Chasing Waterfalls – Day 7

We had slept well and woke up just after 07:00. We got up, took turns having a shower and then we headed out to get some breakfast. We went to the buffet. I was surprised how busy it was that early in the morning. There were no seats in the buffet itself, but they have tables and chairs near the buffet in the Lido. I got myself a bowl of congee with beef, boiled egg, and soy sauce. This was amazing. I also got some pork link sausages and breakfast potatoes. Graham went to check out the offerings, but people were pushing in left, right and centre and he gave up on this idea. He had also spotted something on the daily programme that he was interested in. I told him to go ahead, and I would join him once I had finished my food.

They had a coffee chat at one of the lounges that morning with the cruise director Alex. She seemed really nice. At the back of the lounge, they had set up coffee, tea, pastries, fruit, and cookies. Graham had got an assortment of goodies. I had intended to just get a cup of coffee, but Graham told me that the cookies were really nice. It would have been rude not to get a cookie. He was right. It was really nice.

During the coffee chat, Alex interviewed the on-board wildlife guide Dominic. He is from Hawaii but spends the summers covering the Alaska season as fulltime wildlife guide. He told us a bit about how he came to do this job. He told us what kind of wildlife we may encounter and where we had the best chance to see the different kind of wildlife. He also introduced the talks and activities that he was hosting throughout the cruise. I thought having a wildlife guide on board for every Alaska cruise was a nice touch. Better still, contrary to the guy that Royal Caribbean had rolled out on our Alaska cruise on Ovation, it actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

After the coffee chat, I wanted to explore the ship. Graham said that he was up to this. We ended up outside and Graham lost interest in going exploring. I started to feel chilly and left him to it. I did thoroughly explore decks 2 and 3. In the process, I found the shops. I always like to buy a ship model and a Spirit Jersey whenever I sail on a new ship.  I was in luck with the ship model, but they did not have any Spirit Jerseys on Koningsdam.

I still had a little bit of time until the next event. I quickly headed to the cabin to pick up my iPad. Then I headed to World Stage to get a good seat. I had intended to read, but I checked if they still had any excursions for Skagway that involved Husky puppies. I was in luck. The had an excursion that combined gold panning and meeting husky puppies. Better still, unlike most excursions that involved husky puppies, this did not take you into the Yukon but was on the outskirts of Skagway. It was good value, too. I had some onboard credit to use, and this nearly covered the excursion. This was too good to pass up.

The event that I had picked up was called Pacific Giants – Iconic Whales of the Northwest. This was hosted by our cruise director Alex. It was amazing. They had a huge, curved screen on the stage and footage of whales altered with famous marine biologists giving information about the different species of whales. I love this kind of thing, and I was definitely in my element. The presentation ended with the story of three grey whales that got trapped in ice and had various countries, businesses, organisations, and the local population work together to free the whales. This was a truly inspirational story.

After the presentation, I quickly went back to the cabin on the off chance that Graham was there. He was not. Then I headed for lunch at the buffet. I had spaghetti with meatballs, spice rubbed brisket, and a cheesy roll. I had a Coke with my lunch. At the front of the buffet, they had a machine for soft serve ice cream. I got one of those on the way out. The flavour of the day was raspberry soft serve, which was delicious.

 After lunch, I quickly headed back to the cabin once more. At some stage, Graham had been there as his telescope was gone. He was however not there at that moment. I went up to the Crow’s Nest, but he was not there either. I took a turn around both levels of the Lido and then I found myself a lounger to read for a bit.

I absolutely loved the Lido on Koningsdam. The Lido covered two decks and had a retractable glass roof. This was open when I had tried to find Tamarind the previous day but had been closed by the time we had finished dinner. It stayed closed for the rest of the cruise. The Lido had decent sized pool, three hot tubs, tables, and chairs as well as loungers on the lower level and loungers and sofas on the upper level. They did not have the round loungers that I love so much on Royal Caribbean, but they had square loungers that were quite similar. That is where I made myself comfortable while reading.

I could have happily spent the rest of the day there. There was however somewhere else I needed to be. There was one thing that surprised me on Holland America, and this was the relative shortage of trivia. Most days they had a themed trivia at 13:00, a team trivia at 16:00 and then some kind of music trivia in the evening. Music trivia is not our forte. I did not really want to miss any trivia if I could avoid it. There was also the element that I still had not managed to find Graham and he knew about this trivia. I was hoping that he would turn up for this.

The theme that afternoon was history trivia. Trivia was handled differently from what I am used to.  With Royal Caribbean, the quiz host just asks the questions and then once all questions have been asked, the answers are given, and everybody scores their quiz sheet. It is short and sweet. The trivia on Koningsdam worked different. Our entertainment host Claire introduced herself, explained the rules and asked the first question. Then she went around the room asking for the team names. She did this for a few teams and then asked the next question before checking for a few more team names. This made the whole process somewhat lengthy. We did have some fun with this later on the cruise though. On this day, because it was just me, I did not bother with a team name.

We had 15 questions plus one bonus question. Claire also told us that for every trivia she hosts, the answer for question 13 would be the same. The answer to this turned out to be Philippines. History is a bit of a hobby for me. I got 17 out of 20 possible points and the winning score was 19. For once, I actually really wanted the prize. On Holland America, they give out tulip ornaments at trivia. The tulips have the name of the ship on them and apparently there is a different colour for each ship.

One thing that caused some amusement was the bonus question. The question was to name the last four first ladies of the USA. I have to admit that this gave me some pause as well as there are different ways to interpret this. I came to the conclusion that they would probably looking for four different individuals. Hence, I went back to Laura Bush, which was he correct answer. There seemed to be some cultural differences on how the question was answered. People from Australia, Europe and Canada seemed to have answered the question in the same way I had, whereas people from the USA only had three names on their answer sheet as Melania Trump has been the first lady twice.

After the trivia, I decided I better try to find Graham. I checked the cabin again and then decided to check out the back pool deck. This is another example of the design of this ship being quite eccentric. To get to the aft pool deck, you have to walk through the buffet. This seems very strange although the same was the case when we sailed on Princess. As I passed through the buffet, I noticed that they had various snacks on one counter and one of them was corn dogs. I cannot resist corn dogs. I got one and headed out to the pool deck.

I did indeed find Graham there. He had found himself a lounger that was quite sheltered. I joined him and enjoyed my corn dog. There is a bar in this area. I fancied a drink and went with a margarita, which was nice. I noticed that they had all kinds of Alaskan craft beers. I mentioned this to Graham. He decided to try an IPA that was brewed in Juneau.

After we had spent a while relaxing and had finished our drinks, we headed down to the Billboard On Board lounge for team trivia. They had roving bar tenders. Graham had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. I had a Miami Beach Spritz, which consisted of Aperol, prosecco, cherry liqueur, and soda. I had high hopes for this as the cocktail combined a lot of ingredients that I really love. Well, obviously you can have too much of a good thing. The ingredients did not play well together. The finished result reminded me of cough syrup.

Team trivia was a general knowledge trivia. Claire did the same thing with the team names again. Graham was utterly bewildered by this, and I was still not a fan either. Later in the cruise, we adopted and approach of “if you cannot beat them, join them”. We scored a respectable 16 out of 21. The winning score was 20.

After team trivia, we headed back to the cabin to get showered and changed. Both of us had a fairly early lunch and as we did not have a reservation, we decided to head down to dinner pretty soon after the dining room opened. Considering that the ship is relatively small, the dining room seemed to be a long way from our cabin. On the way we came past various backdrops. Most of them did not inspire me. The only one I did like, a backdrop with the ship, had a crazy line. I figured I could always come back later.

When we headed to the dining room, it had not been open long but was already pretty busy. However, after a short wait at the podium, we were taken upstairs and were seated. The dining room is an impressive space with a gorgeous contemporary chandelier.

Dinner that night was one of the two gala menus as it was a dressy night. Graham started with the escargot, and I had the French onion soup. This was delicious and as it was only topped with a cheesy crouton rather than completely covered with bread and cheese, it was easier to eat than the Royal Caribbean version. Service was painstakingly slow. It took forever from when we had finished our starters until we got our main courses. Graham had the garlic and herb roasted chicken with tomato, corn, and avocado salad. He was not too impressed with this. The chicken was very dry. My main was amazing. I had the cracked pepper tenderloin with grilled shrimp, green beans, caramelized pineapple, and Balsamic reduction. This was cooked to perfection and an explosion of flavour. We both had some Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling with dinner. Graham passed on dessert, but I decided to have the Strawberry Romanoff, which consisted of strawberries, Grand Marnier, and Chantilly cream. This was both light and delicious.

I could not be bothered to go back to the photo opportunities after dinner. Graham took a couple of photos of me and my outfit of the day by a guitar sculpture near the lounges. Then we headed back to the cabin where we found a new towel animal friend. We had decided to get some fresh air, and I needed a layer. We went out on the open deck on deck 10 for a while to play away the cobwebs. On the way back, we discovered the Panorama Bar. We decided to stop for a night cap. Graham had a couple of glasses of white wine, and I had a mango margarita to start off with. I decided I fancied another flavour for my second drink and ordered a passionfruit margarita. They were out of passionfruit, but one option I was offered was watermelon. This was so good and turned into my go to drink for the rest of the cruise. The main bartender at the Panorama Bar, Charles was from St. Lucia. He had spotted our Royal Caribbean lanyards and started talking with us. He used to work for Royal Caribbean. He was a really nice guy.

Once we had finished our second drink, we said goodnight to Charles and headed back to the cabin. We got ready for bed. I read a chapter of my book and then we both went to sleep.