Day 5 – Eurostar to Amsterdam; Scenic Rhine Highlights Boarding
Day 6 – Walking Tour of Amsterdam; sailing starts tonight
Our effort to get a good night’s sleep was completely thwarted. Neither of us slept at all. Between being too hot (both the room and my internal furnace) I did not get more than half an hour of actual sleep. Regardless, the breakfast buffet in the hotel was pretty good. They served it out of the cellar, all lined in stone walls.
The taxi we ordered arrived as scheduled and brought us to Gare du Nord, where we had a moment of panic when we discovered you have to pay a euro to use the toilets. Finding a coin in my bag took some doing, but all was well in the end.
We were seated in first class on the Eurostar train, which was a sight better than the flight. I at least was comfortable enough to actually sleep for about an hour, and Dan was able to relax. The less-than-four-hour ride took us through 5 stops going through 3 countries: Brussels in Belgium; Antwerp in Netherlands; Rotterdam, Schiphol International Airport, and finally Amsterdam Centraal.
The Scenic representative Emko was waiting right on the platform for us rather than in the terminal, and brought us straight out to our driver Casper, who took us for a lovely 20-minute drive to the port in Zaandam. At the port, Scenic had people waiting to help us out of the car, take our bags to our room for us, and welcoming us everywhere in between.
We registered and they assigned us our key fobs. We use them to get into our rooms of course, but also to check on and off the ship. If we don’t scan back in by the time we’re supposed to they’ll know to start looking for us before departing. If we forget to scan out they won’t know we’re missing and we’ll have to catch up to the ship at the next port of call. So, scan out and scan back in!
The ship is long, but not big, very comfortably accommodating the 97 passengers and 58 crew. There’s a pool and walking track on the sundeck, two dining rooms, a lounge, a fitness room, a salt spa, and a massage/facial room.
Our room is, well, roomy and includes a private balcony with a retractable full wall window and blackout blinds. The bathroom is perfectly sized, such that Dan can have a comfortable shower. And it’s a multi-head shower too. Everything is included, except the massages and facials. We have a stocked mini-bar, walking sticks, an umbrella, bathrobes, blankets to take outside.
Every night before supper there’s a Daily Port Talk with our Cruise Director Cathy (Canadian in the house!) to tell us about the next day’s itinerary and what to expect. We have a butler, housekeeping comes in every day, and does turn down service every night leaving chocolates on our pillows. We get one complimentary laundry service up to 1 kg. I could go on, but really, just look them up. It’s easier.
The day we arrived, despite being exhausted, we went for a walk in Zaandam, looking for the Inntel Hotel. Our butler Amel mentioned it looks like it was made out of legos, so we were curious. Sure enough, it looks like it was made of legos!
The next morning we had to wake distressingly early to leave for our Walking Tour of Amsterdam. Had our ship not had to change ports from Amsterdam to Zaandam we wouldn’t have had to leave until maybe 45 minutes later. As it was, we had to get up by 7:00 am to get ready, have breakfast, and get on the bus by 8:15 for the drive back to Amsterdam.
The tour guide was entertaining and informative, constantly reminding us to look both ways before crossing the street or we’d get run over by bicyclists. She made sure we understood that the bicycle paths were painted red to hide all the blood of the tourists who get hit by the bicyclists.
There are canals, canals everywhere! Whenever they needed more room for housing they’d build another set of canals. The homes in this part of the city are old, having been built on reclaimed marsh land on wooden piles which tend to settle and move. Some of the houses are leaning dramatically as a result. The homes are tall and narrow, usually with no more than two or three columns of windows. Our guide showed us the smallest house, with one column of windows, basically squeezed in the space between two other homes, as if someone saw this alleyway and thought to themselves, yeah, I can fit one more in there.
They have a relatively thriving house boat community, although their houseboats are nothing like most of ours. They’re long and narrow, moored on the canals within the city, and they own the part of the pier they’re moored to. They are also connected to the city water, sewer, and power. I was a bit surprised to see only one with solar panels.
Sadly we did not get the advertised herring tasting, but our guide did introduce us to poffertjes. They are a traditional Dutch batter cake, kind of like small puffed buckwheat pancakes served with butter and powdered sugar. We made a circuitous way back around to the Amsterdam Centraal train station where our bus was waiting to take us back to the Zandaam port.
We weren’t back to the ship for long before we set sail. Lunch was served in the main dining room, although we had the choice to eat at the River Cafe in the lounge. Honestly, we probably would have had an easier time controlling our food intake if we’d taken advantage of the Cafe, but we didn’t do that. Why? Because the main dining room served a complete buffet, and had the option to order from an a-la-carte menu. We also did not order from the a-la-carte menu for lunch. Why? Because like I said: buffet! Multiple types of salads, soup of the day, appetizers, cheeses, meats, pasta, desserts. I may have failed to mention that breakfast is served the same way as lunch, only with, you know, breakfast items. So yeah, our “diet” is doomed.
We participated in the afternoon trivia game hosted by the Enrichment Manager Hannah and her “ladies in waiting” (Enrichment Manager trainees). We went through our first canal lock this afternoon as well.
We listened to Cathy’s Daily Port Talk in preparation for tomorrow’s adventures. And enjoyed the Captain’s Welcome Cocktail before going for supper. We were invited to a special supper sitting in Portobello’s tonight. I’m not even going to try and describe how good that meal was, except to say phenomenal. Probably going to be using that word a lot this trip …
And we even stayed up for the evening entertainment starring Hannah performing “A Night at the Musicals”. Turns out Hannah is multi-talented, having attended a performing arts college. She has a lovely singing voice. We missed last night’s entertainment — Gala Strings Trio — We were just too tired to stay up, and as mentioned, we had to get up early today.
We’re looking forward to a solid night’s sleep before tomorrow’s excursions.
Welterusten!
Adelle and Dan
Guigon Travels 