Our ship is called the MS Zuiderdam (pronounced like “Cider-dam”), and it is one of Holland America’s mid-sized ships. It has 10 floors and can hold up to 1,916 passengers and 817 crew members. While that seems like a huge ship, it is not the largest we’ve been on. Nor is it the newest ship we’ve been on. It has plenty of beautiful artwork, comfortable venues, and cozy places to retreat to with a book; but it’s a little worn in places, and lacks some of the sparkles the newer, bigger ships provide.
However, we find that it suits us better. The smaller ship is not as crowded, so we don’t spend much time at all in lines. It’s full of old folks who are—for the most part—courteous and not likely to shove you on the stairs or run up and down the halls banging on everyone’s door at 2 a.m. (Yup, that happens on ships with unsupervised kids…it’s a drag.) The pool and hot tubs are clean and never busy. And you can always get an elevator when you need one.
Today (Tuesday, July 21) we began our day as usual, with a visit to the gym and our third Tai Chi lesson. I’d like to say that we’re getting better at it…but let’s just say that it’s a good thing we are on a 35-day cruise.
We are at port today in Sydney, which is in Nova Scotia. It’s absolutely lovely here, with temps in the high 70s, sunshine, and lush green grass and trees along the shore. The first thing we saw as we walked off the ship was the largest fiddle in the world. It’s a 60-foot sculpture honoring the area’s Celtic culture and traditional fiddle music. So cool.
We walked along the waterfront boardwalk and into the downtown area to do some shopping. We found a great shoe store that sold only the Rieker brand of shoes—and I found some that I liked in my size! After that kind of success, the only thing to do was to go back on board and have lunch.
Lunch at the buffet is always interesting. They have some of the same things every day: salads, fresh fruit, lasagna, breads, and many others. They also have different things every day. For example, last night they had sole and grilled shrimp, tomato and roasted red pepper soup, and about twenty other things to choose from. Today at lunch they added tacos and barbecued ribs that were to die for. They also change up the desserts each day. Today’s winner was the key lime pie in a jar.
Photos to come…WIFI is iffy on board, even with my GigSky hotspot.