The next morning (Sunday, October 2nd), we packed up our luggage, grabbed some breakfast, and met our tour guide in the hotel lobby.
She took us on a walk through the city to the Rijksmuseum.
[Main hall]
[Stairs up to the Great Hall]
[The Great Hall - Looks like the inside of a gothic cathedral]
Our tour guide escorted us through the entrance, up the beautiful stairs, through the Great Hall, and into the Gallery of Honour. This Gallery is full of works from the Dutch Golden Age including paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, and Rembrandt.
[Syndics of the Drapers' Guild, Rembrandt, 1662]
She walked us over to various paintings and told us all about them. It was nice to have a personal guide who was so knowledgeable!
As we made our way over to these portraits, she seemed to be very excited. These beautiful Rembrandt paintings were owned by the Rothschild Family until 2015 when they were sold to the Louvre and Rijksmuseum for €160 million. The museums share custody, so the paintings spend equal time between the two locations. We were lucky enough to see them while they were in the Netherlands.
[Pendant Portraits of Oopjen and Maerten Coppit]
If this next painting seems familiar it's because you are likely familiar with Vemeer's most famous masterpiece: Girl with a Pearl Earring (which is currently at the Mauritshuis in The Hague).
[The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer, circa 1657]
We then made our way to the first painting I saw when we entered the Gallery of Honour: The Night Watch.
This is not only Rembrandts most famous paintings, but it's likely the most famous painting from the Dutch Golden Age. The painting is huge and the men are almost life size!
We then walked through the 1650-1700 wing where we saw paintings and models of war ships, the beautiful Research Library, and Delftware.
[Model of the William Rex (Dutch War Ship)]
We had to be quiet and go through a very heavy door in order to see this gorgeous library. It is the largest public art history research library in the Netherlands and there are currently students studying in there. When I opened the heavy doors I took a deep breath and it smelled like old books. It was such a wonderful smell!
We then made our way into the Delftware section where our tour guide told us about this unique pottery and why it looks so much like Chinese porcelain. It turns out that Chinese porcelain was very popular, but very expensive during the late-1600s. So, the Delft craftsmen figured out a way to copy it, but also make it their own. It is very beautiful.
[Flower Pyramid (late 17th century) - used for displaying tulips]
We continued to wind our way through the floors of the museum, stopping to admire and learn about works of art from our tour guide.
[Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, Rembrandt, 1630]
Luckily, the museum isn't too big, so we were able to see a lot of it in just two hours. At the end of our tour we visited the young self portrait by Rembrandt and then headed back out into Amsterdam.
Our tour guide escorted us back to our hotel. Along the way she quizzed us about what we had learned from Tijs the day before (they are friends 🙂). She seemed pretty impressed that we remembered so much. We stopped at the Multatuli Statue and she showed us where an old tower use to be on the bridge. She then showed us the smallest house in Amsterdam.
[To the left of the statue and to the right of the tree there is a small red house. It is just one window wide. I would have loved to see what it looked like on the inside!]
Once we made it back to our hotel we quickly grabbed our bags, ate lunch, and then met our driver (another bald guy in a suit). We piled into the black Mercedes SUV and headed down to Rotterdam. Originally we were supposed to be leaving on our cruise from Amsterdam, but due to the drought there isn't enough water for the large ships to get into the harbor safely. Just a few weeks before we left on our trip, the cruise line changed embarkment locations. Luckily, our travel agent was able to move our boarding time, so we could still have time to go to the museum this morning and make it to the ship on time.
We drove an hour south to Rotterdam and when we arrived I felt a little out of place. We had been visiting old cities for the last week, so seeing something so modern was a little strange. We didn't have time to explore Rotterdam now, but we will do that in two weeks when we disembark.
The ship porters took our luggage and the five of us headed inside the cruise terminal. We showed the first lady that we came to our passports and she immediately handed us bright pink tickets. After we went through security we took the elevator upstairs to the main terminal area. The room was HUGE and full of chairs and a lot of people waiting around. I approached a young man and asked him where we were supposed to go. He looked at my pink tickets and said "To the front of the line!" Sounds great! He took us to the front of the line and passed us off to another lady. She took us to a desk where the verified our vaccination information and then we headed to the check in desk. Here they checked our passports and made sure all of our information was correct.
As we were waiting for our check in to be completed a nice lady, Diane, from the ship showed up. She was from the Neptune Lounge and she was there to escort us to our suite. Right before we were going to head up the gangway we were told we had to wait because someone had fallen down. It turns out the *poor lady fell as she was walking up the gangway and hit her head pretty hard on the floor. We waited until she was taken away by the paramedics before they would let us on the ship.
*Side Note: We saw her a few days later on the ship. Her face was covered with bruises and her eye looked pretty swollen. I'm guessing they flew her out to one of the ports after the she was released from the hospital.
Once we were cleared to board Diane took us to the front of the line and we headed up into the ship. We were joined by her boss and they took us to the seventh floor: Schubert Deck. We then walked down a long hallway lined with rooms. They showed us where the Neptune Lounge is and told us that we could go in there anytime to get food or drinks. Only people in the Neptune and Pinnacle Suites are allowed to use that Lounge. Fancy.
We then arrived at the double doors of our room.
There are 1340 cabins on this ship, but there is only one Pinnacle Suite.
The suite is 1290 square feet and has a bedroom with a king-sized bed, a large closet/dressing room, a bathroom with a tub and shower, a kitchen, a dining room, a guest bathroom, a large living room with a pull out couch (aka Theo's room), and a giant balcony with a whirlpool!
[Fresh fruit and champagne (they also brought grape juice for those of us that don't drink or don't like champagne)]
[Panorama (left to right): front door, guest bathroom, family room (Theo and Josh), dining room, balcony door, and Master bedroom]
[Family room]
[Dining Room]
[Kitchen with espresso and cappuccino maker, sink, dishwasher, pantry, and fridge]
[Entrance into Master bedroom]
[Master bedroom]
[Closet/dressing room]
[Bathroom]
[Bathroom]
[Bathroom]
[Master bedroom from the bathroom]
[Dining room]
[Balcony]
[Balcony]
We put Theo down for a nap in our room and then I completely unpacked everything! The bags we left with the porters AND the bag that we shipped ahead of time all arrived! PHEW!
I had been watching my large red rolly bag using the AirTags since it was picked up from our house back on September 20th. It flew from Chicago to Germany and then was driven to the Amsterdam airport. It was there for a few days before headed up to the Amsterdam train station. I was going to be really upset if it didn't make it to the ship in Rotterdam when I was literally in the same building as it when we were in Amsterdam. But we had no issues and everything arrived when it was supposed to and in the correct condition.
We then found my parents hanging out on the balcony. They are in the room right next to ours, which is going to be super convenient!
[Parents room - Verandah Suite]
After Theo's nap we headed up to the Sea View Pool on deck 9 to get a view of the city before we left.
[Erasmusbrug aka The Swan]
[The Rotterdam (building)]
When the tug boats showed up we knew it was almost time to go!
We went inside, got some Dive-In fries, and headed up to the Crows Nest for the sail away.
The fries at the Dive-In on our last cruise were SOOOO GOOOOD! Sadly, these ones aren't as good, but they are still fries 🙂
Rotterdam is Europe's largest seaport and it took a couple hours for us to get out of Rotterdam and into the North Sea. As the sun was setting you could see cranes, smoke stacks, and windmills covering the horizon.
After the sun went down we headed to the dining room where we have a standing 8:00 PM reservation.
[Master bedroom - turn down service]
I am so excited for this cruise! Even though we were originally supposed to go to Russia, Finland, and Estonia, I am still very excited for our extra day in Stockholm and that we get to see Norway! I also hate living out of a suitcase. Having to pickup and move hotels is such a pain. I love that we can completely unpack our things and wake up in a new location (almost) every day.
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