Volendam day one 24/10/11

Busy day today all change. Breakfas, packing and hunt the earring. All aboard the van and heading into Aukland. Annie's hints worked out fine and we arrived at Prince's wharf, found a parking slot and left our baggage at the isite all very efficiently. Straight out of the car park and followed the signs to the airport sucessfully. Dropped the van off and were delivered to the airport bus station very efficiently and within minutes the bus arrived. We were warned that the city centre was closing down for the victory parade and that the bus might not get the whole way to the quay. In the event it stopped a couple of blocks away. We picked up our luggage and dropped it into the Holland America checkin system then sneaked off back to the city for a last look round at all the crowds. Had a coffee and snack then returned to face the form filling at check in. All went very smoothly, bar taking the logic behind a form too literally and failing to tick two 'no' boxes as they were part of an 'if' clause that didn't apply. Officialdom didn't see it that way. Finally onboard and afternoon tea called. After that back to the cabin and found half the luggage had been impounded owing to contraband alcohol appearing in the xray. Next we were involved in the lifeboat drill, without lifejackets nowadays, probably found the risk assessment showed there were more accidents from wearing lifejackets in the drill than ever encountered in real emergencies.
For some reason our liferaft 4 appeared oversubscribed and number 2 beside it was virtually empty! Managed to retrive luggage minus 1/8th bottle of gin left over from the timeshare days. Next on the agenda was the welcome barbecue round the pool, not quite as well executed as we expected, meat excellent but somewhat colder than we'd have liked as the chefs were cooking well ahead of the clients arriving. Decided to get into the swing of things and went to the pub quiz, joined a couple from San Diego and between us we scored only 17 out of 32. However we came in the middle of the field. 'Name that tune' really let us down. Microsoft presentation on photo editing was next in line and proved to be quite interesting. Lots more of these classes to come so we might learn something. Wandered down to the theatre and were presented with free bingo cards - chance to win 250 us dollars. I'm sure he had a different set of numbers to me as I only had two numbers checked when house was called, and one of those was a 'free gift' number. Never mind. Next up was a  preview showcase of all the entertainers aboard, singers, musicians and dancers. Hot chocolate and back to the cabin to write this lot before we cast off and get out of network range. I refuse to pay over 15 pounds an hour for shipboard internet access, that is extortionate. No folded towel animals on the bed, maybe tomorrow, or maybe they don't do it on this ship.