7 weeks, 7 week-long cruises done, and it is Day 50, the Halfway point of this 98day contract. Geez, it goes fast.
Now starts the “Voyage of the Vikings” -- pretty dramatic billing, considering that the Vikings were legendary rough&tough adventurers/warriors, and the people on this cruise are mostly medicated, retired and almost expired.
That’s somewhat an exaggeration, but not much -- Holland America already has a reputation for older passengers, but especially cruises of this length (35 days) will attract mostly retired people enjoying their Golden Years.
The DJ at the disco figures this to be the easiest and quietest 35 days of his cruiseship career, with everybody going to bed early and the disco empty by 11pm. He also thinks there will be more piano bar activity.
Last year on the Ryndam there was a 23-day cruise, and I worried that I would run out of fresh material to maintain an audience for the 23 days. I was pleasantly surprised -- the piano bar patrons got to know each other very well, friendships were formed, and they kept on coming in to the piano bar, to see each other as well as to hear music. Kinda like Swaggettes actually, and I hope this kind of comraderie will develop during these 35 days.
Tonight I heard an Absolutely True Report that an old couple -- the husband in a wheelchair -- has been on this ship for 6 weeks now, AND is taking the 35-day cruise starting today………..
AND intends to stay on this ship until DECEMBER. AND intends to switch over to a different Holland America ship come January, and keep on living on HAL ships.
Apparently (from what I heard tonight) they sold all their properties, and think (quite accurately?) that they can spend the rest of their lives on cruise ships.
OK OK I know….if one of these geezers gets a serious ailment, that would be the end of this Golden Years Cruise Life, after all, a cruise ship ain’t no hospital. But it’s a pretty cool story, and I hope they last a long time. I guess they’re not too connected to their families or communities.
A notable passenger on the last of the Montreal-Boston runs was Dawn, who cheered me on in the piano bar night after night. During the day she was dazzled by Old Quebec City, perhaps the most charming place either of us have ever seen, and a long stroll around beautiful Prince Edward Island is a terrific thing
I’m looking forward to entertaining at her 2nd annual late summer party, on September 6. Last year’s was really great.
In a nice example of worldwide cooperation, people on this planet agreed to divide the world into 24 longitudinal time zones, each one of course being an hour removed from the adjacent ones.
So as we advanced eastward out of the Eastern time zone into the Atlantic time zone, we moved our clocks forward an hour.
Next -- as we move further east from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland, we will move our clocks……..
…….a HALF-hour forward? From 2AM to 2:30 AM?
Strange but true. Newfoundlanders are apparently a free-thinking bunch who don’t care to conform to Canada or anybody else. If they had their druthers, the world would be divided into 48 time zones of a half-hour each. As a western Canadian might say, “Stupid Newfies”.
4 comments:
Hi Steve,
It's so good to hear from you. Glad that all is well and that your friend Dawn was able to join you for a week.
Funny that you speak of the old people on the ship. I had read a article recently which told how living on a ship is cheaper than living in assisted living home or nursing home. These people must be putting it to the test.
Enjoy the 32 day cruise.
Wonderful trip, gr-r-r-eat entertainment. Lucky old geezers have 7 more weeks...
Steve just gets better and better and the repertoire grows and grows!
You never cease to amaze, my friend...
Dawn
a half hour eh?
that could be confusing.
I know Arizona doesn't acknowledge daylight saving time, that confused me when I traveled through there once during the time...
The half-hour thing will soon be replayed, as the ship reaches Newfoundland on the last leg of this 35-day trip. We lost 6 hours pushing the clock forward on the way over to Rotterdam. Now we get it all back. On certain nights now we gain an hour, and this creates quite a ruckus in the crew bar, the bartender braces himself for a very busy noisy night. This hardly involves me however. After a few hours of making noise in the piano bar in deck 8, I’m not too inclined to further noise in the crew bar later on.
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