AT SEA AT LAST – JANUARY 4, 2025

We aren’t used to making a photo record of our lives, so we missed several Photo Ops on Embarkation Day!

The van that picked us up at the hotel was “packed” – packed with 15 passengers and loaded with a trailer full of luggage, duffle bags and boxes, we did wear mask this time. One lady standing beside us did not have the required HAL luggage tags on her suitcases. When we asked about it, she said “They’ll do it for me, I couldn’t figure out how to do it.” We knew that a not going to happen at the busy terminal. We politely explained the “error of her ways” and John helped her with the tags the ship provided, which were still in her purse. The porters collected all the luggage upon arrival at the terminal and away it went! It was waiting for us when we went to our cabin.

The Check In progress went smoothy and quickly. There were a lot fewer people than for our Christmas Cruise last year, I think there will be about 1,200 for this World Cruise. Holland America has a competing Pole to Pole Cruise at approximately the same time and some of the “regular” World Cruisers have taken that Cruise. We’ll meet up with the MS Volendam in Barcelona, Spain in April. During our boarding they served juices, water and coffee along with stewards passing out plates of warm cookies (let the eating begin)! Promptly at 12:00 the first group began boarding. The ship’s Captain, Hospitality Director and Cruise Director greeted each passenger as we came aboard.

Our room wasn’t available so we headed straight to the Lido Deck so John could get his Hamburger and Fries. He was a happy man! Actually, we split the burger and fries. People laughed when John said we plan to lose weight on this cruise (or at least, hope we don’t gain)! When we got to our cabin, everything was there – John’s worst nightmare! Now we just have to find a “home” for it all.

We left the mess in the cabin behind and went to the Dining Room for dinner! All the ladies received a long stem red rose (with thorns removed)! We’ve already decided this isn’t a bad way to live! John had shrimp cocktail, French onion soup and a scoop of vanilla ice cream (I told you he was going to be “good”) I had shrimp cocktail, grouper and crème Brulee (both of which I shared with John.) Don’t plan to report on our meals every day but we are off to a delicious start!

Back to our room the watch the beautiful lights of Ft. Lauderdale and shared a toast as we left port!

On schedule all lines were cast off from the pier at Port Everglades at 7:00 PM, 1900 Hours, and the Zuiderdam was underway for a 124-day, Fort Lauderdale to Fort Lauderdale, January 4, 2025, to May 9, 2025, World Cruise!

Getting underway brings back nostalgic feelings though I have not conned a ship leaving port in forty-five years. It was on the USS Oriskany LPH-10, in and out of the 32nd Street Naval Base San Diego, CA, then all over the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The ship was a straight deck aircraft carrier transporting helicopters and short take off and vertical landing British Aerospace Sea AV-8A Harrier Jets. I remember when a Harrier landed a crewman would wash the intake of the running engine with a green Navy Exchange (pre-Walmart days) garden hose to wash the salt build up on the rotor blades,

For the engineering types here are some more numbers. Bottom line the USS Tripoli is about half the size of the Zuiderdam. The Tripoli was 589 ft long, a beam of 80 ft, draft of 30 ft, a power plant with two 600 psi boilers, generating 22,000 HP and a displacement of 19,302 tons. She carried a crew of 80 officers, and 638 enlisted, and transported +/- 500 Marines.

As we left Port Everglades, I did notice there were two tugboats on standby in case Zuiderdam needed assistance, not so. The Zuiderdam has two bow thrusters and two screws on pods that rotate 360 degrees. The Navy ships in my day did not have that technology.

As MS Zuiderdam left the lights, streets and tall buildings of Port Everglades, and she passed the red sea buoy she entered the dark domain of King Neptune, a zone where you can pass safely if you are alert to the conditions of the sea.