It took me longer to pack than expected. I'm unsure why, packing when I left home was easy and I really hadn't bought that much. Anyway, by about 11am we were ready to go, so lugged our suitcases down the long flight of stairs to the street and off we went.
We had to catch three separate trams to reach our destination. When we got off the tra, we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by buildings, a combination of offices and apartments. There was a bridge nearby that spanned a large canal, so I wandered to the bridge to see if I could see our ship, MS Koningsdam. There she was! Not too far away. So we continued along the street and find the entrance to the passenger terminal.
The check in process was very quick and painless. Within minutes we waved our suitcased goodbye as they disappeared through a hole in the wall onto a conveyer belt. We then had a short queue to present passports, and get a photo taken for our access card. The man said they already had our photos from our last cruise, and asked if wanted to use the same photos, or new photo. I said old photo is OK. He joked I was wearing the same shirt, I look at the photo and he was almost right, but I had the same shirt in the suitcase!
They were boarding people in groups, each taking about 10 minutes, so we waited about 30 minutes before heading through security scanners and eventually getting on board.
Once on board, we found our way to our room, right up near the bow on the starboard side. Our suitcases had not been delivered yet, so we freshened up and made a beeline for the Lido deck. We hadn't had breakfast, and by now it was after 1pm. The casual dining buffet (known here as the Lido Market) are huge, with an extensive range of foods on offer and large amounts of seating. We found a window seat on the starboard side looking over the canel, and had a leisurely lunch.
After that, we returned to our cabin, by now our suitcases had arrived, so we spent some time unpacking. The suitcases are now hidden under the bed, not to be seen for 21 days.
For departure, we went out onto the bow (well, actually a viewing platform above the bow) which was a great viewing spot to see where the ship is going. We were already facing in the right direction, so the ship headed straight along the North Sea Canal.
The scenic tour along the canal took about 2 hours, passing a variety of housing, farms, and heavy industry. We even saw a Soviet-era submarine, awaiting the scrap yard.
After about 40 minutes, it became less interesting, and it was getting colder outside, so we decided to returning inside. We chose to return to the Lido Market and found a similar window table on the starboard side. Here we sat watching the world go by. Often there would be groups of cars parked up, people taking photos and waving at the ship as we passed. We must have looked amazing. Sitting on the Lido deck, it's so high that the views over the countryside are stunning.
We eventually reached the lock where the ship needed to be raised about 1 metre to the same level as open sea. I was amazed at the size of the lock gates as we passed them by.
As we entered the lock, the ship steered hard up against the starboard side (where we were sitting) and we could see am ambulance parked up alongside. As it happened, a passenger had become sick or injured, the needed to be removed from the ship. It only took around 10 minutes for that to be completed, sad for the passenger(s) involved.
It than took about an hour for the lock to be pumped full of water, and we passed through. Once we got to the mouth of the canal, we saw the strangest mix. Firstly, heavy industry, a huge complex belting pollution into the air, next to that a line of wind turbines, and finally a beautiful beach with several restaurants lined up. Out to see was a big man made break which had many people out on the end waving to us as we disappeared out to sea.
We retired to our room, watched a movie on the in-house entertainment system, then went to bed.
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