March 15th, 2024 Day 17 of 24 Sea Day 3 of 3

It’s our last of three Sea Days today. And the activities abound like always. We opted to sleep in a little this morning since we had such a late night last night. We were up and ,moving in time to join our Project Linus group at 9:00am. At 10:30am Megan and I went on a kitchen tour and got to see some of the working of what it takes to feed 1950 passengers (when at capacity) and hundreds of crew members three meals a day. It is quite impressive to see the size of the dishwashing areas, prep areas, and cooking stations. Some of the family took a kitchen tour in 2020 when we were on the world, but I had a slight cough so I was asked not to participate. For two years we have watched the Pinnacle Grill staff sneak into the kitchen throughout our meals there and today we went in through the main dining room and exited through that very door. On the other side stood Holland America employees who gave us a glass of champagne and thanked us for taking part in the tour. It was a really great perspective for us as long time cruisers to see the other side of how things work. Of course now we were hungry after seeing all the pastries being prepped, oh what wonderful smells we smelled. But, lunch isn’t served until noon so we headed back to the cabin so I could take care of some emails and Megan could work on school. At noon we headed to the Lido for lunch and sat with our dear friend Gail and Marty. Then I had a follow up with the esthetician from my appointment a few days ago. Megan came to stay hello to Dr. Raquel with me. Last year Megan helped her learn how to crochet and Dr. Raquel worked with Megan with continuing to learn Spanish. It was fun to see them catch up. Everyone comments on how much older she looks, how taller she got, and how different she looks this year without her braces on. Next, it was back to the cabin to changed into our swimsuits for a dip in the pool. At the noon announcement today Captain Frank van Der Hoeven said his goodbyes as tomorrow he and his wife Alexandra will get off the ship and the new captain, Captain Friso Kramer will resume the helm. His lovely girlfriend Chantal will also be joining him. Megan and I had a lovely time on a couple of excursions with her last year and I am looking forward to seeing her as well. These are the same two captains that did the World Cruise last year. This year they just reversed who took the first half and who had the second half. I feel blessed that in our short time on the ship we had an opprtiunity to see them both. We received our first towel critter today, a cute frog that our cabin stewards embellished with the pink Stitch Megan bought at the Disney store in Tokyo. It is pink to commemorate the upcoming Cherry Blossom festival. Tonight we had dinner in the Pinnacle Grill again. We had to say goodbye to some crew that are leaving us tomorrow from Hong Kong. Their contracts are up and it is time for them to head home after having been away on the ship for so long. They are always so excited to be going home to see their families, but we love having them here and it is always hard to say goodbye to those we cherished being with as they are also like family to us as well. Tomorrow we will wake up in our last port of China. Hong Kong. We will be there overnight and will have two days of excursions. Looking forward to new adventures. Hugs.