Friday was a fairly chill sea day for us, but it sure did fill up quickly.  It had been two wakeups since we visited our friends in the Pinnacle Grill.  Friday night we visited our friends in the Main Dining Room instead.

Crossing the Drake northward was generally a bit bouncy but nothing fell off the counters and none of us tripped or anything.  The biggest tragedy was the champagne flutes acting like bowling pins in the cabinet overnight.  Nonetheless, we woke up to bouncy seas, room service coffee, and a pretty chill morning.  Neither of us left the cabin until 10:30.  The Boss decided it was calm enough to have some treadmill time and I ventured forth to complete a number of errands.

On the to-do list –

• Get our itinerary straight for our private airport transfer and tour leading up to airport drop off in Buenos Aires; I picked out a few different neighborhoods to visit and some major sites.  This also meant I lined up what we wanted to do the day before more independently.  I ran this through the concierge but I’m going to check with ShoreEx to see if it’s set up properly.
• Have The Boss’s preferences set for Konigstafel.  I actually have a photo coming on this.  It’s a set menu of something like six or seven courses, but there are a handful of dishes they can sub out for a handful of fish or vegetarian courses.  I tried to work this through the concierge but they were attempting an approach where they get us the menu and then menu with options (which I don’t think the dining room will get us) and then we return it during the day tomorrow (today) when we are off the ship so it gets turned back through them (the concierge) prior to dinner tomorrow night (it’s at 6, we get back on board around 4:30 today, so how is that going to work).  We ended up talking to our MDR waiter Muis about this and while we were dining two tiers of leadership came over to our table to work it instead.
• Do the same for the Cellar Master’s dinner in a few nights (this has not been handled yet).
• Arrange appetizer delivery for yesterday afternoon.

So that was handled.  Then I tried the Dive-In burger (it was good to great, fries were okay, I wouldn’t write home about it if people didn’t rave about it).  

And then I joined my mother for a private behind-the-scenes tour.

Let me tell you, folks.  This was something really special.  I expected they’d spend an hour walking us through various parts of the ship with a little bit of talk, but instead they spent nearly THREE HOURS walking us through various parts of the ship interspersed with leaders of said area telling us about their jobs, responsibilities, and themselves for 15 or 20 minutes at a stretch!

The person who led us – this was her first tour.  We were actually one of two tour groups.  Each was supposed to be twenty people and they NEVER do two tour groups but I think because this was a rather long itinerary and there was good demand with a lot of sea days they set a second up.  The cruise director kicked us off, and then we met:

• The laundry manager and his staff.
• Captain Kevin in the flesh in the bridge who then delegated his talk to another.
• The provisions manager (runs the mini “warehouses” for food on board)
• One of the dancers backstage during an actual production!
• The chief engineer; he spoke at great length regarding all of the systems on board.  I found this to be the most interesting and asked a number of questions!  
• The executive chef on board.  He walked us through one of the three large kitchens for the main dining room as well as the Pinnacle kitchen (I bet you didn’t realize these are actually adjacent to each other and attached).
• Finally, the hotel manager.

All of this was incredibly interesting.  They provided us a lot of detail and allowed us to take photos everywhere but reminded us to ask in each area (there was one person on duty who declined and with good reason).

After this tour, they fed us small appetizers and sparkling wine.  Then The Boss and I capped off our afternoon with a viewing of Evita (her) and a nap (me), and we enjoyed a pleasant MDR dinner.

Drake passage views

The linen press machine. This can press four sets of napkins at once and they come out the other end fairly well folded!

The view from the bridge. While in Antarctica, they had three spotters on constant rotation looking for whales. They noted 103 whales during the three days where we were sighting whales there. They claim this is an all time high but they’ve said that about so many things now I don’t believe it.

Bourbon storage. They also had a lot of beer and wine and a single case of Chimay.

The engine control room was my favorite part of the tour, possibly from my history of working in network operations centers with similar alert panels on the walls.

A happy breakfast and room service chef. I have more to come on the dining room tour. Spoiler alert – I repeated it yesterday (Friday) with our Friday evening dining experience!

On the left is the 22 day meal rotation for this cruise.  Top right is the bread rotation.  The right is the Koningstafel.  

Yesterday we were in the Falklands. I wore three layers and a raincoat.  Our truck was warm so ended up stripping to two for most of the ride.  After the excursion we visited the local brewery which was popular with cruise passengers, the entertainment and dance squad from the ship, and locals dressed in shorts and t-shirts just getting out of work (it was 3:30 on a Friday after all).  It was a glorious summer day!  Aside from the 30 knot breeze…. That of course made return tendering a challenge but all in all it was a good day and lengthy enough for us to work up an appetite for Konigstafel!

Yesterday was what I’ve been looking forward to the most on this cruise – visiting the Falkland Islands, particularly the offroad excursion to Volunteer Point.  Supposedly this is the crown jewel of excursions here in Stanley, and with good reason as far as I am concerned.

My recommendation is as follows –

If you are planning this excursion and you’ve booked for December 2027 through February 2028, go ahead and buy it now.  For this coming Dec 2026 through Feb 2027 cruise season it may be “too late.”

There were two groups for this excursion, and that’s why I say it may be “too late.”  The first set filled I think about seven SUVs, and I believe the second set was similar.  You want to be in the first set.  Departure time is 8am, immediately upon arrival in Stanley; meeting time is 7:45 (and you know that means that even though there is no real reason on HAL maybe you should be in the World Stage by 7:35).  The second group has an 8:30 departure time.

The reason why you want to be in this first group – purely logistics.  Both have the same amount of time at the rookery, but realistically the second group leaves the port area around 9:15 meaning you‘re back to Stanley sometime between 3:30 and 4:15.  We were back at the port a few minutes before 3pm and sitting outside in the sunshine at the brewery enjoying a beer at 3:08pm, just as the line formed to be thirty people long on this glorious Friday summer afternoon (more about that later).  We had time to chat with our cruise mates, enjoy our beer, and visit two souvenir shops.  Then it was time to line up for the tender.  There was a short line – 1 1/2 tenders full of people – but they were stalled, which is not too unusual for Stanley (more on this later).  After waiting on line for about 20 minutes there were then about eight tenders full of people just standing there in the port car park.  

Anyway.  The penguins are fascinating, but I was just as fascinated by the journey to get there.  It seems as if half the vehicles in the Falkland Islands are Land Rovers – not necessarily late model (in fact, most are not), many heavily modified.  The majority are Defenders.  We saw Defenders driven by teenagers, adults, soccer moms, and old men and women who appeared as if they were long retired.

Our squad to transport us to the beach consisted of half a dozen vehicles from Bagley‘s 4×4 Tours (if you want a private tour, go ahead and look them up on Google).  Their fleet for this tour consisted of four Defenders, one Nissan Patrol, and I think a Toyota (not too sure on that, I wasn‘t concentrating on photographing it).  If you’ve been reading recent Live threads for HAL or other lines you will read “somebody will get stuck” on many of them.  So, we ended up in the Nissan and I asked the driver, “does this get stuck more than the Defenders?”  At first he wasn’t too amused 🙂. But he did open up a bit.  Turns out our driver Nathan has his own business and is an auto mechanic.  He’s an interesting guy – originally from St. Helena.  The other passengers in our car were put at ease after hearing about his mechanical abilities.  “See that Defender?  I built that.”  He went on to explain that six years ago one of the better looking Defenders was assembled from multiple vehicles and new and used parts from him for one of his friends, and clearly it was still running and not getting stuck.

He also explained to us that the Nissan Patrol rides better and is more comfortable than the Defenders (it is), something that was also shared by a couple of our beer drinking buddies at the brewery – the Fords they have are also more comfortable.  However, as the Nissan weighs more (three tons instead of 2 1/2), it does get stuck more easily.  When did you get stuck last?  Once this year so far, in December.  He explained how he managed to get stuck when alone with nobody to pull him out so I’m certain there’s some hilarity there, and now he has a two way radio as cell signal doesn’t cover everywhere!

So the drive actually really, really does require a good 4×4 – as in, a really good 4×4.  My Range Rover Sport at home with street tires, although Mud & Snow, won’t cut it.  It would have gotten us two thirds of the way there.

The first quarter of the drive is on dry pavement on what is called a licensed road (you need a license).  Then after I think 15 miles you turn off the paved road for a gravel road.  At the 27 miles point you turn off that gravel road for another gravel road.  That’s the second quarter of the drive.  I think around the 35 miles point point you come to a private ranch.  This is the rest stop – you stop, you get out, you take a few pictures, you pee.

The next quarter of the drive is clearly worse, and until a few years ago it was entirely overland. The ranch is building a lower-quality gravel road across their property little by little.  I feel it stretches halfway, as far as distance goes, from the ranch house to the sea.  This is probably the worst road I would take The Boss’s Subaru on and not expect to break something.  I’d probably take my ancient Mini on it and not really care.

The final quarter of the drive is the most rugged.  

So, as a farm kid I have memories of driving across dry corn fields at harvest time, or on hay fields.  You could do this with a Chevy Vega station wagon, or our later Chevy Cavaliers.  For a pasture, you’d need proper four wheel drive and an awareness of where it gets swampy (that’s where you need the tractor).

All of this final quarter is tractor-land.  It’s scrubland and peat bog, constantly.  The trucks are driving over peat bushes that stand almost to your knees in spots, and they have to go over them because as a path gets used it becomes boggier and boggier.  There are numerous small banks to mount, many where the driver takes a 25 or 30 degree angle sideways (my seat-mates thought it was 45 degrees, but no) and many where you see the sky through the windshield.  Nathan did show us exactly where he got stuck in December, too, and I can see how it happened.

Anyway, our drive there – and back – occurred without incident.  If you have a sore back or otherwise, you may consider not doing this tour.  Obviously as the ranch extends the gravel road the tour will become easier, but my hunch is it will take them a few years to complete – and if there’s a change in finances then this activity may change or cease.

Upon arrival you are asked to get out of the truck and walk through a foot bath, then climb back into the truck and you go park.  HAL advertises a box lunch which is provided by Bagley’s in this case – one truck has sandwiches in the back, another has thermoses of coffee and hot water and cold water.  The sandwiches are designed to feed you.  They’re good but not gourmet.  They fed us after the penguin viewing.

The penguins are amazing.  I believe we saw three kinds, but when I post my photos I’ll let you inspect them and correct me (if you’re impatient to wait, check my Instagram link).  We saw an abundance of King Penguins, a Gentoo nesting colony, and Magellanic penguins.  

The main point of visiting Volunteer Point is to visit the large King Penguin population.  This mostly consists of a large squad of penguins hanging out in a stone circle half the size of a football field occasionally squawking and flapping flippers at each other.  You’re not permitted to enter the circle but they can come and go as they please.  They generally won’t come too close to you but they will follow you if you’re walking where they’re planning to go.

As of this January there were some still hatching eggs and there were some youngsters hiding under their parents.  I didn’t notice this on our first pass through here where we spent ten or fifteen minutes watching them.

After the King Penguins, we wandered down into a mini-valley to visit the nesting Gentoos.  The Gentoos were really, really smelly even though they were not there in huge numbers (I’m guessing there were fifty or a hundred).  They had a larger percentage of youngsters, though.  They had painted their whole nesting circle (similar stone henge around them) like a Jackson Pollock painting.  This is where we learned that youngsters who are rather large and just fed by their parents flop out on their bellies looking dead as they digest and grow.  Hilarious.  Anyway, I guess at this point they’re large enough to appear full sized but not at the point where they are ready to take to the seas.

Then we decided to wander out to the beach.  The main attraction here seemed to be mainly King Penguins going in small groups (three or four or five) to and from the sea or just wandering aimlessly.  There was, however, a seal terrorizing the area.  The seal apparently occasionally comes out of the surf and kills a penguin for sport – the guides told us it’s the same seal that has been hanging around for a while now and he doens’t actually eat what he kills.

So, we saw a group of penguins wandering up the beach to the no-go zone.  Then we saw the seal in the surf.  I didn’t get a photo of the seal when it came out of the surf, but what happened next is he came out of the surf, the group of penguins took off at a high speed run towards the dune, a ranger yelled at a lady taking photos to “get back” because the seal would bite her too, and then the seal went back into the surf (note this is all anecdotal – I was looking elsewhere when this happened).

Then we started walking up the beach towards the rocks.  Nothing interesting there.  Then we started wandering back over the dunes.  Then we realized what we weren’t seeing – the Magellanic penguins nesting in burrows in the dunes!  In most of the borrows there was a parent penguin standing guard with a younger penguin behind.  They were really cute.

Anyway, we eventually returned to King Circle and watched parent penguins feeding their babies discretely.  You really had to pay attention to see them – mostly it looked like there were fat penguins with an extra set of flab just above their feet, but often you would look closely and see the parent leaning down and sharing a tasty morsel.

This was a ninety minute stop at Volunteer Point.  Then we set out for the two hour drive back in the glorious summer sunshine…

On return from Volunteer Point the driver dropped us at the “cruise terminal” and we walked to Falkland Beerworks where it seemed as if everybody in town in addition to every cruise ship passenger and the entertainment staff from Oosterdam had decided to throw back a pint or two.  Falkland Beerworks has authentic hand-pulled cask ales and in my opinion they are good.  IPA fanatics will ask for a bottle of the Iron Lady IPA instead which seemed to be a little toasted like it had been aged in peated scotch barrels and then may be slightly disappointed.

A lot of people also recommend Victory Bar in Stanley which we did not visit.  Supposedly they have excellent fish and chips.  Instead, after sitting in the sun with cruise friends and observing the locals in shorts and t-shirts we made the observation “it’s very windy; we’d better return to the ship sooner rather than later!” And we left.  But not without visiting a couple of souvenir shops.

When we arrived back at the “cruise terminal” there was a line on the dock for tenders and a line through the 20 foot long “cruise terminal” building ending in the glass shed (20’ by 10’) behind it.  This is where we joined the queue…. As the line was paused others joined behind us, snaking out into the parking lot.  A few minutes later they announced, “tendering operations are paused while the captain repositions the ship to accommodate for worsening conditions.”  I later learned that the captain was very frustrated because the harbor master had allowed numerous Asian squidding vessels to drop anchor throughout the bay and harbor around Stanley and they had very long anchor lines limiting the number of safe places for Oosterdam to drop anchor andprovide shelter for tenders.  End result, tendering was a game of bumper cars.

By the time tender operations recommenced, the line snaked through the parking lot, out into the street until the constable came around (which they do because there’s nothing else to do), and down the dock adjacent to the tender dock.  

It was pretty rough out there.  I wouldn’t say it was scary, but the boats were throwing up considerable spray and of course it was dripping in through the hatches.  When we arrived back at the ship it was with a sudden crash against the gangplank.

Arriving back on board we had time to rest, shower, and change for the Konigstafel experience!  Now this I will write up in real time as I refresh myself by looking at the photos.

Konigstafel is a concept introduced by HAL over the summer last year where once per cruise they offer a “king’s table.”  I will note that it is not a chef’s table which implies that the chef gets creative with whatever they have available and / or  is fancy or neat.  Instead, it’s a set menu throughout Holland America.  From the reviews I read last August and September it has not strayed far.  Accommodations for dietary restriction are limited; they only have set plates created for vegetarian modifications.

I took this photo from the behind the scenes tour I attended on Friday and on the right you can note the Koningstafel menu.  Like I said, they stick to this.  

We went through considerable effort to check on getting my partner’s meal changed to exclude beef tartare and lamb because she is pescatarian.  They were actually willing to accommodate her, but she said if she had to do it again in the future, because there is so much food, she would probably  accept the cauliflower they subbed for the steak tartare and not the modification they made to replace the lamb; she was just not hungry at that point.

The setup for the whole situation begins in the Ocean Bar where there was a jazz band playing (I think this was purely coincidence as the whole bar was not roped off for the event).  They make you sign a medical questionnaire as you end up going into crew areas where they check to ensure everyone is healthy (this tells me the entire crew signs the same sheet every single day under threat of not lying and that, in part, is how they maintain a healthier ship).  Then, they served us a cocktail.

The cocktail, coincidentally, consists of a sour cocktail similar to a Pisco sour!  Some guests were guessing we would actually be served a Pisco sour, but we were not; it was the same menu in September elsewhere.

Update – after checking the menu, the name of the drink was not actually noted!  Anyway, this is served with two canapés – crabmeat, caviar, and mint croissant which was to die far as well as caponata.  

After the cocktail and canapés we decamped for a full galley tour – identical to Friday’s behind the scenes tour!  It was a good refresher, but it did give me the opportunity to skip the food digester section.  Also, this is where I noted that it does interfere a little with the kitchen flow and they start to use up some extra resources to make the dinner happen – perhaps this is why they schedule on a busy port day?  Less lunch service, more time to prepare, and everybody heads to the Lido instead?

We sat down to an intro from dining room section heads and a bread course which consisted of sesame challah loaf including poppy seed braids.  This was served with four butters – plain butter, coconut butter, Thai red curry butter, and blueberry thyme butter.  My favorite was made by blending the coconut with the Thai red curry butter 🙂. Poppy seeds were everywhere of course.

An Amuse-Bouche of Asian Wagyu Steak Tartare was served. What a great use for this.  The beef was soy-mirin marinated and it was heavily saline.  The tempura shiso leaf was a great touch.

This was served with a smoked champ agne cocktail (there is a typo on the menu so it’s now champ agne).

Seafood starter was a Butter poached lobster tail with lemongrass coconut foam made of vanilla, champagne, and orange.

Although diminutive as it should be, perhaps my favorite course.  Such good flavor.  This was served with a Tattinger Brut Prestige rose.

One thing I’d note – in the reviews I read in September the sparkling rose was served in a champagne flute whereas the smoked champagne was served in a teacup style champagne glass.  I think the smoked champagne was better in the flute, as Oosterdam did last night, with the Prestige rose in the teacup style champagne glass.

The one dish which surprised me was the spinach ricotta malfatti which was served with truffle garlic butter, shaved seasonal black truffle, and parmesan foam.  The truffle was not overpowering like it sometimes is, and the ricotta did not form a pile of gloop as sometimes happens.

It was quite nice.  However, when I see “parmesan” I think “Wisconsin,” rather than Italian equivalents, so I wonder if this could potentially be upgraded?  I believe the red is a dehydrated tomato peel.  This was served with Pascal Joliet Sancerre Blanc Sauvage from France (basically a white French wine that is good).

Then came a mid-dinner dessert.

Sour cherry granita with vanilla lemon sorbet.  Mmmm.

Many guests would say they have happily dined up until this point.  Well, folks, buckle up.  This is where lamb turns controversial.

The main is a cannon of smoked lamb with pistachio crust served with date purée, lamb jus, and “Mediterranean” vegetables.  I put Mediterranean in quotes because I didn’t know carrots are Mediterranean and I think after nine days without fresh provisions and two weeks without full replenishment you probably get what you get on Oosterdam.

They also really started pouring the wine at this point.

And that’s how I found myself sitting there with three glasses of wine.

The Figgins Figlia Merlot / Petit Verdot from Walla Walla is certainly a combination I would definitely seek out again.  The port and Amari were there to complement the cheese course and then the dessert course.

Cheese went great at this point in the evening. As did dessert.

This is where it started with sweets galore.

Dessert was interesting – I liked the honey cremieux with lemon curd served with bergamot gel, honeycomb guile (what is that?) and lavender honey.  The croutons seemed a bit like cereal.  It was good for sampling. The sweets that followed were a bit much.

I couldn’t goad The Boss into eating more than one of these but they were as expected and well presented.

When we arrived in our cabin macarons were waiting on our coffee table.  Again, I was a solo diner for these.

Overall, it was a good experience.  It was really enjoyable sitting and talking to our table mates, but four hours can be a long time if you are accidentally assigned seats incorrectly (we were not, I had the chance to get to know a couple of folks who have posted on Cruise Critic!).  I think if I were cruising HAL again this year I wouldn’t repeat the performance, but if they were doing a different menu every year I certainly would.

It’s great after a day in port where dining is limited (our lunch yesterday consisted of a sandwich on white sandwich bread).  Knowing the lamb is coming I may have held off on my Pinnacle lamb a few days ago, though.

And this morning for breakfast – we weren’t hungry; we shared a carafe of coffee and then had nothing until 1pm.

There have been soooo many good experiences lately that it’s almost been overwhelming, and now we’re winding down for the last week of vacation.