Welcome to the Netherlands and the tulip. Thousands of them in all different colors. We selected an excursion for a tour of the Keukenhof Park. This is a unique place that is hundreds of acres in size and grows tulips, hyacinths, crocus and orchids. Individual growers put on huge displays of their flowers for 2 months, April and May of each year. On June 1st it is all shut down, the flowers are cut away and discarded and the bulbs dug up. The bulbs are dried and cleaned and the new growth taken off. Most of the remaining bulbs are then destroyed. It is an amazing place and takes hours to explore. We only spent 2 hours there and barely scratched the surface but the displays were amazing.

Rotterdam, Holland is home port for the cruise line. They have a big corporate headquarters and their first ship is on display in the harbor. The Maas River runs from the North Sea for miles into downtown Rotterdam and when we arrived we "backed down" the length of the river. It took almost 2 hours. Many of the ships officers and crew had family visitors, including the captain.

Upon leaving around 5 pm we headed out the river to horn blasts and security escorts. Many people were on shore to wish us well as we passed small residential areas on the river.

While the package we were on was advertised as 29 days, it is actually 2 segments. A 17-day trip from Florida to Copenhagen and then a 12-day segment or roundtrip to St. Petersburg and back to Copenhagen.

We had a quiet dinner in the dining room with friends, Greg and Judy as we continued on to Copenhagen. We have a full day at sea tomorrow as we navigate through the narrow channel between Sweden and Denmark.

We slept in and had a late room service breakfast before attending Captain Nixon's

last lecture: the origins of tea! A fascinating 45-minute excursion into how tea became one of the most popular drinks in the world and the many fortunes won and lost for it.

Lunch by the pool and an ice sculpture demonstration before we played cards in the Crow’s Nest and watched the ships pass in many directions. We again returned to the Canaletto Restaurant for a farewell dinner with Greg and Judy who were leaving in Copenhagen and going on to Hamburg to visit with friends before returning to Indiana later this month. We called our girls and chatted with them. The six-hour time difference and their work schedules make it difficult to stay in touch. On board internet access is expensive, at $55 for 100 minutes. We arrive in Copenhagen in the morning where many guests are leaving and the ship begins a new segment into the Baltic Sea.

We're in Copenhagen and Laurie is sick! A stomach bug. We made it as far as the excursion bus and breakfast came back up! We had to report to the medical center and they took her temp which was normal and told her to rest. We returned to our room, she showered again and got sick again. She's napping and we cancelled our tour. Hopefully we can get a refund. If she feels better later we'll take a shuttle bus into town but the ship departs at 3 this afternoon for Germany.

We stayed on board. She's feeling better but we opted to just relax and let her recuperate.

The Excursion desk gave us a 50% refund and we applied it to a tour the night we get back to Copenhagen for a canal boat ride.