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| Holland America's Oosterdam |
These repositioning cruises are economical because not many folks want to spend that much time in the middle of the Atlanta Ocean.
What can you possibly do to have a meaningful and fun experience at sea for a week? First, there are over 50 activities offered every day so there's lots to choose from. But if you spend three hours eating and two hours exercising and playing cribbage, you don't need a whole lot to fill in the time.
The lectures and entertainment were non stop. But what we enjoyed most was getting to know people from all over the world. There were 43 countries represented on the ship. Most of these were Americans and most of those were Floridians. But we met Europeans who were coming to Florida to spend the winter just like people in this country do.
Dave celebrated his birthday on the ship. He was surprised by a dozen Indonesian waiters singing a happy birthday song in their native language. Since Dave was born in Malaysia, this was meaningful to him. He loved talking with all of the Indonesian crew.
Everybody has a story. We invited two ladies to sit with us one evening and discovered that one of them had planned the trip with her husband but he died suddenly so she came with her friend instead. We got to know another couple with whom we had much in common. The husband had been a college professor, an attorney and the mayor of his small town for nine years. Dave was on the planning commission for his town for 30 years. They had stories to share.
Holland America caters to oldies like us. Some of us shared fun life stories. Some of us shared sad life stories. Some of us seemed to be aware that the meaningfulness of sharing was that we're nearing the final chapters in these stories of our lives.
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