So we are back from the trip from HELL! It was bad. Started bad, ended bad. It was just bad. I will be posting it every few days. Here is the start, stay tuned for the rest...
Pay heed, thee,
To the survivors we,
From the ship named Veendam,
For we were surely the Veendamned!
So here is our long awaited tale of woe. It will be somewhat abbreviated, and will leave out many of the family quirks, embarrassments and fights for the sake of brevity as well as to not publicly shame anyone. However, I will say...holy crap this sucked!
Friday: Flew out of Raleigh. Since none of these people are on SG, I will say that Joe was a total dick the entire time, but he started off right away by upgrading his ticket to business class. Not Kim's as well, just his. And he didn't tell Kim until we got to the airport. Holy shit, what a dick move. It was not his last, but man did it piss Kim off, justifiably so. Flight was going to be delayed and thus make us miss our connection to Montreal. The fabulous Delta people got us all set up with new flights before we even knew this was a problem. Yay them! Hit Everything was fine, hit Montreal and walked to customs. And walked. And walked. And walked. Holy gods, they really hate us! And walked. Finally, we get there and it's a massive sea of humanity and tensa barriers. Stand shuffle shuffle, stand shuffle shuffle. For 1.5 hours. Get in taxi and to hotel. All good, nice hotel. Front desk people and cruise line (Holland America) rep already know Nancy and Marty (Karen's parents) quite well. Of course. WE meet up then head to dinner. Nancy is already in some pain from her leg giving out after the forced march to customs. We take 2 taxis to...I kid you not...PoutineVille. I'll let that sink in. Kim's (Karen's sister) fiance Joe's choice. So we go. Poutine is fine for an appetizer, but for an entire meal? I was loud, confusing, not ideal. But we survived and headed back to the hotel for an early night’s sleep.
Saturday: The first inkling of the hell to come. Marty and Nancy (or M&N for short) eat breakfast at the hotel. Kim and Joe (K&J) and Karen and I (K&C) head to Mister Steer (!!!) for breakfast. It was quite yummy, standard breakfast fare (I picked it out). We stopped by shop to get some Diet Coke (apparently Canada does not have Caffeine Free DC) and then back to the hotel. We hang out for a time then get head out to the buses to take us to the ship. The busses arrived, M shouted “YO!” to get Kim’s attention, making me cringe (please do not be so American!) and we rolled out. The buses stop about a mile away and the bus driver has a conversation with the other driver. In French. Then the other bus leaves and we head out at a snail’s pace. We pass the ship and keep going. Then we turn onto another street and head back. Still at this snail’s pace (maybe 10 mph). Pass the ship again going the other direction. The turn and eventually get to the ship and docking facilities ( a tent). Took about 30 minutes to go a few miles. The brakes were broken, as it turns out. We survived. Checked through Holland America, walked past the picture people (not without Marty basically swearing at them), then onto the ship. We go to our cabins, K&J and K&C are on deck 5, N&M on deck 9. Ship sail time we go to M&N cabin since they have a balcony. Head back to our cabin to change for dinner (we brought 7 nice dinner outfits and we were going to use them!). K&J were pissed that we were dressing nicely, but oh well. Head to our early 5:00 dinner. One thing I forgot to mention: Kim gets very seasick. She has an anti-nausea patch on, but the ship is definitely wallowing. She was not doing well. Basically, the entire time on the ship she was not doing well. Take this as a given. Food was okay, but not great. We think we got the B team. Also, we are in a river. Didn’t realize this, but the trip from Montreal to Quebec City (or next port on Sunday) is on a river, then after Quebec City it’s a river for a while, then a bay, then finally the Atlantic. Still, the ship is wallowing some. Not a problem for anyone except Kim. Oh, and the ship. It was launched in 1996. Its decorations were stuck in the 80’s. Holland America seems to be an aging cruise line. But our cabin is nice, has a lovely window, plenty of room. We unpack then are exhausted, so another early night.
Stay tuned for more wackiness. Love you all.