It’s not Déjà vu, it’s a little different from that.  We’re sailing on our third R class Holland America Ship, Zaandam.  All R classes have nearly identical floor plans but different decors, and with each going into dry dock at different times they have different modifications.  It is like visiting Levittown two decades after it sold its first Cape Cod cottage.  (I didn’t grow up in Levittown but in a Claus designed Cape Cod and watched as the all the houses in our group of 7 grew apart over 50 years.)

Zaandam came out of Drydock in February, about 4 months after Volendam, which we were on a year ago.  They made some of the same modifications as Volendam but also changed a few things that they modified, perhaps based on their experience with Volendam.  The sinks for hand washing in the Lido are a bit different and there is a slightly different configuration of toilets, which were redone for handicapped access.

Our stateroom, except for the painting on the wall, is exactly the same as our stateroom on last year’s Pole to Pole cruise on Volendam, on the same deck and in exactly the same place bow to stern.  BUT we’re on the starboard rather than the port side this year. We want to turn left rather than right to get to the Explorer’s Lounge for classical music.  But when we get to this familiar shaped space the décor is all wrong, so we don’t think we’re in the right place.  But the music is good.  Suzi notes that the rooms that were too hot on Volendam are a bit chilly on Zaandam, or the other way around — or not.  Does she grab a shawl? (Does she even have a shawl; our luggage is still in the aether.)

The theme on this ship is music.  The center piece in the Atrium is a one manual Dutch (of course) style Baroque organ based on a barrel organ.  We have not heard it play and I am not sure if we will.  It has gotten mixed reviews on Cruise Critic, and it is old, well not as old as a real Baroque organ but for a bit of ship equipment, old.  There is supposed to be a saxophone with the mouthpiece autographed by Bill Clinton.  I haven’t found it yet.

On sailing day we saw our ship pull in, it had a clean white forward, a blank slate.  At 8 AM workers started applying the cruise super graphic, where the “We (heart) Alaska” had recently been scraped off (or painted over).  It took about 4 hours, and I checked in from our window occasionally, between breakfast and visiting with a friend from IREX (with whom we worked on USAID projects in a previous live.)

It was a beautiful day, and we made two runs to the ship from the hotel dragging baggage, first the substitute bags we packed because we had no idea if our bags would arrive at the ship when we left Sitka, and then our carry on rollers and briefcases.  Check in started at 11 for some guests.  It had to be complete by 4.  We checked in at 3, which meant no lines and no harassing photographer to beg us to allow him to take our picture.

We visited the lifeboat station and watched the video and then went to the sail away party at 4 on the aft deck that emptied quickly when the formally beautiful day turned into a rain squall.  Just as the squall broke the captain came on with his emergency announcement.  We had dinner, skipped the show and got the stuff that we do have squared away.

We are onboard, off on another adventure, and live in hope of suitcases in Honolulu.