I almost drooled when you described the Mariner Rolls! I hope you get a chance to take a picture of one (but I will probably gain ten pounds looking at it .) And I hope you had a pineapple fruit kabob - I think they are better than strawberries with chocolate.
Part II of your cruise sounds perfect so far. May it only get better.
The shows and menus are all just about the same for both cruises - just in a different order. The only different menu we have this week is the Indonesian dinner which wasn't offered last week because of all the children we had on the ship. Joe was so looking forward to that menu, but we are going to the Pinnacle tonight.
When you enter from the hallway, you are in a small entrance way. The first door on the right leads to the pantry - complete with a big refrigerator, toaster, coffee machine, micro-wave, a traditional box of various teas, coffee in jars in the cub-board with all the necessary sugars, etc., cups, saucers. The next door on the right is a guest bathroom which has a sink in the first section and a toilet in the second section. Across from these 2 doors in the entrance way is an ornate table and mirror recessed into the wall. When we were on the Rotterdam, there was also an umbrella stand by the table.
You walk into the dining room area which has a huge dining room table (with a lovely arrangement of flowers) and 8 chairs. The dining room table is where I do all my typing and go onto the internet. Built into the wall is a server which stores tons of Waterford glasses of all types - water glasses to champagne glasses to cordials. Name it and they are there. Also in the drawers are up-scale eating utensils. On top is our ice buckets and a fancy tree with lights for night-time as well as our fruit basket. In the dining room on one wall is a big oil painting, In one corner of the dining as you approach the living room, also recessed in the wall is a 5 foot statue - she is holding a bird in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other hand. Laying beside her is a lion. On the Rotterdam, our statue had one hand held out where our fruit tray was placed.
This area is also the entrance to our verandah. There are 2 enormous sliding glass doors as well as two other floor to ceiling glass panels. Our patio has a larger wood table complete with four padded wicker chairs as well as flowers on the table. There are 2 big padded lounge chairs with a big wooden cocktail table in between them. All the furniture is different than what we had on our verandah. Also a non-skid surface has replaced the old wooden deck flooring.
When we went out on the verandah the first day, we noticed that there weren’t any handles on the outside of the doors in order to close them as required to keep the air conditioning in control. You had to put your hands on the edge and push the doors shut. We saw our hotel manager the other day and he was asking us if everything was alright and if we needed anything. We told him everything was fine - BUT - we needed handles on the outside of the verandah doors. He admitted that he didn’t know about this and would check into it. When we returned from dinner last night, a couple of maintenance men were installing handles on the doors!! Our cabin steward was just assigned to this area a couple of weeks ago and he even admitted that it was difficult to close the doors in order to clean the outside of the windows. This is the 563rd voyage of the Maasdam and we wonder why no one ever reported the problem of no handles on the outside of the doors before. Did the previous people just let the doors open all the time?
Between the dining room and living room is a cabinet with a large plant on top. On the living room side, this cabinet opens up to reveal a fold-away bed. Next to this cabinet is another cabinet with the DVD, radios, all kinds of fancy stuff. And next to this and right by the outer wall which is a large glass window that goes from the ceiling to almost the floor, is a desk that also has a window that looks out onto the verandah and the ocean. The living room contains 2 big, comfy chairs, a big wrap around sofa, and a large table (again flowers on it). Also by the sofa is another big window for viewing the ocean. At the end of the sofa by the big window is a ledge with another large plant.
To the one side of the living room is the bedroom area which can be separated from the other areas by curtains. The bedroom area has an over-sized king bed. This is where the dressing table is along one wall with a couple of drawers and 1 cabinet for storage. One thing I did notice, there aren’t any electrical outlets here for the hair dryer.
From the one side of the bedroom you enter the bathroom area which has 2 sinks and 2 very large storage cabinets. There is also a very large whirlpool bath tub complete with gargoyle for water to pour into the tub if you choose not to use the regular faucet. There is also a separate, round shower stall with a sliding glass door. This we found amusing even on the Rotterdam - there is a mirror that can be turned around to reveal a storage area. There is also a massager as well as jets to relax you while you shower. The bathroom has a separate toilet area with a bidet, sink and built-in storage cabinet.
To the other side of the bathroom area is the walk-in dressing area which contains 2 very large closets for hanging clothes and storing luggage, 2 closets with floor to ceiling shelves and a another closet with a couple of shelves, the safe and 4 drawers for storage.
The one thing that we noticed right away is that the bathroom and closet area is not as large as the one we had on the Rotterdam. And then we knew why. The Rotterdam is a slightly wider ship than the Maasdam, thus those areas are wider.
For quite a while we saw many more whales and a couple of more seals before we headed deeply into the St Lawrence River.
This afternoon we had the suite buffet which was great as usual. The main entrees were the same but we had a couple of different desserts.
After lunch there was the Name the Theme TV trivia again which we went to. No -- the TV shows were not the same as last week. But we did much better -- 22 points out of 24!! Our team came in second!! The winning team had 23 points.
After that we sunned out on our verandah for a couple of hours.
This evening was the Captain’s Welcome Aboard Toast. It was done a little bit differently than last week. Not only was the hotel manager and chief engineer introduced, but a couple of others were introduced - the cruise consultant and the employee of the month. And this time the HUGE fake bottle of champagne was sitting on a table. Upon opening it, the confetti sprayed up into the air and into the front rows of the show room.
We don’t have as many children on board this cruise, maybe around 20. And for the first formal night there were certainly a lot more in tuxedos and white dinner jackets. There are a couple of small groups on board - maybe 20 or 30 in each group.
Yonnie-
I was fortunate to get a peek at the Veendam's PS as a very special CC member invited me in for a tour! What an amazing place! Nothing like soaking with a Gargoyle staring at you!! What color marble is the bathroom done in, the Veendams was a beautiful marble with red in it. It was extrarodinary!!
Enjoy your little piece of heaven!! Thanks for taking the time to share!!
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Live from the Maasdam - And now for the Return trip - Aug 25 - Sept 1
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.) And I hope you had a pineapple fruit kabob - I think they are better than strawberries with chocolate.
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