{Canadian Cruise Vacation} Day Three

After a rough night of seas, we all got dressed and headed down to breakfast. Lauren had the usual Cheerios, turkey sausage, potatoes, and fruit. I tried Eggs Benedict for the first time and it was quite good. Justin had an omelet.


After breakfast, we headed back to our room to watch some cartoons. We had pretty much explored the entire ship and knew that we would be arriving in Vancouver in the morning and just wanted to relax a bit. Plus, the seas were still very rough, so we wanted to just lay low.




Soon, it was time to lay down and take our naps. Right after Lauren fell asleep, the Captain came on to announce that overnight we experienced 27 foot waves and hurricane force winds (70+ mph). (10 on the Beaufort scale) No wonder it sounded like the entire ship was banging. It was lifting up and slamming back down in to the sea. He also announced that he had to slow the ship from 20 knots, down to 13 knots to prevent severe damage from happening to the ship. This meant that we were now half a day behind and would not be arriving in to Vancouver until between 5 and 7pm instead of 10am. The cruise line was wonderful and allowed us to use the phones and internet for free to rearrange things. After his announcements, we took our nap.



At 3pm, I dragged Justin along with me and Lauren to the Cupcake Tea. Holland America is known for their teas and I LOVE a good tea party. Everything was so delicious.


Me and my sweet girl at our very first tea party!


We wandered around the ship a bit more and tried to access the internet from Justin's phone, which was just too slow from all the people trying to make arrangements plus others just taking advantage of the free internet. We went back to our stateroom for a while.  I spent quite a while trying to call the guy we leased our condo through him from the ship to let him know we would be much later than we had planned, but when I finally got through, I got this really weird voice mail and was concerned that was not the right phone number, so I wanted to go up to the Explorer's Lounge and check my email for a different number. Before I did that, I spend a good 20 minutes trying to dial out to call my parents and give them an update on what was going on. They were happy to hear from us.

After I talked with my parents, I went up to the Explorer's Lounge and was able to get on a computer and send a few emails. I found a different number, so I radioed down to our room to Justin (walkie talkies on a cruise ship are the best thing EVER) with the new number and Justin was able to get Scott on the line. While I waited at the computer, Scott sent over all the directions we needed to get in on our own. After that, it was time to get ready for dinner.

We arrived to dinner a bit early and our table was not ready, so we sat in a different area and the service was SO much better. We actually got bread!

This is a picture of our two favorite Assistant Dining Room Managers. She is from Germany and he is from Spain.

Lauren loved seeing herself in the reflection of the glass.


I had a seafood puff pastry was was delicious and Justin had a Caesar salad.

Justin ordered the Yucon Gold Potato Soup. It was served cold and would have been much better warm. I had a seafood soup.

For dinner, I ordered a sea food dish without the pasta and Justin had short ribs (I think) and we both had a baked potato. Lauren had her normal fruit, chicken and veggies and fruit. Mid meal, Lauren had a meltdown when Justin took the pepper grinder from her. She was putting it in her mouth. When I took her from the restaurant, I realized that she needed a diaper change. One of the toughest things about Holland America is that they are not geared for families with kids, so there are no changing stations. This time, I changed her in the restroom, on the floor in the powder room area. Ugh! Prior to that, we had changed her on the floor in the Upper Dining Room when it was closed.


We got back to our stateroom to find this adorable monkey hanging from the curtain. I thought I took pictures of Lauren with it, but it must have been all video. Needless to say, she ADORED the monkey and was making ahh-ahh sounds.