We were met by our cruise representative at baggage claim, and herded to our bus for a 10-minute ride to the port. Once there, we were glad we had chosen the early flight: lines were nearly non-existent, and we breezed through our processing and on to our ship, the MS Eurodam of the Holland America line (HAL).
We sailed on Holland America for our honeymoon (the Alaska Inside Passage cruise) and enjoyed the experience. HAL is geared toward adults, with more of a refined experience than you might find on one of the "family" cruise lines (like Carnival or Princess). We were fortunate that the Eurodam is the newest ship in the HAL fleet, so everything from our room to all the facilities was sparkling.
Since our rooms weren't "turned" from the previous cruise yet, we spent the afternoon on the "Lido" deck, which is the main level of the ship for non-formal dining and lounging. The center of the Lido deck has a retractable glass roof so it can be opened during good weather and closed for wind or rain. Today the roof was open, and they had all of the buffets loaded for embarking guests.
With time to kill until until our room would be ready, we enjoyed a bit of lunch in the sun. A 4-piece band (“Cassandra and the HALcats”) was playing, and the atmosphere was clearly festive...everyone was happy to be on board and beginning their vacations.
It wasn’t long before we learned our room was ready, and we headed down to unpack. Whitney and I had decided to book a “Verandah” room on this trip, and were very, very glad we did. A floor-to-ceiling glass window and door that opens to our own private patio greeted us as we arrived, with a spectacular view of the water. On our previous cruise, we had the same-sized room without a window, and the difference was literally night and day...I don’t think we’ll ever do that again!
After unpacking, we headed to the observation deck to watch as the ship pulled out of port. Since most of the cruise lines leave from/arrive to Ft Lauderdale on Saturday, we had to wait for our position in line. We were fourth out of the port, and managed to capture a shot of several of the ships that departed before us.
Once we cleared the port mouth and were underway, we decided to forgo the formal dining room, and instead headed back to the Lido deck for the ship’s “welcome BBQ.” As it turned out, it was not a BBQ, but more of a steak grill-out, with thinly-sliced strip steaks and some fixin’s. I had one of these “steaklets” while Whitney enjoyed a cool cucumber salad...not all that filling, but we knew that going hungry was not going to be a problem for us this next week.
After the " BBQ" was over, we toured the spa, which has several levels of service. We decided to go for the self-service "Thermal"package, (steam rooms, aromatherapy rooms, whirlpool, and a set of ergonomically-curved, ceramic-tiled benches that are heated to 98 degrees...VERY relaxing). We spent a little time in the whirlpool before relaxing on the heated tile benches, and by the time we got up we were very much ready for bed.
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