We each have a small wheeled suitcase and a daypack as we leave on our two months long trip for the South Pacific. In it, we have clothes, shoes, swim wear and a good supply of books. It’s 6 AM when we board the ferry from Salt Spring Island to Vancouver. We love the fact that we don’t need to fly anywhere for this trip!

By 11 AM we enter the cruise terminal in downtown Vancouver. With passports and boarding passes in hand, it takes mere minutes to clear customs and walk onto our home for the next 56 days: the MV Zaandam of the Holland America Line.

We have a good sized bathroom with shower.

We do this on a budget so we haven’t splurged on a large room with a balcony. But our 2nd deck, inside cabin will have the least sway during a storm. The room may not be large but it’s comfy and has everything we need: a good size bathroom with shower, a good bed for each of us, and a surprising amount of storage in drawers and cupboards. It’s also nice and dark for sleeping.

We get settled in, unpack and then we’re off to explore the ship. It’s not huge, which we love. At 1400 capacity it is the smallest of the HAL cruise ships but still plenty big: two pools, basketball and pickleball courts, a walking track, several restaurants, a gorgeous large theatre, a library and much more. There’s even a Book Club on board - a real group that meets to discuss favourite books as well as a free membership to Audible e-books. Which offers one of my books!

Chess in the Library. There’s also many other games and jigsaw puzzles on board.

Some people say you eat much more on a cruise ship than you would at home. But you can also exercise much more than at home. There’s a walking track, a fitness centre with treadmills, weights and all sorts of exercise equipment. It’s all about making personal choices.

The first people we meet are our stateroom attendants. They’re always nearby in our hallway and always smiling and waving, ready to help. Within minutes they call us by name and assure us that they will do anything to make us feel at home.

Jai has his own single bed and Nico has a cool bunkbed suspended from the ceiling. Our TV shows camera views of all sides of the ship so we can see where we are at any given time.

At first, the ship feels like we’ve moved from a house in the country to a city - there are people, long hallways, lots of staircases and elevators. But we quickly learn our way around and often take the stairs rather than the elevators to keep fit.

A chance to learn how to play pickleball.

I tape a large map to our wall. It shows all the islands we will be visiting. Maybe we will learn all their names and locations by the time we finish our journey. Because now, at the start of our journey, I can’t even accurately pinpoint the different islands of Hawaii on a map.

We’re all on deck as we sail out of Vancouver and under the Lion’s Gate bridge. The weather is grey and dreary. South Pacific, here we come!

Each evening we find the next day’s itinerary and program in our room, together with Lindt chocolates on our pillow.

We quickly discover that we won’t be bored. I had imagined that 5 or 6 days at sea until we reach Hawai’i might get boring. But there is so much to do that we don’t even have time to do it all. Plus the boys have school work and we brought a plethora of books.

Like any good restaurant, the formal dining room gets booked quickly so we end up eating most of our meals in the more casual restaurant that offers an amazing array of dishes - breakfast, lunch and dinner. There’s also a taco bar by the pool as well as hotdogs, hamburgers and fries. And breakfast-in-bed is an attractive option! On our second day I bask in the luxury of staying in bed while yogurt, fruit and croissants with coffee are delivered to my room! All these options are included in the price of a cruise.

Breakfast in bed! What a luxury after harvesting apples, pears, freezing jams, cleaning house, packing…

Before Covid, the restaurant had buffets were guests could scoop up their own meals. Now, all food is behind plexi glass and servers make your own personalized meals for you: “I want thát pasta (and they cook it individually) with thát sauce, and mushrooms, no onions, and grated parmesan on top”). Salads are all made exactly as you want it.

After the first two nights and a day we sail under the next bridge: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. We walk down Embarcadero Plaza to Fisherman’s Wharf. We lived in this city many moons ago and remember Fisherman’s Wharf well. It’s the original harbour where the fishing boats would bring their daily haul and where crabs and lobsters went directly from boat to boiling pot. Today, most of the area is very touristy with shops and restaurants. But Nico has to locate a geo cache right at the very fishy pier.

We take the cable car - a San Francisco icon. This mode of transportation was invented to help people walk up the many hills on which the city is build. A cable runs underground, the trolley has a grabber, which the driver controls. It hauls the entire car uphill by hanging on to the cable under the road. Ingenious. It is the only system like this in the world that has operated since its invention and has been declared a National Historic Site. It used to cost us about 50 cents a ride when we went to school here. Today the tourist attraction costs 8.- a ride and we had to stand in line for an hour before we could get on. But it is fun!

We get off at Lombard Street, the famous ‘crookedest’ street. Cars here drive a steep slalom to come down the road with several S curves in it. A good thing it doesn’t snow here.

We were also happy to spend some time in a Starbucks with free wifi! Ship wifi is outrageously expensive and so we all have withdrawal symptoms… But I have purchased e-sim cards for the USA which work here as well as in Hawaii and American Samoa. I plan on buying e-sims for other countries like Fiji and French Polynesia. (see Airalo link below)

After cruising down the coastline, our next stop is San Diego. We find the downtown area close to the pier oddly deserted of people. Despite sunshine (for the first time since leaving Vancouver) there are not many patios and almost no pedestrians. We stock up on some snacks, spend more time in a Starbucks, find another geo cache, and make our way back to our floating home for lunch and a swim.

As we slowly sail out of the harbour, we know we will not see land until we reach Hawai’i , about six days later….

RESOURCES:

Airalo e-sim cards work well in most places and are inexpensive. I use my phone as hotspot for my laptop when needed:

https://www.airalo.com/ (You’ll get a discount on your first card if you use this link: MARGRI4307 )

Zaandam deck plan: https://www.hollandamerica.com/content/dam/hal/inventory-assets/ships/AA/pdf/hal-aa-deckplan.pdf