This was a sea day and our final day of the cruise. We had not set an alarm and the do not disturb sign had gone out the previous day. We woke up around 09:30. We got up and ready. Then it was time to deal with the packing. This was not too bad as we had packed some of the laundry earlier in the cruise. Once the packing had been taken care of, we decided to get some coffee and take care of some odds and ends.
The line for the Grand Dutch Cafe was enormous. We gave up on this idea. Instead, we headed straight to the photo gallery. I had pre-purchased 10 photos ahead of the cruise. On Holland America, they still do physical prints, but they also give you a QR code to download digital copies. My colleagues had given me some onboard credit, and we also still had most of the onboard credit left that we had received from Holland America. I decided to use some of this for ten more photos. I picked my photos. I got a luggage tag, a memory box and a photo album as a gift.
We also stopped by the future cruise desk. We had a flyer the evening before offering future cruise deposits. They are valid for four years and if you don’t used them within this time frame, they automatically get refunded. Using them means that the deposit is a lot lower than normal. We figured that this was a win win situation. We purchased our future cruise deposits and then headed back to the cabin to drop off the photos and gifts. Then we headed to the buffet for some lunch.
Graham had a citrus tuna salad. I had some corn cheddar chowder soup, which was delicious. I then had some cheeseburger macaroni bake and some lasagna. They had a cake buffet that day and I had a slice of red velvet cake. This was much nicer than the red velvet roll that I had earlier in the cruise.
After lunch, we managed to snag a square lounger. We relaxed for a while. I downloaded the photos. At some stage, I headed downstairs. I wanted to get a Lewie the Lion plush. Last year, they had a Captain Lewie plush, but this year, they only had plain plushes. I found out afterwards that they bring out a limited-edition Lewie the Lion plush every year. Last year it was Captain Lewie. This year, it was World Traveller Lewie. I would have been all over this, but it appears this had already sold out. I adopted a Lewie the Lion and took him back to the cabin. Then I rejoined Graham.
We chilled out a little longer. Graham mentioned that there was a t-shirt sale at 14:00 and asked if I wanted to check it out. I liked the sound of this. We headed downstairs. We ended up getting a Norway t-shirt each. We found some seats near the shop. I went to get some coffee from the Grand Dutch Cafe. I got an Americano with almond milk for Graham and a caramel latte for myself. We stayed put until it was time to head downstairs for team trivia.
Team trivia that day was the busiest it had been all cruise. Graham had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and I had a Gin’s Cup while we were waiting for trivia to start. We scored 12 out of 21 and the winning score was 17. They were offering Dutch language trivia again that day. This time we joined two Dutch couples. We scored 13 out of 23. The winning score was 15.
After trivia, we headed back to the cabin. I sorted out the luggage tags and packed my hand luggage. I got changed for dinner. We still had some time until our reservation. We headed back outside. We managed to get a square lounger and relaxed for a bit longer. Once it was time for our reservation, we headed through the buffet to get to Tamarind.
We had one meal at a specialty restaurant included in our package. As we had really enjoyed Tamarind last year, we chose this again. Graham started with the shrimp tempura with sweet and sour sauce, and sesame noodles. He had the Mongolian lamb chop with baby bok choy, toasted sesame seeds, and mirin plum sauce and egg fried rice for his main course. He had the pineapple & coconut tapioca with lemon grass foam, and sesame tuile for this dessert. He had a couple of glasses of Sauvignon Blanc with dinner. I had the satay sampler which normally consists of Malaysian lamb, Indonesian chicken, Thai pork, peanut sauce, and atjar cucumber relish. As I do not eat lamb, I just had chicken and pork. For my main course, I had wasabi and soy crusted beef tenderloin with tempura onion rings, and tonkatsu sauce with egg fried rice. For my dessert, I had the selection of house-made sorbets, which consisted of a scoop each of lemon-basil, yuzu, and lychee sorbet. I had a couple of their cocktails. I started with a lychee martini, which consisted of Roku gin, Morimoto Junmai sake, and lychee liquor. I normally love everything with lychee, but this tasted a little anaemic. I then had the yuzu cocktail, which consisted of De Lijn gin, yuzu juice, vanilla, and soda. This was more to my liking. Dinner was really nice.
After dinner, Graham took the final photos of my outfit. I then headed downstairs to Billboard Onboard and he headed back to the cabin. There was a request set that evening. I submitted a request. I really would have loved to hear Samuel and Ellie play 1000 Years by Christina Perri. Sadly, it did not make the cut. They played a really nice selection, and I thoroughly enjoyed the set again.
I was tempted to stay on for the final set of the evening, but figured I had a busy day ahead. I headed back to the cabin. I packed my clothes from that day in the suitcase. Then I put our suitcases out. I got ready for bed and read for a while before settling down for my last night on the ship.
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