"Voyage of the Vikings"

….is Holland America’s 35-day (7/5 to 8/9) trip, from Boston across the north Atlantic to Europe, and back. It is now half over. The ship left Rotterdam (halfway point) this evening, with 25% of the passengers (300 or so) disembarking, having finished the eastward first half of the trip. They were replaced by 300 more, who paid for the (westward) second half.

There is another 900 passengers who bought the entire 35-day trip, and they are older than the half-trippers. The music required for these older people is vintage tinpan alley, Gershwin & Cole Porter etc, with little usable material from the 50s-60s-70s pop repertoire. They really hate “You’ve Lost That Lovin Feeling”. So sometimes there is a balancing act involved in selecting the right tune to play. You can run a string of noisy singalong stuff (ala Jolly Swagman) for the somewhat younger crowd, and the noise & singing will be impressive. It’ll look and sound like a piano bar should, right?

Yes, but one must always keep an eye out for the older and quieter types, even
if they’re outnumbered. In a perfect world, I’d have the two demographics in completely separate sets. There's also a midwest-ish countryish type, for them you play "16 Tons" and Hank Williams and such.

The 300 who just left were noisy enough to cause some trouble. Up above the piano bar, on the 9th deck, are staterooms, and apparently the piano bar noise can leak upward. There were complaints, and I was asked to tone it down. About a week ago a midnight curfew was enacted, to placate these folks on the 9th deck. Prior to this 35-day transatlantic trip, there was a series of weeklong trips in eastern Canada, and there was never a complaint from people living up above the piano bar.

Like a good tourist, I made it a point to get a look at a windmill in Rotterdam today. However the famous “dike” system is located in Amsterdam, which is an hour’s ride north of Rotterdam. As for wooden shoes -- there was of course a ton of them for sale in a large souvenir shop just a few feet outside the ship. They looked ridiculously big and clunky and overpriced and impossible to wear comfortably, and inconvenient to fit in a suitcase. I bought a miniature pair, that an infant could wear, maybe I’ll hang them from my rearview mirror when I get back. Hmmm. I miss driving.

“In Port Manning” (“IPM”) is the required practice of keeping a certain percentage of crew on a ship when it is in port, just case some emergency happens. There is a rotation of assignments, such that everybody has to occasionally stay on the ship on a port day.

On the eastward trip, I got IPM on the first Iceland port (Isofjordur), which didn’t mind at all, the weather was abominable that day. But I have IPM tomorrow (Cherbourg, France) which is somewhat disappointing. I’ll have to see France from the deck of the ship. C’est dommage.