After Ketchikan we had just one more day aboard Holland America Line‘s Koningsdam to enjoy on this cruise that had exceeded our expectations in terms of wildlife sightings, and as is typical for many cruises it was a sea day. We would spend this day relaxing, enjoying some of the scenery between Alaska and Vancouver, and meeting up with our friends aboard for chats, trivia, and a meal together. In many ways this would largely be a repeat of the first sea day on Koningsdam.
Travel bloggers do like to post photos and videos of their rooms in hotels and on cruise ships and since I consider myself a travel blogger I suppose I should too. The balcony cabin we had was spacious, laid out well, brightly decorated, and came with a daily towel animal too after our steward had been in to freshen it up.
With a meal arranged for later in the day we had a light lunch, and one of the reasons for booking a balcony cabin on a cruise ship, especially on bright and warm enough days, is that it makes for the perfect location to read, chat, eat, drink, and just watch the world go by with the accompanying sound of water in motion.
When we’d booked this cruise with Holland America Line there had been a special promotion on that included the drinks package, some money towards excursions, and a speciality dining meal. We’d already had that meal earlier in the cruise and it had been nice enough in terms of quality, but was so rushed that we couldn’t truly consider it a good speciality dining experience. Our old friends on this cruise, Paul and Carole, had a suite which meant that they could dine in all the speciality venues if they wanted. Another couple of cruise bloggers, Jill and Jerry, had the same deal as us and understood that they still had their free meal to take on account of being invited to another meal earlier in the cruise by the line. We knew we’d have to pay if we wanted to dine in a speciality venue on Koningsdam again, but when our fellow cruisers asked if we fancied a meal all together on the last night we were happy to accept anyway.
The restaurant booked was Tamarind, an Asian eatery which you could probably surmise from that name, and our first impression on approaching it was that the abstract sculptural artwork was gorgeous.
That artwork, unfortunately, was about as good as it got in Tamarind. Now, before I outline the issues, I will say that the food was very nice. Just as with our first meal in a speciality restaurant on the ship we had no complaints with what we ate, but everything around it detracted from the overall enjoyment.
Tamarind was busy when we arrived and everyone was chatting and laughing, and had this been a spacious venue then that wouldn’t have been a problem but the ambience in a location with not a massive amount of room between tables wasn’t the best. Then there was the fact that our table was near the bar area. Now, we like bars because bars are where you get drinks from, but bars on ships can also be where they put blenders for some of the iced and fruity drinks and there was one almost in touching distance of us. The noise was deafening when it was being used which turned out to be most of the time.
The main problem, however, was when it came to working out who would have their meals included as part of packages and who would be charged. We knew we’d be charged. Paul and Carole knew their meals were included. There was confusion for Jill and Jerry, though, and that would have been okay if it could have been sorted out with a quick explanation and a smile but an adamant (a generous term to describe the attitude) maître d’ and several minutes of back-and-forth heated conversations ended up casting a shadow over the proceedings. Over the incredibly noisy proceedings.
So, for the second time on Koningsdam we’d been a little let down with the speciality meal experiences, but the food on the ship as a whole was very good, and the important thing for this occasion was that we got to spend it in the good company of friends.
We only had a couple of plans for the rest of the day. The first was to meet up for trivia again with Paul and Carole – we’d done that earlier in the day and come second – but we were distracted on the way there when we heard people remarking that there had been sightings of whales. We headed onto the promenade deck and admired the landscape of mountainous islands passing by but didn’t manage to see any whales. We couldn’t complain, though, given the ones we’d seen earlier in the cruise. We finished second in the trivia again.
Our final plan, if you can call it that, was to get front row seats at the Rolling Stone Rock Room to enjoy the house band for one last night. It’s hard to put into words just how good they were, playing three 45-minute sets on all but one night of the trip, with hardly any repeated tracks and no use of song sheets or tablets for the music or words. On this night they were also joined with the show team singers and dancers for a few songs.
And that was that. Some excellent music, some drinking, some final chats with our cruise friends, and this all-too-brief cruise to Alaska on Koningsdam had come to an end. A good ship, a great itinerary, and a lot of good memories and experiences.
In the final post from this cruise travelogue series it’s disembarkation day, and with a late flight we’re able to take advantage of a short debark tour of Vancouver before heading home.