July 22, 2023 Boston boarding the Zuiderdam

It was a short walk, just two blocks, to Flour Bakery for breakfast. The temperature was 20.7°C, it was cloudy with a light breeze.

With over two hours before needing to check out of the Yotel Hotel, we decided to walk to the Raymond L. Flynn Black Falcon Cruise Terminal (Flynn Cruiseport Boston) along the Harbor Walk. This time we walked to the south of the hotel, roughly following the route taken yesterday on the harbor tour. This body of water is Boston Inner Harbor. The GPS tracker was a little off location. We were not walking on water. Near Pier 4, we saw the American Cruise Line 170 passenger ship American Constitution. Further south we came to the Boston Fish Pier buildings and boats, seeing them from the land side today. The Boston Fish Pier was built in 1914 and is still in operation today, handling fish and seafood. There was a small shelter with a brief history of old Boston and history of the pier on several posters. One poster showed the old islands in the harbour and how the land has been filled in over the past 150 years to create land that is only a few feet above sea level.

We passed the entry sign to the cruiseport then walked past the large silos of the Harpoon Brewery before arriving at the Flynn Cruiseport Boston passenger terminal.

Today’s boarding of Zuiderdam was changed after U.S. Border Control and Coast Guard announced that they would be doing a ship satefy inspection today. This inspection was not anticipated and the boarding schedule had to be hastily rearranged as explained in an email from Holland America yesterday. Our original boarding time was 1:20 p.m. and now is 1 p.m., when it is hoped that the inspection has been completed. Other passengers had their times changed by several hours later. Larry took photos of the two docked ships from the Raymond L. Flynn Memorial Bridge by Sumner Street. The stroll to the cruiseport took slightly over an hour. We took a more direct route along Sumner Street, then down a staircase to Congress Street to connect with Thompson Place to get back to the hotel in less than 25 minutes. We had walked 6.16 km for a total of 8,296 steps. Checkout time was 11 a.m. We waited in the lobby before calling a taxi to take us to the cruiseport. While waiting, we spoke to several other Zuiderdam passengers who stayed at the same hotel.

The Metrocab taxi ride only took seven minutes driving straight along Seaport Street to the cruiseport. A porter took our luggage to which we had attached tags containing our stateroom number. Staff directed us to the security check, then the Check-in desk where a photo, for security identification, was taken. Then it was on to the ship, but first bypassing the photographers in the terminal, who were set up for the usual posed Welcome Aboard photo.

As we boarded the ship, two ship’s officers and the cruise director were greeting passengers as they stepped onto the ship’s deck 3. We found the stairs to deck 1 and walked along the port side corridor toward the front of the ship to find our Oceanview stateroom. The key cards were waiting in a sealed envelope in the “mail” slot. Although our stateroom is a bit larger than the Boston hotel room, it is smaller than the inside staterooms across the hall, by 40 square feet, which we had booked but were upgraded to Oceanview. But, the bathroom is a few sq. ft bigger and has a bathtub, which we have never had on a ship. It was only 1:25 p.m., just over half an hour since we left the hotel. In the stateroom, we watched the safety video on TV, then climbed the eight flights of stairs to deck 9 where the Lido buffet restaurant was open for lunch or snacks. The muster station checks did not start until 2 p.m. We chose a portside table and watched as the planes approached Logan airport, averaging one every 90 seconds. Several times there were two planes coming in parallel to one another, so we assumed that a second runway was being used. Logan airport has six runways. Today the planes were approaching over Boston Harbor as ours did two days ago.

After lunch we climbed to deck 10 to see the Explorations Central & Café / Crow’s Nest bar room at the ship’s bow. The baristas were quite busy making cappuccinos and Americanos. Zuiderdam is a sister to the Westerdam, on which we sailed in April and May. The layout was familiar. There was a good variety of board games on the shelves. Back to deck 9, we walked through the main pool area. No one was using the pool which was looked over by a Polar Bear and cub statue. The retractable roof was just partially open. This is a 35 day cruise which is divided into a 17 day segment to Rotterdam, Netherlands, and an 18 day segment back to Boston. There will be passengers leaving in Rotterdam and new ones embarking in Rotterdam, but a good portion of today’s passengers are staying on for the full 35 days.

Shortly after we returned to our stateroom our two suitcases arrived. With our clothes put away and stowed under the bed, we climbed to deck 3, the Promenade Deck to walk and watch the loading of cases of food, alcohol, guest luggage and other things into the ship’s storage area on the starboard side. On the port (left) side, the bunker ship was refuelling the Zuiderdam. We had seen it this morning refuelling the Zaandam which it was still refuelling when boarded our ship this afternoon. The captain made an announcement, as we walked, that since bunkering (refuelling) was only starting at 4:45 p.m, he was hoping that the ship could still leave at her scheduled 11 p.m. departure for the 89 nautical mile (about 161 km) voyage to Bar Harbor, Maine. The process should take about five hours, if all goes well – and it did!

While on deck 3 we found the bright library, containing a good variety of books, mostly published in the last five years, separated into more than half a dozen categories. There were multiple copies of many titles. We chose “The Dictionary of Lost Words” by Pip Williams, “The Bullet that Missed” by Richard Osman and “Moonflower Murders” by Anthony Horowitz.

We changed for 5:30 p.m. dinner in the main dining room on deck 3. We were assigned to a table for six by the starboard windows. No one joined us. The dining room had many tables for four or six with just two people sitting at them. Hopefully we will meet our table mates tomorrow evening.

The main theatre presented a documentary on the 150 year history of Holland America, which we had seen in April on our Japan cruise. We climbed up to the Explorations Central & Café / Crow’s Nest bar for the Facebook group’s Meet and Greet. There were over 300 people active on the group for almost two years. We stayed for an hour chatting with a few people. There were maybe 70 people in total coming and going during that time. Some people enjoyed drinks or coffees or just chatted. We checked to see if the barge was still fuelling the ship and it was still alongside at 8:30 p.m.

When we returned to the stateroom our steward, who has yet to introduce her/himself had turned down our bed leaving a wrapped chocolate wafer and tomorrow’s daily program. There was a Canada Customs form on the desk that needed to be completed by noon tomorrow. All passengers and crew have to complete it for entering Canada and our stop at Sydney, Nova Scotia on Tuesday. There may be more paperwork for entering Greenland, Iceland, Scotland (U.K.) and Netherlands on this portion of the voyage. The clocks will be adjusted several times during the next five weeks. Sydney will be an hour ahead of Boston. Corner Brook will 30 minutes ahead of Sydney. Greenland will 30 minutes ahead of Corner Brook. Iceland will be two hours ahead of Greenland. The Shetland islands, Scotland, will be an hour ahead of Iceland. Rotterdam will be an hour ahead of Britain. In all there could be six time changes, but there might not be a time change for Corner Brook and we will be on “ship’s time” for that stop.

Zuiderdam departed ten minutes early backing into Boston’s Inner Harbor, then swinging around to enter the larger Boston Harbor following the President Road Channel and continuing into the Hypocrite Channel, past the light on Grave’s Island and into the Gulf.

Total steps 16,037 for a distance of nine kilometres.