Off Baja California
December 21, 2017
The Amsterdam is much as we remembered her from our Alaska voyage 18 months ago, and (acknowledging we have not traveled the Prisendam) my preferred size and design among Holland America ships: well proportioned and apportioned, with Queens Lounge and Crow’s Nest Forward, La Fontaine dining room Aft, and a three-story atrium, now beautifully adorned with garland, several Christmas trees, and phenomenal crew-crafted ginger-bread houses, anchoring the center.
Atrium Christmas Village
Dinner in the La Fontaine was quite good, as was Judy Carmichael on jazz piano (with her first-time, improvisational drummer from the Amsterdam band) for the show in the Queens Lounge.
Alexander and David joined us most of the day, but also found time for shuffleboard and basketball on the Sports Deck, and for chess in the Exploration Cafe. Prior to dinner, they and I camped in the Piano Bar for a second humbling dose of team trivia.
Tho’ we may miss a veranda when passing thru the Panama Canal next week, our adjacent ocean-view cabins are quite comfortable. The peace and minimal motion of a lower-deck mid-ship location are diminished only slightly by the inconvenience of being several levels below the nearest deck to which we typically ever go.
Stairs, however, furnish convenient exercise to excise (and a rationale to later re-indulge) the infusions of food and drink in which the higher decks are awash. They also lead ultimately to the gym, the view from which provides motivation to accelerate the most common, and most futile, of New Year resolutions.
Kitchen Tour
JD
