The explorations café is loaded with games. Suzi, our friends John and Pam, and I play Mexican Train Dominos.  There were 6 sets. (Our set is who knows where but not here, we may find it in Hawaii).  We picked one and counted the pieces.  There are supposed to be 91 dominos but there were 92.  We started to play figuring that when we found the duplicate we would pull it out of the game.  We found the duplicate, and then another duplicate, and then another and even more! And lots pieces that were supposed to be there weren’t.  So, we pulled out all the sets and started counting.  There were no complete sets.  Some had too many, some too few.  One set had a note “Complete set, 1/3/26” but when we counted it was one domino short.  I devised a system, based on geometric patterns, to sort tiles and reconstitute sets.  We ran out of time when we got two sets complete so we put a note in one saying it was complete and took the other to a stateroom room so the next day we could play without counting. 

This process turned out to be too much fun.  Our laughter drew several kibitzers.  One woman, who had been on the Zaandam holiday sailing the week before told us there were a lot of “nasty children” messing with the games. On our last cruise some jerk went through all the jigsaw puzzles and removed one piece from each box. That could not have been a kid.  There was only one kid on board and she was not yet two. That night I was talking with Cruise Director, Rebekah. She had gotten a note about the dominos and replaced all the sets around 8PM (they were missing one 😊.)  She held to the “nasty kids” theory.  Zaandam has a capacity of 1432 but only 1062 onboard and this is an older crowd with more than 300 singles, meaning that most of the staterooms are occupied, if not full.

Rebekah will be presiding over a lot of theme parties that are not part of regular cruises on this 93 day cruise. Decorations for these parties were stowed on the Promenade Deck for the first few days creating kind of a walking giant slalom course.  But they’re being packed away someplace else giving me back my wonderful aft views on my walk around the Promenade deck. 

Today I met Corinne playing Irish tunes on the pennywhistle on my walk.

We have some new staff.  At first one of the fellows making omelets in the Lido wasn’t so skilled at flipping them over so a couple of us got spinach bacon scramble.  He offered a redo but it all goes into the same place.  Today (Thursday) he proudly flipped my omelet over and back into the pan perfectly.

In the main dining room, a new waiter (a tablemate with 30 years in the restaurant business was sure he was new because he was expending about three times the energy necessary to do his job) was instructed on the “order of service” as if waiting table was kind of a liturgy, and he wouldn’t budge from the rubrics.  Some of our tablemates ordered a starter and a salad.  They asked him to bring them together. But that is not the “order of service” so first the starter, then the salad.  One of our tablemates ordered a starter for her main course and told the waiter to bring it with the rest of the mains.  Nope, starters are starters and you stick with the liturgy.  So, after the salad and the starter he brought the second starter which the rest of us watched her eat before we got our mains.  Then she got to watch us eat.  We all decided to skip dessert.  This was a table of great conversationalists.  We had a lot of stories, by dinner’s end we each had one more.  

Our breakfast waiter is also new.  She started with HAL in November.  Her dad made a career at HAL.  She grew up on his travel stories and wants to follow him.  She must have had it bred into her. She is that good.

Each year there are changes and this year there are some good ones.  The Destination Guide (under a different name) is back.  She not only gives port lectures but holds office hours to help us plan our time ashore one on one.  This position went away in 2020.  (Our Guide, Emryn, is an Alaska Naturalist, looking forward, as we are, to seeing some of “our” Alaska whales in Hawaii where we have scheduled two whale watches.)  Two people were added in guest services specifically tasked to provide special services for four and five star mariners (their loyalty program) and main stage has gone back to a live band to back up entertainers rather than a recorded soundtrack.

But to bury the lede, we got an email from Luggage Forward saying that the luggage was delivered to Honolulu.  Checking at the front desk Holland America confirms that their agent has our bags.   Fingers crossed on the next sea day we will have our own set of dominos.