Boat cruise first days

well, here i am on this magjestic long boat called the Scenic Pearl. the start of the cruise was very interesting cause we almost had a hissy fit at the number of older people on the cruise! i mean we knew most would be older than us, but quite a few of these are in their 70'sand 80's! thank goodness we have found a great group of 3 other couples in their 60's ish, Auzzies, who are fun to be with. there is a vet, ex-principal and a highranking CEO of something that deals with the Auzzie cabinet all the time (dines with Juila gillard). I guess you could tell of the 4 couples who has the topflight balcony room with butler and who has the dungeon rooms! actually its not that bad! the cruise people are fantastically organised- right from picking us all up (166 on the boat)from a hotel in buses, taking us to the boat, crew members meeting us individually and sorting out rooms etc. no issues or problems, very smooth organisation. our room has a mu;ch bigger window than I thought, so you can see through it. its up high so more daves eye height! the room is lovely, tv, aircon, safe, minibar etc. free water every day. the room gets room service twice a day! yep thats right! with little chocolates every night on your pillow! the tv has your account on it, (you only charge up drinks before and after tea, everything else is free) so far we are about 10 euro a day. not too bad!also on the tv it shows where the boat is on a map, the daily programme and live video from a camera at the front of the boat so you can see where you are going lying on the bed! the service is wonderful, the crew are mainly youngish east europeans, but very efficeint and used to dealing with old people with lots of humour and patience. i think they quite like our group cause we have a bit more ooph! there is lots of food, and oh so yummy - all covered in the cost of the trip. full buffet breakfast, 4 course lunch and dinner, and coffees, biscuits, fruit etc on tables to help yourself. there is a sun deck, where we have spent a bit of time, where you can get panoramic views as we go along. ist Day we actually stayed in Amsterdam! had some choices so we went on a bus trip to visit Floriade. 2 hour bus trip tho! Floriade is a huge version of the Ellerslie Flower show on 150 acres of land. thousands of people were waiting to go in before us (we counted over 100 buses, and that was on 20 minutes after opening!). Once in tho, it was big enough to cope with lots of people. the gardening buffs amongst you would love it, Dave tolerated it, and i was selective about what I loved! i thought it would be huge fields of tulips but it was a lot more than that. there were pavalions of other countries showing off their flora and fauna, a wellness area (think japanese meditative gardens with trickling water, and education area (think take the class there during a spring unit and learn about how plants grow) and a great big 'Holland Blooming' area which i loved the best. this had lots of flowers and blooming tulips (yay). there was a huge two storied building full of plants, flowers artistically displayed etc. vry much hothouse atmoshere. Ist day