March 1, 2013  Sea Day

Barbara, our travel guide, presented things to see and do in Ujung Padang, Indonesia. Later in the morning Aileen Bridgewater shared stories of her interviews with Prime Ministers Indira Ghandi in New Delhi and Rajiv Ghandi who took over the Premiership after her assignation and was soon after assassinated himself.

Mr. Kruse, the CEO and President of Holland America who is also responsible for the Seabourn brand, (which is also owned by Carnival), held a presentation along with the head of the Mariner Society to let people know about future things coming down the line with Holland America. Holland America is building a new 2,600-passenger ship while Seabourn is outfitting the Quest with Zodiac boats to make five landings in Antartica on future voyages. The presentation and question and answer period lasted about 90 minutes.

Today we had lunch with Mary and Gordon, from San Diego.  We have been on tours and attend Good Morning, Amsterdam with them.  It was great to learn a little more about them and to share some of our stories with them.

The entertainment on this evening was an Australian gentleman by the name of Phoenix and is called a Real-Life Mentalist. This show was very unusual in that he claimed he was not a medium but seemed to be able to read peoples minds? People wrote numbers and random words on sheets of paper, sealed them in envelopes and placed them in a locked box. Not only was Phoenix able to guess the numbers and words written on the slips of paper but, he knew what city in the world the people lived in and more. In one case he told an older lady that she was close to an American President’s family. He asked her if she knew JFK and if she had a photo of herself taken with Jackie Kennedy. When she answered yes, he continued to tell her that in the photo she was wearing a black dress of which she had pinned a black feather onto it. She said yes!