April 19th, 2023 Day 106 of 128

Amsterdam, The Netherlands Day 2 of2

This morning the alarm went off particularly early after our last evenings Gala celebration. We grabbed a quilt breakfast in the Lido before heading to the Main stage to meet our excursion group at 7:15am. Today we are off to the Keukenhof tulip festival. This experience is only available for seven weeks out of every year. There will be over a million visitors to this festival in those seven weeks. I am very lucky we were there early upon it’s opening. By the time we left the place was absolutely packed. I believe the cruise ship along brought six bus fulls of passengers here today and probably the same if not more yesterday. What an absolutely beautiful experience. Over 7 million spring flowering blooms of tulips, daffodils and hyacinth. There are also five other indoor pavilions that had additional displays of orchids, hyacinth and hibiscus. It was nice to be able to go inside the pavilions and get a break from the cold wind. There is also a windmill on the property and we got to go up inside of it and see the view of the tulip fields in the surrounding area. The colors everywhere were so beautiful. The smell of hyacinth in the air was actually overwhelming in a few areas it was so strong. I had never seen so many blooming flowers at one place at one time in my life. It was a very memorable experience and I am so glad I was able see this as part of my 2023 World Cruise adventure. We were back on the ship by about 11:30am and I laid down on the bed, still in my jacket and shoes and I fell asleep. I napped away the afternoon as this cold is still wiping me out. But I am letting myself rest as I decided it is my body trying to tell me something. We got up around 4:00pm and started to get ready for our 5:00pm dinner seating. We had a nice dinner and got to watch the scenic sail out of Amsterdam. We went through some beautiful scenery and some locks at one point I am not sure exactly where we they were but it was lovely to see. I was back in my cabin shortly after dinner and I was in for the night. Megan went out and went swimming for a bit before she came home and was in for the evening. I am hoping for a good night sleep, healing, and to wake up feeling refreshed. Please enjoy the photos I took today. There are many more and it was super hard choosing which ones to post. It truly was a magnificent place to visit.