Amsterdam (Rotterdam)

Captain’s Log, October 28th: Unfortunately our detour for the sea burial meant that we missed our slot to enter Amsterdam harbor, so we had to go to the port of Rotterdam instead. Their cruise terminal is prohibitively expensive, but we were fortunate to find a spare berth at the container port facility. The passengers had a right to be disappointed, but we offered them a coach service to whisk them into Amsterdam in only two hours. Needless to say, some of them grumbled about the additional charge for this, but it was explained that it was hardly our fault that the Amsterdam port authorities had let us down.

Morale seemed to be low for those that stayed with the ship, but our entertainments officer came to the rescue, by organizing a guided tour of the container handling facilities. For the men on board, this turned out to be surprisingly popular, and many said they’d much preferred this to a city tour. The women were another matter, and some were extremely negative about our efforts. It shows, as always, that you can’t please everyone.

One little problem as we sailed away in the late evening was that the purser came to me with a bag full of postcards that we had undertaken to post for our passengers at Helsinki. I did think of posting them when we got back to England, but the purser pointed out that we had charged the passengers quite a lot for the overseas postal service. We concluded that there was only sensible option for us. We shredded them there and then.