam

 Today was a long one as I got up early and got ready to go early and my car service did not arrive until 12:45 pm. Got the DFW airport at 1:20 and checked my bags, went through TSA Touchless line and was at the gate at 1:40 for my 4:30 flight.  Of course, it was delayed for about 30 minutes. 

The flight was great as I had an aisle seat on the center left of the 4 seat middle of the 777 and the seat next to me was empty so I had a bit of extra room.  I didn't sleep during the overnight flight, but  I watched the movie the Arrival and read. The meals were good and we arrived at 8:39 am in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam.  Passport control was a breeze as there was no line and I proceeded to the baggage hall where the bags from my flight didn't start coming out for 40 minutes and my bags came out about 30 minutes later. I went through the nothing to declare and met up with the Holland America representative where 4 of us had to wait another half-hour for our driver to arrive. We then walked a long way through the airport to the van and off we went to Rotterdam. 

One woman was staying the the Hilton while the other 3 of us were at the Doubletree  by Hilton which caused some confusion as the woman was staying at the Doubletree on her post cruise stay. We got to our hotel at 1:45 after dropping the first woman off at her hotel. I checked in and got instructions from the HAL rep at the hotel about dropping off our  bags outside our room before 8 am and would see them in our cabin after boarding. I went to my room and rested and read and watched CSI: Miami dubbed in Dutch, very odd.  I also watched the news about the raging fires in France, Spain and Italy. I finally went to bed around 8 and got up at 12:30 for a bit before going back to bed.