June 24 Day 11 Board Cruise Ship in Copenhagen

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After such a lovely party for Midsummer, we didn't sleep particularly well. We both were awake and decided to get up by 5 AM. We did a significant amount of packing, sorting out things to leave at Lars and Julie's home, packing up clean laundry, and finding things that had gotten lost in our quick time with family. We also had a chance to get a little caught up on our photos and our blog knowing that on the cruise ship it was going to be touch and go when we would be able to upload.

Julie was so kind as to drop us off at the cruise terminal around 10:30 on her way to work. The check-in process on Holland America Cruise Line was super easy. We dropped off our bags, stood in a very short line to get our identification cards, had our backpacks x-rayed, and we were on the ship dropping things off in our room before noon. Our ship is the Zuiderdam, a moderately sized ship with about 2000 passengers. Because we are now "experienced" cruisers, we knew there were some immediate things to take care of. We went and made dinner reservations for a couple of special evenings, picked up some books from the book exchange library, and headed off for our first buffet lunch. We are cruising!

We participated in the drill which practices what to do in an emergency if we needed to abandon ship. This is always a little sobering to imagine the ship really going down. But, things happen quickly and it makes you feel a little bit better knowing somebody has thought about this.

Soon after the drill, we headed off to the upper deck on the stern to prepare for departure.  It was a very festive atmosphere there as everyone was excited about beginning our cruise.

Right on time the lines were cast off and the ship slowly pulled away from the pier,  We turned north to pass through the straight between Denmark and Sweden.  These countries, which have been friendly for many years, were formerly quite bitter enemies.  We passed the Kronberg Castle, known most for being the site of Shakespeare's Hamlet, was part of the Danish defense.

After passing the castle, we were off for dinner. Life on cruise ships involves a lot of eating. We're focusing on eating healthy and keeping desserts to a minimum.  The food is generally good, not great, but there is a lot of it.

The first evening's program gave an overview of cruising the Baltic, with the special introduction to our first port Aarhus, Denmark where will spend a half day tomorrow. We were both tired, having gotten up so early and so went to bed at about 8:30. No late-night parties for us!