We had a sea day yesterday. I am posting this while waiting for our tender to be called.
Our cabin is very comfortable but it does has its pros and cons. Pro, it is 10 paces from our door to the outside promenade deck. It makes it easy for me to get up and walk my mile. (By the way, I’ve been BUSTED! Someone painted one way signs on the promenade deck and they point counterclockwise. I guess they were there all along but I didn’t notice them. When I started obeying the signs one woman told me she was disappointed. “This cruise needs a rebel.”)
Con, at night we have to keep our curtains closed because the promenade deck is well lit. I usually sleep with open curtains to allow the sun to wake me naturally. There’s a deck chair and locker disguised as a bench on the promenade deck, right outside our window. It’s almost like having our own balcony without paying for it. This room is less expensive than outside rooms a deck below. I suppose that is because people may fear peeping Toms looking into the window. That’s not easy because outside the glass is mirrored. Only people who put their face up to the window can really see in, and to do that they have to climb over a deck chair or locker. If someone looks in he gets what he disesrves. (Pictures me looking in and then looking out.)
If we walk 10 paces aft we find the stairs and a lift. The dining room is just to the aft of that staircase. If we walk forward we are on the ground floor of the atrium and it’s only one flight up to the main lobby and theater. Our room is in a convenient location. The down side to that location is that we are right under the kitchen. Sometimes, when they roll carts it sounds like a bowling tournament overhead. Fortunately breakfast in the dining room doesn’t start until 8 AM. If we oversleep because the drapes are closed the kitchen gets us up. Unlike many hotel rooms this cabin has lots of light.
The ship is ready for a refit and will be dry docked as soon as this cruise is over. Perhaps they waited too long. The room next to us was crawling guys in white coveralls making a lot of noise. One of the pipes under the kitchen broke flooding the room. Fortunately none of it has seemed to seep into our room. In the theater it started “raining” a few days ago. Some folks with staterooms on the deck above were rousted out of bed at 8:30 AM because to have their bathtubs re-caulked. I don’t know if that was the cause of the “rainfall” but during several shows there were buckets around the theater catching water.
The ship’s décor is mostly it is modern ranging from art deco to Star Trek, but there are some weird touches. In the Crow’s Nest, the lounge at the top and in front of the ship, there’s one pillar that’s not like the others. It’s a white column with a faux Corinthian capital; it looks completely out of place. There has to be a reason it was put there but no one I’ve spoken with has a clue.
More disturbing are the huge and hideous bare breasted monopods holding up art nouveau light fixtures in an otherwise very clean deco theater. They not only line the theater walls but stand like an honor guard in a row at the entrances. They look like something that would be in a New Jersey restaurant patronized by Tony Soprano. Overall, though, we are very comfortable on Amsterdam.
