Brazil & Caribbean 2019

Our onboard time was 8am this morning (like anyone got off that early!). After breakfast I was out on the aft deck 9 taking photos when a couple of dolphins appeared. They were way too quick for me to photograph, but I enjoyed watching them for 30 minutes or so.  Later on the river a friend reported seeing 4 pink dolphins in the wake of the ship. The Captain made his departure announcement indicating an exterior survey of the hull had been made and the ship was cleared to proceed to Manaus where divers will inspect the hull.   The onboard programming was very light, and I spent most of my day in the Crow's Nest watching the scenery pass by at 17 knots. One of the most scenic sights was the confluence of the blue Arapiuns River and the murky brown Amazon River. The there is a distinct line for quite a distance. Numerous cargo ships passed on our left as we headed up river. Small farms, animals, and many islands provided other scenery. Most of the banks are low and I suspe...

Making Lemonade out of Lemons Today's entry will start with my log of the events following an emergency alarm that went off just after 4am. I ended up being up from then until midnight. If you don't want to review the detail, skip the next section. 4:22am emergency alarm 4:40am Captain on PA announced we were stuck on a mud bar in the navigational channel (near Monte Allegre per Google Maps). There was no stopping sensation (later I learned others had felt it); HAL Internet was off and remained off most of the day. We had T-Mobile cell service through the day. 4:52am Captain announced fleet operations in Seattle had been notified; emergency services put on notice; problems with the satellite link; following protocols for assessing water intrusion in the engine room; no further announcements until there are material changes. 5:20am the rear thrusters were activated 5:43am rear thrusters powered down; slight forward motion 5:50am thrusters off; no movement 5:51am forward thrus...

Early in the morning around 4am we established a hovering position off the city of Macapa for the immigration and other officials plus 2 river pilots. We hovered in that position until after 11am when the Captain came on the PA system and announced that we would be heading back towards the ocean and then take a different route around an island and rejoin the river route to Santarem which is some 150 miles upstream. During the morning we attended the Interdenominational discussion group, Ian's coffee chat with the HR director, and Ian's presentation about the remaining Brazilian ports. My wife attended the Brazilian exercise class around the aft pool plus samba lessons, and a craft class. As for me much of the day was spent walking around the outside decks and up in the Crow's nest watching the scenery go by at around 10 knots. It's interesting to be doing a river cruise on a ship that we are used to plying the oceans around the world. There not much rocking or pitch...

After missing the port stop at Devil's Island yesterday we continued our sail towards the Amazon River. We attended the Interdenominational Discussion Group and then Ian's coffee chat which featured the Food & Beverage Manager.   Ian presented a talk on our upcoming ports and showed a video of the rocket launch that I provided him. That link was sent to me by one of my blog followers and I appreciate him sending it to me. In the afternoon the one presentation we attended was by the Oi Brazil cultural ambassadors. They introduced the cultural program and activities that will be going on board over the coming days. There's music, dancing, aerobics, and more. We can't attend all of them but will report on those we do. And once again it was nap time. I'm rather enjoying taking an afternoon nap. It was a gala night but we ate in the LIDO and I helped another passenger communicate with an email to their tour operator for an upcoming port. The evening entertain...

Bad News & Good News It was nice to not have an alarm go off to wake up by. Today was a short sea day before we were planned to reach Devil's Island, French Guiana at noon. We were having a leisurely breakfast when the Captain came on over the PA system and it took the breakfast attendees several moment to quiet down after they realized this was a serious announcement. It was so serious that the Captain repeated it. Due to a rocket launch at the nearby French Space Center scheduled for just after 6pm, the ship was banned from anchoring at Devil's Island which is just off the coast from the Guiana Space Center. So today would be a full sea day as we turned towards Brazil. The Captain further announced that we 'might' be able to see the launch from the aft of the ship, but there were no promises as the skies were overcast. Ian came on the PA system and announced that a revised When & Where would be shortly distributed. What a disappointment to miss Devil...

A Stunning Tenor Back at sea today, we lost another hour of sleep last night. But fortunately the food lines were non existent this morning and my egg preparer was smiling! We attended the Interdenominational 'discussion group' and the last part of the coffee chat with Ian and the cadet officers. Ian then presented a canned EXC talk on rum in the Caribbean. Rodrigo, a representative Brazilian cultural ambassador, presented a talk on Rio That was interesting but not quite directly relevant to this cruise.  After lunch Rodrigo presented a talk on the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, but the presentation was flawed by visual technical problems. Coming up are a number cultural activities related to our destination. The quintet played American music to yet another full house at 3pm on the Lincoln Center Stage. Lack of sleep finally caught up with me and j caught a brief stateroom nap before dinner in the Lido. Benjamin Makasi, an outstanding tenor from NZ,...

Right on time the Volendam came into the harbor and rotated 180° to face out to sea when berthed. A group of 8 of us found James of James Touring in the terminal building and agreed to hire him for 4 hours for $40/pp. When we got to his van, it would only hold 7, so he found a van driver with a large enough van to carry us and James. And off we went. The goal was to reach the Diamond Botanical Garden & Falls at the end of the island near the Piton Peaks. We climbed and descended many narrow and twisty roads to reach the garden. There we were turned over to a local fellow with the nickname 'Mr. Google'. He did seem to gave an encyclopedic knowledge of the plants in the garden. He claimed to face a million views on YouTube, but I couldn't find any. We returned to the ship around 1:30pm and shopped a bit in the little port plaza before reboarding the ship just after 2pm. Since we hadn't eaten since breakfast and the Lido was closed, we g...

Quaint but Expensive After a couple of nice sea days, the Volendam assumed its tendering position off the French West Indies Island of St. Barthelemy. As 5 star mariners we were on the first tender which arrived at 8:30pm. Later we learned that some passengers didn't get off until 10:30am.   We immediately headed off walking along the narrow Main Street with its combination of new and quaint old buildings housing all manner of high end retail brand stores. We walked around the harbor with its expensive yachts and clear water. Our first objective was to walk to Fort Oscar which occupies one of the several hills surrounding the harbor. Upon arrival at the fort we learned that it was not open to the public as it's a police station. So off we headed in search of more adventure. We found a lovely park with nice views and some shade from the trellised plants. A little further along we encountered Fort Karl and climbed the 60-70 steps up to this long abandoned ...

Getting our Piano Fix Motion of the ocean continued over night and the morning daylight made its way into our stateroom providing a silent wake up alarm. Ian's coffee chat was with Martin Beaumont, the upcoming English comedian. He was pretty funny even in the interview. Back to back shore excursion and port lectures took the remainder of the morning which led right into lunch (more sushi and a sandwich). The 2pm lecture was supposed to be a Brazilian Cultural but was postponed due to 'technical' difficulties and replaced by a presentation on the Lost Cities of the Amazon by Ian. The Lincoln Center Stage received our attention at 3pm for a piano & cello recital and at 6pm for New York Legends. Our evening entertainment was Juan Pablo, a Cuban concert pianist, who we saw last year on the Maasdam on our 50th anniversary off Peru.  We ended our evening at the Dueling Pianos at Billboard Online where the duo did a set of songs from the Billboard 100. It was a very piano...

A Refreshing Ship Update With our window cabin we now wake up with daylight streaming through the window. For me I forgot to advance my cellphone clock by an hour so I thought that it was an hour earlier than it actually was.   Ian, our Cruise and Travel Director, leads a coffee chat each sea day morning. Two things are different about these coffee chats compared to those we experienced on the Maasdam. First there is a special small muffin served each day. Second, he distributes a HAL pin at the end. Mine was a Jr. Ranger from Alaska on this first coffee chat. His guest was Chandler, the production manager, who described all of the changes that came out of dry dock and other entertainment related topics.   I led our Cruise Critic Meet & Greet at 10am in the Crow's Nest. There were about 60 people present out of the 108 who signed up. It was a good time to meet new friends and renew acquaintance with old friends. ...

I believe in Fairies We started our day with a breakfast in the hotel and watched more of the impeachment hearings until just before our 11am checkout time. After checking out we were scheduled on an 11:30am shuttle to the cruise terminal. However there were 7 ships in port with some 16-18k passenger transitioning off the system and a similar amount boarding and many guests were waiting for shuttles so ours left an hour late at 12:30pm. At the cruise terminal, we elected to keep our one roll on piece of luggage with us which turned out to be a good move. The 4-5 star check-in line was pretty long but we began to see fellow cruisers we have sailed with previously. The check-in went smooth with no health forms or yellow fever vaccine documentation required but we had To surrender our passports. We headed for the gangway and at the security desk on ty g we ship our cards wouldn't work and we were directed to the alternate security desk where the guard indicated our room had been...

This trip has been in the planning for us for several years. It started out as a booking on the Prinsendam, but that ship was sold and left the fleet in the summer of 2019. When the ship's sale was announced, the Volendam was chosen to replace it, but the new itinerary dropped the Cuba stops. We hesitated in continuing with our trip but decided in the end that the core of the trip was still very appealing. And what was that core you ask? It's 10 days of sailing on the Amazon River! The rest of the trip involves Caribbean ports. We ended up taking an Alaska Airlines direct red eye flight to FLL (the airport code for Fort Lauderdale) departing at 9:05pm from SeaTac airport and scheduled to arrive at 5:45am. The Captain announced we would have a pretty significant tailwind of 90 knots so we arrived at 5:15am. We were assigned premium economy seats and I slept about half of the flight.   After arrival in FLL and collecting our luggage, around 6:15am we caught a free shuttle...