Colemans 2017 Europe

May 8, 2017

We've had a busy week and no time to update the blog until now...

Spent the whole week visiting the Orlando theme parks. Monday was Universal, Tuesday was Disney Animal Kingdom, Wednesday back to Universal, Thursday Disney's Epcott, and Friday back to Universal. We have determined that we are too old and too out of shape for this type of entertainment. Our feet hurt, our backs hurt, we have become the grumpy old folks surrounded by snotty-nosed kids from whom Lynn caught a nasty cold. Grrrr....

At Disney's Animal Kingdom it poured rain on us the first hour or so and then was pretty nice. We are now the proud owners of Mickey Mouse rain ponchos. We especially enjoyed the Safari ride, and our lunch at the "Yak and Yeti", which served nice Chinese fare, and we found it was part of the Landry's Club where we had a $25 birthday credit, which made it even nicer. It was one of the best meals we had all week.

Universal has two parks: Universal Studios and Universal Islands of Adventures. The two are connected through the Harry Potter-themed areas by a ride on the Hogwarts Express. We enjoyed several rides at both parks. The King Kong and Spiderman rides were a really nice combination of mild roller-coaster and great 3D video effects. Kong, being fairly new, was especially well done. We enjoyed both sides of the Harry Potter area. The Gringotts adventure was well done, and Lynn bellied up to the bar for a mug of butter beer (tasted a lot like cream soda). The park has done an amazing job of re-creating the buildings of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts. Quite interesting areas to wander about.

We found that many of the rides at Universal used 3D effects (and quite well), while Disney was more centered on animatronics and real movement. Both parks use quite a bit of "virtual" movement now.

At Epcot we wandered around the world through its various international-themed areas.

On Thursday evening we returned to Disney Springs for the Cirque du Soleil show, La Nouba. It was as fascinating and entertaining as all the Cirque shows, in a relatively small venue where the trapeze artists were literally right over our heads! We followed the show with a nice dinner at Wolfgang Puck's cafe.

On Friday, after our final day at Universal, we ended our week with a lovely meal at the Kobe Steakhouse near our condo, and then returned to our condo to start packing up.

Saturday morning we finished our packing, sent a box of things home and drove down to Ft. Lauderdale to board our ship: the Holland America "Prinsendam", which will be our home for the next two weeks. The turnpikes there are quite nice to drive on--toll plazas are a little confusing but supposedly they take photos of your license plate and bill you for the tolls through the car rental companies (we'll see how that turns out...hope we don't end up with any serious fines for just driving through!) We dropped our luggage at the ship then turned the rental car in at the airport and took a taxi back to the ship. Boarding began at 1:00, so by the time we boarded at 4:00 there was no line...we just walked right on. The ship was not set to depart until 11:00pm, so we saw no need to rush. Lynn started the unpacking, but by then her cold had hit hard and she managed to get one of the two suitcases emptied and the "necessities" found, but the rest had to wait until Sunday to get unpacked and organized. A light dinner (chicken soup for Lynn) in the casual (Lido) restaurant and early to bed. Our cabin is at the very back of the ship and things were a bit noisy as we were departing the dock, but after that the rocking of the ship just helped us to sleep better.

Sunday morning we were up just in time for a quick breakfast before the Lido closed, and then we finished our tour of the ship. This ship is much smaller than the other Holland America ships we have traveled on...less than 800 passengers. The public areas, showroom, etc. are all very small compared to the others, but the decor seems to have been updated fairly recently. It seems comfortable and friendly. Lynn finished the unpacking and organizing, using some tips we learned on our last cruise and from some Internet research. Did you know the walls on ships are made of metal?...so you can use magnetic items on the walls. We brought along a magnetic message board and file holder, so we can keep some of the clutter from the small desk area. Using an over-the-door shoe organizer to put all those little things you need, but don't have room to store is a genius idea!

Organizing Ideas

We also brought some suction-cup hooks that can be used on glass doors, mirrors, and shower walls to hold items. On ships you usually only have one US-type electrical outlet, so a multi-plug and/or extension cord is essential, especially with all of our electronics these days. We also brought a converter which can be used for the European style electrical on the ship, but most likely will not be used until we are on land in Prague or Bucharest.

In the afternoon we watched the movie in the small theatre, followed by "Sip and Savor" (a glass of wine and small appetizer) with the Cellar Master and Culinary Director. Tonight was a "Gala" night for dinner in the main dining room. These used to be called "formal" nights and involved tuxedoes and fancy dress, but now they only require long pants and collared shirts for gentlemen. We saw everything from Jeans to one gentleman in white tails! Lynn wore her one dress and Dave changed into his "big boy" pants and a dress shirt. We fit right in!

And now it is Monday morning and we have another quiet day at sea, thus a chance to catch up on this blog and some paperwork. We have no phone service on the ship, and Internet is pricey, so we are trying to keep its use to a minimum, but we will probably sign on to post this later today.