We got up to a beautiful morning cruising between Vancouver Island and the BC Coast up past Haida Gwaii. We had breakfast in the room, which I had ordered the night before. I generally have the same breakfast everyday to make it easy on the staff to keep my gluten free dining safe. SOMETHING happened in the translation though and again I was served muffins that were not gluten free. Been there and done this before and I can “feel” when the muffins are not gluten free. Also they do not have paper cups on them which is indicative of the brand that Holland America now carries (Bio). Unfortunately they no longer stock Kinnikinnick brand products since the company was sold.
I proceeded to phone Room Service to see if I could get some gluten free muffins and Patricia answered the phone! I know Patricia from our cruise from Seattle to Sydney – she was the lady who took Room Service orders on that cruise too and helped me with my gluten free dining when I needed something I had not already pre-ordered. What a lovely surprise! She was very tentative on the phone – “are you the Miss Lynda who went to Sydney last year?” she said to me? I remember this order and the gluten free muffins! I will send some to you right away! And so they arrived with apologies from Tama, who is her manager. Problem solved!
Next on the list – relax and get my nails done! I now have fire engine red toenails and french manicure finger nails – however I ditched the usual baby pink for baby purple/mauve instead! Very cool!
Now, as my mother will attest, I often volunteer to run the Cruise Critic group’s Meet and Greet on the ship on the first day. Again, that is what I am doing at 2pm today! I have a secret though – this group has been VERY talkative during the year leading up to the cruise and one of the points of discussion have been Nanaimo Bars! One lady, lets call her Tutu was really intrigued by them so I posted a video of Todd Maffin, who is an ex-CBC personality and now decent Canadian (along with his wife Jocelyn who I know through the Spinal Cord Injury of BC Association) talking about Nanaimo Bars which is kind of funny… Here it is for your amusement!
Having Celiac Disease I am NOT someone to bring gluten snacks to a group when I cannot enjoy them too! So I acquired some Wendels GF Nanaimo Bars (2 boxes) from Save on Foods and brought them to the ship for the meeting! Everything was going great – I delivered them to the dining room in their sealed box so they could be cut up (following the Health and Safety laws which I did not bring in home made products) and served half way through the meeting. Only fly in the ointment – Andrew was still not feeling well so he was not at the meeting to “assist” me!
The meeting went really well – about 45 people showed up which was a fair crowd in the Rolling Stone Lounge and we all introduced ourselves and we played some fun games. At the end I gave out some Canadian themed prizes and announced we all had Nanaimo Bars to share at the back – however they were not there! Oh no! They never arrived! I had to apologize and tell people I had brought everyone Nanaimo bars but they had not been delivered…
Needless to say, an hour later the Noordam staff found the Nanaimo Bars in the kitchen, untouched and there was a HUGE miss-communication issue where they were not delivered to the meeting. They then offered to cut them up and deliver the Nanaimo Bars to the rooms of the guests that had attended the meeting – if I could put one together! That I did and they were supposed to deliver the GF Nanaimo Bars to the staterooms that night with a card apologizing for missing the meeting.
Here are some photos I took during the day cruising up the coast of BC!
