20 November 2007, at Sea

Another great day at sea. Wonderful sunshine and with a ships speed of about 15 knots the prevailing winds strong winds where just turned into a nice breeze over the decks. Most of the kids were happily locked away for the day in the club Hal house behind the funnel and also guests were having a great time.

Talking about kids. During my Voice from the Bridge announcement at 1 pm. I explained how the tender procedure worked in Belize with the fast shore tenders. It seems that I stirred up quite a bit of excitement with our younger guests who are now all determined to get on the fastest one. We have been allotted four fast boats that each can take a 100 or more, the other boats are going to the two other cruise ships. I have explained in an earlier Belize blog that there fewer boats this year, then before due to the cruise dock construction. Some boat operators are already getting out of the business and into buses and taxis. But four fast ones should be enough to expedite the disembarkation. Tomorrow I will find out if I lived up to their expectation and if my “fast” was fast enough.

Although Holland America is not a company who focuses on children on board perse, we offer the facilities so that whole families feel welcome. Since we have built our two story clubhouse behind the funnel, they have a perfect place to enjoy themselves. Depending on how many children we are expecting, we have a number of youth Councilors on board. During regular cruises, mostly only one, as there are never more then two or three kids on board but during a cruise like the current one, we have four on board. The clubhouse is made up of a Toddler area, a children’s area and a teen area. On the top we have the Oasis which looks like Polynesian Island, with palm trees, a water fall and volcano cones. The teen area is called the loft and the layout of this place puzzled me for awhile. I could understand that it is a bit dark as that gives atmosphere but in the middle of the room there is a full length mirror standing, taking prime position.

This I found a bit of a waste of space but what do I know about Teen Psychology. It turns out that this is the most popular item in the loft with all evening long preening teenagers hovering around it. So my compliments to whoever dreamed this up, it works really well. To give the whole place a bit of disco effect, we have color lights rotating on the TV dome behind the oasis outside. In the course of about 10 minutes the dome goes from green to white to purple to red etc. I will have to sail one day behind one of the other HAL ships to see what it looks like from a distance. I saw once the Costa Allegra coming by who has laser lights going up in the air, coming from a Disco on the aft top deck and that looked really strange. The laser beams were visible against the night sky long before the ship itself came above the horizon.

Club HAL has their own daily program and activities that keep the kids busy all day long with the latest activity lasting until of 9 in the evening. After that the place remains open until late for the teens, with always a youth councilor there to keep an eye on things. Thus far the reports have always been very good without exception and that is the only thing I need to know.

Tonight we have our captain’s welcome on board toast just before the show but I do not think that there will be many kids there. Too boring. My speech will never win it from the temptation of a game box.

Tomorrow we are in Belize and it looks a perfect day for water sports.