Chasing Waterfalls – Day 12

We had a day of scenic cruising through the inside passage ahead of us. We did not have any plans until 09:00 and decided that the time had come for a bit of a lie in. We had set the alarm for 08:30, but we were awake just before 08:00. We got up and ready and then headed down to guest services where the meeting point for our activity was. On the way, we noticed that all the doors to the promenade deck had barriers in front of them, which did not bode well.

We found some seats outside the Grand Dutch Cafe where we had a clear view of guest services. At some stage, a couple of members of crew appeared and set up a table with fruit and ice water. That looked promising. People started to arrive and about 10 minutes before On Deck For A Cause was supposed to start, the sports director appeared. He advised us that he was waiting to find out whether we could go ahead. He also suggested that if we were not cleared to go outside, he would give us a guided tour of the ship, and we would get our steps in that way. Shortly after 09:00, he announced that he had been advised that we not only could not go outside, but we could not do the guided tour of the ship either due to the movement of the ship. He advised us to listen out for announcements in case the activity could be rescheduled for later in the day.  The whole thing seemed utterly ridiculous. I absolutely understood that they did not want us out on the promenade deck as it was pretty windy. However, the movement was minimal, and we have had much worse even in Alaska. I really did not get why we could not have done the tour of the ship.

We were invited to help ourselves to the fruit and we did just that. As we were already at the Grand Dutch Cafe, we figured we may as well get some coffee. Graham had an Americano, and I had a caramel latte. Then we headed over to the shops. Graham still had some on board credit that he had not used and as I had paid for On Deck For A Cause, he said he would get me a t-shirt. They had two port t-shirts for $30 that day and we ended up getting a Glacier Bay t shirt each. Then we headed back to the cabin to pack.

When we got back to the cabin, the laundry that I had sent in the day before was waiting for us. We packed, which did not take long. Then we headed out to the Lido to relax.

We had lunch at the buffet again. Graham had some assorted pasta, and I had a piece of lasagna and a Sloppy Joe with some fries. They had all kinds of cakes at the buffet that day, but the area where the cakes were was utter pandemonium and we passed.

That afternoon, it was back to two trivia sessions. The first one was movie trivia, which is not exactly our area of expertise. However, with the trivia events on this ship having been so limited, I was not going to pass one up. I thought we were out of luck as the B. B. King Blues Club was packed when we got there. There was one table that had only one lady at it, and we asked if we could join her. She was OK with this. This was not one of our better performances. We scored a measly 5 out of 19 with the winning score being 19.

During the trivia, Claire promoted the Lido Fun Fair. I figured that may be worth checking out. We quickly stopped at the dining reservation desk to make a reservation for dinner and then we headed up to the Lido. They had various carnival games like corn hole and ring toss set up around the lower deck of the Lido. You got a raffle ticket for playing and a second raffle ticket for winning. Every 5 minutes, the raffle was drawn. I did not win a prize, but I had a lot of fun.

Graham had kept out of the way on the upper level of the Lido. I went to get him once I was done and we headed down to Billboard On Board for the final team trivia of the cruise. Graham had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and I had a Gin’s Cup. Again, this was not a stellar performance for us. We only scored 8 out of 23 with the  winning score being 19.

After trivia, we went back to the upper deck of the Lido and enjoyed the views. There were some porpoises around. I tried to get some in a photo, but they are so quick that all I got was water.

 

We headed to the dining room in time for our dinner reservation. Graham had packed his trousers and was wearing a pair of shorts that went just below the knees. We are used to the dress code being more relaxed on the first and last nights. Apparently, that is not a thing on Holland America. We were turned away. We headed up to the buffet. The reason we had made a reservation for the dining room was that there was nothing on the buffet menu that evening that we fancied. As we had made quite a late dinner reservation, a lot of the stations at the buffet were already closed when we got there. Graham passed and just had some iced tea. I discovered the poutine station and decided to give this a go. I was not impressed. The fries and gravy were nice enough, but what they passed off for cheese curds had a funny texture.

Once I had finished my poutine, we headed back to the cabin. Graham got ready for bed. We had planned to give Charles a tip and I headed over to the Panorama bar. He was not there, and I was told that he would be back in an hour. I was quite tired by then, too and did not want to hang around that long. When I got back to the cabin, I got ready for bed and soon I was asleep.