07 Nov. 2016; Malaga, Spain.

And thus I arrived on the Oosterdam in Malaga.  I left San Diego on the 5^th, and flew via New York to Amsterdam where I arrived on the 6^th in the morning^. Then the late afternoon flight to Malaga which brought me to the Hotel in Malaga just before 8 pm.  I had to wait for most of the day in Amsterdam for a connecting flight but if you have to wait somewhere in some airport then Amsterdam is one of the best airports there is to do so.  Even if you are not a big shopper, there is sufficient stuff to look at to keep you busy for a good number of hours. And the KLM business class lounge is in my opinion the best in the world. You never run out of food or drink and there are always sufficient newspapers to catch up with the rest of the world. Everything is help yourself and that is something I prefer as in other lounges where they have bar tenders, you always get the feeling that they want a tip and sometimes the tipping glass is standing on the bar, quite prominently. I have nothing against tipping but I tipp for service above what can be expected and thus I see no reason to tip somebody who is just doing is/her job.  I had the same last night with the Taxi driver who brought my suitcase nicely all the way to the hotel desk and that deserves a good tip; this morning the taxi driver did not even know where the Cruise Terminal was and thus there was no tip. Taxi drivers in Spain do not exactly expect tips, so there is not much of an argument but I exercise the principle everywhere in the world the same way and then you can have some interesting experiences.   I do not have children but if I had had them, they would have been dead by now (including my parents and my grandparents) if I had to believe the Taxi driver in Alexandria Egypt. He got rather upset when I explained to him the difference between the connection of a tip and service and no service and still expecting to get rich in one day.

I am now on the Oosterdam and hit the deck running as they call it. The ship is on its Trans-Atlantic crossing cruise which started on 3 November in Civitavecchia, Italy. Today is Malaga and then the day after tomorrow we are in Funchal and after that only sea days until we arrive in Tampa on the 18^th. As the ship is coming back from Europe, it will face a very heavy day in Tampa and the captain wisely decided to start preparing for that event as early as possible. There will be a full face crew inspection by CBP, A full USCG inspection, heavy loading & provisioning, fuel bunkering, offloading of recyclables and the start of a Carnival Corporation 5 day audit. And then we also still have to disembark 2000 guests from this cruise and embark 2000 guests for the next cruise which is a seven day West Caribbean.

All the Oosterdam crew except an odd 30 or so who were needed to keep the ship running.

So this morning, the staff Captain called the whole ships complement together in the Showroom at Sea after the General Emergency Boat drill. Most communication in the ship goes by email but that is A. not always conveying the importance of a situation and B. it does not always reach everybody as you depend on the supervisor to pass it on, or on the crewmember to read what has been posted. Most crew never visit the Show room at Sea and thus is it a nice perk to sit on comfy chairs and couches and hear the staff Captain preach the latest “HAL – Gospel”

Staff Captain Jonathan Edwards explaining that nobody can expect a day off during first call Tampa.

The good ship ms Oosterdam (I) is under the command of Captain Robert Jan Kan whom I sailed with the 1990’s and onwards when he joined Holland America as a Navigator. Today he led the Holland America parade into Malaga as behind us are the Prinsendam and the Eurodam. It is very seldom that you have 3 company ships in port and even more seldom that they are docked at the same cruise terminal. Thus I did have to run ashore to take a photo of the occurrence. Unfortunately the cruise pier in Malaga is long and narrow with water on both sides, so I could not walk far enough to get them all lined up in a row.  An angle was the best I could do. Maybe a local newspaper sees the uniqueness of the happening and diverts a helicopter for a few moments.

Ocean Liner row in Malaga. ms Oosterdam, (I), ms Eurodam (I) and ms Prinsendam (II). Also in port but at other docks: ms Amadea and the ms Aegean Odyssey.

Tomorrow we are at sea after having sailed through the Pillars of Hercules & Gibraltar during the late night. The weather forecast looks very good and with that I mean not sun or rain but wind, waves and swell. Those things which makes a ship wobble and the guests unhappy. For the time being it looks very good. The 20 knots of wind we currently have will died down to almost nothing and the waves are not supposed to be higher than 2 meters or so, 6 or 7 feet.  And that is very good for this time of the year.