We slept well after a great dinner of salmon and roast beef, The king bed is great. Our cabin is quiet and there is very little rocking of the boat. Dave saw the sunrise over the Caribbean as we made our way to Half Moon Cay, the private island HAL bought in 1196 for $6M from the Bahamas. Dave had a dip in the Lido pool which is surprisingly fresh instead of salt water.
The Zuiderdam (pronounced zoyderdam) has 11 decks and was built in 2002. There are 1916 guests and 800 crew. Gross tonnage is 82,000. Hence it is a medium sized ship, even small by today’s standards. This accounts for the fact it never feels crowded on board and people are not in a frenzy. It feels “low key” and average passenger age is late 60s by estimation.
Half Moon Cay is gorgeous. Blond crescent shaped sand beach a mile long, cyrstal clear torquise water and rocly shoals at each end. There are no shells here – only a few small sandstone pebbles. We catch the taiil end of the yoga on the beach class taught by a young Poiish lady. The tender ride in was smooth.
Back on board we have tuna steak and crabcakes for dinner. The food is very tasty on HAL. We meet friendly people from Texas, Oregon, Florida and Colorado. We have some laughs at the comedian show.
mattersofthemoment 