What a beautiful beginning to the day! I am so lucky that I am able to get up early and see these sun rises each morning!
Well, last night I had seen a message on the Holland America Navigator app that indicated there was going to be a tour of the ship offered today! I was quite excited as I had heard through the grapevine (actually at the Captains talk) they were going to start offering these tours again on longer voyages – guess what we are on??? I called Reception at about 9 am today, however they were busy like normal, so instead I sent them a message asking them if the tour was accessible as I use a walker. Eventually I received a call back indicating they would get back to me. At the same time, they were also confused as they told me that the tour, which is starting in 30 minutes is full! I pointed out it was showing in the Navigator app for tomorrow, not today so perhaps it was a different tour? A lady then called me back and told me that yes, the tour on November 7th is accessible and could I please come by the Reception area today to sign the form for the tour? She signed me up (only 12 people are allowed), however as the tour costs $189, I had to sign that I acknowledged the charge.
I spent a good portion of the day relaxing my body in bed and on the veranda doing various fun things like updating my blog, downloading pictures, colouring, knitting and of course taking a nap! Dinner time rolled around and we went by the Reception area so that I could sign the tour receipt prior to dinner. At that point I had a niggling feeling that something might be wrong. The man on duty could not find anything about me wanting to take the tour and seeing me sitting on my walker, he was quite confused! He first said it was too late to sign up, and then when I told him I already did and just needed to sign the receipt, he gave me a receipt to sign for $156, however I knew something was not right by his behavior as he kept going into the back office to check on things. I was told that some information was going to be sent to our cabin while we were at dinner. I was going to go on the tour alone as the tour was going to happen when Andrew normally is taking a walk around the ship.
Here are the pictures from the sunset tonight – again another wonderful one!
Dinner was fabulous, yet again! I cannot remember what I had (my phone I had left in our stateroom charging by mistake) however I was hungry as I had skipped lunch after a late breakfast. Sometimes there is TOO much to eat on cruise ships!
When we got back to the room, sure enough there was a note under our door about the ship tour the next day. It had a form that I had to fill out that I had to declare that I was not sick and then on the back was the really interesting part – it said that they offer an ADA compliant tour of the ship. (ADA stands for Americans with Disabilities Act and as Holland America is based in Seattle, Washington, they have to follow this Act on the ship). That was the first time that I had heard about that option so I phoned reception and spoke to the man who I had dealt with earlier in the evening. He said that they only charged me $156 for the tour as I was taking the ADA tour instead (news to me). He then read to me what the ADA tour description was which basically said “the person with the disability should be able to take part on as much of the tour as they can possibly accomplish – as some portions are down some stairs we will provide a video for them to watch instead”. I distinctly remember him reading this to me and thinking that was interesting – this is the first time I was being told about this – however my receipt did say $156 so it seemed right and things much have been arranged…. time for bed!
Tomorrow is going to be an early start as the Noordam Ship tour which includes the Dining Room Kitchens on Deck 2 and 3, Stores, Laundry, Recycling, Composting, Engine Control Room and finally the Bridge meets at 9:30 am! I got to get my body in gear early!