12 April 2019
Today our morning cuppa was at 5:45 as we had to make an early start to check out of our Amsterdam hotel and join the excursion to Keukenhof Gardens.
We made an early breakfast with Chris and Ruth and then went down to reception to hand our luggage to the comcierge and our luggage tickets to the Viking staff.
We then joined our 40-strong group to walk to Rokin square where our coach was waiting for us. We drove the 27 km to Lissee where we were given a tour of the bulbfields before entering the coaxh park at Keukenhof. Our guide gave us a map and explained the layout of the park advising us to visit the walled garden first.
Next was the Oranje Nassau which was a stunning display of cut flowers.
Afterwards we headed to the Willem-Alexander pavilion which was dedicated to tulips of an amazing variety of colours and styles.
From there we went to the reconstructed Mill, which afforded a view of the bulbfields and the park.
Our final visit was to the Beatrix pavillion which contained a display of orchids. By this time we had only 15 minutes to get back to our meeting point so there was no time for a visit to the souvenier shops. We met the guide just on time and were led back onto a coach … the wrong one! So having settled down, we then walked to the correct one.
The 50 minute drive back to Amsterdam was uneventful, except for the last few km where we seemed to be in a permanent traffic jam, apparently because one of the tunnels under the river was closed, meaning that all the traffic was funnelled over a single bridge.
However, we got back to Rokin by about 1 pm and decided to take the tram to Centraal station and then a bus to the Maritime museum, where we had a bite to eat before exploring the rebuilt replica of a VOC ship (dutch east india company).
We decided to leave ourselves plenty of time to get back to Centraal station, which was just as well, because there was an even greater traffic jam and no sign of any bus for at least 20 minutes. Accordingly, we walked back to the station, which took only about another 20 minutes, during which there was no sign of any bus!
We found our ship with no trouble and were welcomed on board just in time for a cheese and wine reception.
Our luggage was delivered to our cabin and after we had unpacked, we returned to the lounge for a briefing by the captain and crew.
There was a good selection of menu items for dinner and afterwards some music and entertainment in the lounge.
We then returned to our cabin to view the days’ pictures, but when we turned the TV on there was a mandatory viewing of the safety video before we could do anything else. Peter then connected the ipad to the TV but was unable to get the TV to accept an HDMI inlut, so we had to pass the ipad around instead. Video of the day was projected onto the wall in rather soft focus mode, so we will need to see if this can be improved!
You can see a brief video of the day here:
Keukenhof
At 11:30 the vessel finally got underway for our first cruise to Rotterdam.