Saturday 2 August
Pleasant night at Inntel Rotterdam Centre - darkness not till after 10.30pm. Good hotel for our needs as very close to cruise terminal, good views, on water and good breakfast.
Quick wander down to Rotterdam market which is a huge and well spread outdoor affair - great seafood, fruit & vegetables and flowers. Then took the Metro to Delfshaven one of Rotterdam's oldest areas as it was not bombed during WWII - much of the rest of Rotterdam is very new and plenty of leading edge architecture.
Checked out after noon and took a taxi to cruise terminal (having a number of the tram lines out of action has negated quite a bit of our Rotterdam travel knowledge). What would have been a quick 2 stop tram trip had to be replaced with the taxi - not the water taxi or a 500m walk over Erasmus Bridge with cases in tow, neither of which would have suited one of us.
Check in was severely impacted by 2 computer crashes, so took almost 2 hours to embark. The Dutch are not great at queueing, or tolerance. Eventually all on board and 30 minute late departure. Our compulsory emergency briefing station (life boat 8) had a poor result ie most non-attendees - judging by the age of many, it may be we "lost" them before check in!
Rotterdam is one of the world's largest ports, taking us nearly 3 hours to clear. Weather is fine as it has been all trip to date - just one day with a shower, and temperatures in the mid to high 20's.
Heading off to dinner on Table 65 - table of eight, new people to meet!!
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