Traveling with the Jones — Sharing Travel Discoveries

Christmas Eve on Holland America Line’s Volendam

by Janis on January 15, 2015

Have you ever wondered what it is like to spend Christmas on a cruise ship?

Here’s a look at the highlights on our Christmas Eve on Holland America’s Volendam, as we sailed between Penang, Malaysia and Phuket, Thailand on the 14-Day Asian Holiday cruise.

The dress code of the evening was formal; I love seeing Mr. Jones in a tux. As I was in the cabin getting ready, (Mr. Jones gets ready first, and then disappears to the bar), our friends Rick and James lured Mr. Jones to the casino. In a streak of Christmas Eve good fortune – they are won handily at the Black Jack table.

While there was a special menu in the dining room with a global celebration of Christmas foods, we had planned a special evening in the Pinnacle Grill.

If you are curious about what might be featured on a global Christmas celebration menu, here (above) is a look inside the Rotterdam dining room menu.

Our friends James and Rick, enjoying the Pinnacle Grill on Christmas Eve, fresh from winning at the Black Jack table in the casino.

I found the guys in the casino, and we headed off to the Pinnacle Grill. Jakay, the Pinnacle Manager is a charming and gracious host. He was originally from Mumbai but now resides in Budapest.

All of the waiter and waitresses wore Santa hats. We made this young lady’s evening when we brought her a “sparkle” hat.

In the Pinnacle Grill, we kicked off the evening with one of the bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne we brought onboard in Singapore. For appetizers, we loved the prawn cocktail.

The crab cakes were perfect also with our chilled champagne. (We found our favorite bartenders CJ and James in The Mix were willing to chill our red-sticker bottles a few hours ahead of dinner. When you bring on wine or champagne in excess of 1 bottle per person, you pay an $18 corkage fee at the time of boarding, and the bottles are red stickered.)

For our main course choices, three of us enjoyed petite fillets (which were cooked to perfection) while Mr. Alaskan “James” had King Salmon with a side of Béarnaise sauce.

Both were perfect with the special wine that we’ve always wanted to try – the 2011 Leonetti Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington’s Walla Walla Valley. (One of our favorite winemakers, Dave Rafanelli from Dry Creek Valley in California once told us that if we liked his wines, we had to try his friend Leonetti from Washington State’s wines.) It seemed like a good way to “spend” casino winnings rather than “donating” them back to the casino.

For dessert, our table tried: The Not-So-Baked Alaska that is filled with Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia® ice cream.

We also tried the Lemon Crí¨me Brí»lée with blueberries that is a new addition to the Pinnacle Grill’s dessert menu. While it tastes okay, it is like a very thin custard pie in a crust – not at all like Crí¨me brí»lée as we know and love it.

After a fabulous dinner, we headed to the Sounds of Christmas, the International Christmas Choir in the Frans Hal Lounge. This is always one of our favorite events on a holiday cruise as it’s festive and you can tell the selected crew members pour their hearts into performing. First, the International Choir – which appeared to be mainly junior officers, cruise staffers and the professional singers and dancers performed a few numbers.

Then they moved to the back of the stage and the Filipino crew members sang a few carols, and got us rocking to Jingle Bell Rock. Finally, the Indonesian singers and musician’s performed.

Meanwhile, in the Atrium on Decks 3, 4 and 5 there was an Around the World Buffet with Christmas treats of all kinds and eggnog and spiced run. At midnight, there was both a Midnight Catholic Mass for guests and crew members in the main show lounge and Interdenominational Christmas Service in the Wajang Theater.

Back in our stateroom, we found our Conrad bears artfully arranged arranged on our bed, along with a unique towel animal.

We headed to sleep with sweet dreams, planning to sleep in a little on Christmas day.

The next morning we missed Santa’s scheduled arrival to the ship at 7 am, with presents for all of the children on the ship.

Have you spent Christmas at sea? What’s your favorite holiday tradition? Please share in comments below.

Learn more about our 14-Day Asian Cruise Holiday in these posts:

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A Close-up Look at Holland America’s Dive-In at the Terrace Grill Menu

by Janis on January 14, 2015

Within the past year, Holland America Line has added cooked-to-order gourmet burgers, hot dogs and French fries to its newly-branded Dive-In at the Terrance Grill lido poolside dining location.

During our recent 14-day Asian Holiday cruise on Holland America’s Volendam, we tried many of the items on the menu.The made-to-order burgers, fries and hot dogs are a significant upgrade from the past burger-bar offerings on Holland America Line. At the Dive-In, you order what you want, and are given a buzzer. Generally, within about 10 minutes or less, your cooked-to-order food would be available for pick-up, piping hot and cooked to perfection, along with sides of your favorite accompaniments.

Here’s a look at some of our favorite menu items at the Dive-In:

The Cannonball burger, served with Gouda cheese, applewood smoked bacon, sweet caramelized onions, and topped with lettuce, tomato and Dive-In Sauce on a toasted brioche bun was my favorite.

The Cannonball is not a light burger. Change your Fitbit from 10,000 steps to 15,000 steps per day, and complete them all before you dive into this scrumptiously rich burger.

Mr. Jones’ favorite was The High-Dive burger, served with American cheddar cheese, and topped with lettuce and tomato on a toaster brioche bun with Dive-In Sauce.

This is a well-made, straightforward cheeseburger.

Don’t forget to order fries, although we quickly learned that one order is plenty for two people. These are double-fried, you-can’t-possibly-stop-at-one fries. They are even better when dipped in a mixture of mayo and ketchup.

The fries can also be ordered topped with Dive-In Sauce or smothered in melty cheese sauce, but that seemed like overkill, so we didn’t try either.

Signature hot dogs feature Nathan’s Famous all beef dogs, served with Dive-In Sauce in a poppy-seed bun. The straight-forward Dive-In Dog is topped with American-style mustard and a mound of crispy frizzled onions.

My favorite was The Dog Paddle, which is topped with sauerkraut, crispy bacon bits and grainy German mustard.

The Dunkin’ Dog (pictured above) is another favorite, topped with melty cheese sauce, pickled jalapenos and chopped red onions, served on a fresh poppy seed bun. It is delicious, but you may need an antacid or two after this one.

The only flop, for us, at the Dive-In was The Freestyle, a vegetarian burger with grilled portabella mushroom topped with melting Gouda and cheddar cheeses, avocado and Dive-In sauce. We love grilled portabellas, and we also enjoy vegetarian burgers (well, Mrs. Jones, anyway.) In our version (pictured above) the tiny portabella was buried under piles of cheese, avocado, and lettuce and tomato. It seems like a vegetarian burger patty might be a better option, available without the cheese for vegans.

All of these burgers, hot dogs and fries were enhanced when consumed with an ice cold Tiger beer from Singapore. (The Volendam brought on this local beer for this cruise; it’s perfect for cooling off from the intense heat and humidity in the Southeast Asia region.)

Have you dined at the Dive-In on one of Holland America’s ships? What is your favorite menu item? Please share in comments below.

You may want to check out these other posts about our 14-Day Asian Cruise Holiday:

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Or, check out our boards on Pinterest and/or our photos on Instagram.

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Experiencing the Best Food of Penang, Malaysia with Heritage on a Plate

by Janis on January 13, 2015

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During a recent Asian cruise, we had a port call at George Town, in the northeast corner of Penang Island in Malaysia. Penang is known for its street food, which we wanted to explore, so we searched for a food walking tour and found Heritage on a Plate.

We booked for a group of four people by email several days in advance at a cost that converted to just over $50 US dollars per person.

The cruise port in George Town is conveniently located beside the Old Town, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Our first stop off the ship was at Fort Cornwallis, which dates to 1786 when Captain Francis Light built a fort at the site of present-day George Town and managed to get the island ceded to the British East India Company. Penang became the first British outpost in Southeast Asia in 1786. The island, along with Malacca and Singapore, was one of the three British Straits Settlements.

The capital of Penang, George Town, was named after King George III of Great Britain. Today, Penang has the highest population density in Malaysia and is the only state where the ethnic Chinese are the majority.

Jeremy, right, of Heritage on a Plate Food Tours.

We then headed to our agreed location to meet our food tour guide Jeremy. He is a charming guy from Boston who is living and working in Penang to become as expert in the cuisine to inspire his own future restaurant and/or food truck business back in the US.

During the next 4 hours we ate at all kinds of small restaurants or street stalls while we learned everything about the food, the history and what it is like to live in the local neighborhood.

While we never would have ventured to these places on our own, the food, the coffee, and the different fruit juice drinks were exceptional.

One of our favorite drinks was nutmeg fruit – made from the fruit that grows around each nutmeg “nut”. None of us got sick later from any of the food, which Jeremy would acquire, explain and allow us to try up to our comfort zone.

Many of the street food stalls are centered around a coffee shop/cafe that serves coffee and other beverages. The cafe owner then rents food stall spots around the cafe space to others who make a specific kind of food.

The Malaysia coffee looks strong and bitter but it was very smooth. At our first cafe stop, we also tried the Char Kway Teow from the food stall vendor.

The Char Kway Teow consists rice noodles fried in pork lard with prawns, cockles, beansprouts, Chinese chives, egg, soy sauce, chili, belacan (Malay shrimp paste).

At another cafe, the featured food was a fried oyster “omelet.”

Rice flour batter was fried, and then topped with smalloysters.

The result was delicious, even for those among our group that don’t usually eat oysters.

With Jeremy’s guidance, we tried all kinds of dishes, some of which were very far our of our comfort zone. Fermented century eggs, pictured above, was one of those foods.

Rick, the fearless eater in our group, ate three of them.

This famous Curry Mee dish had a few challenging ingredients as well.

Our bottom line on the Heritage on a Plate Food Tour in George Town, Penang Island, Malaysia:

Jeremy was terrific at sharing the history, the culture and the food; he was a fun host.
Eating and drinking your way through George Town is a delicious way to learn about the local culture.
We’d highly recommend Heritage on a Plate Food Tours.

Have you been to Penang, Malaysia? Besides a food capital, it’s the birthplace of shoe designer Jimmy Choo. What did you enjoy about your visit? Please share in comments below.

Check out these other posts about our 14-Day Asian Cruise Holiday:

Follow us on Twitter or interact with us on Facebook

Or, check out our boards on Pinterest and/or our photos on Instagram.

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Exploring the Port of Malacca, Malaysia on Foot

by Janis on January 12, 2015

We visited the cruise port of Malacca, Malaysia while sailing round-trip from Singapore on Holland America Line’s 14-Day Asian Holiday cruise on the ms Volendam.

Located only 150 miles north of Singapore, Malacca was our first port of call on the cruise, and it was a tender port.

As our ship was delayed departing Singapore the night before, we were slightly delayed in getting into Malacca the next morning. While we arrived after our 7 am scheduled time, the immigration officials were also delayed, so it wasn’t until 8:30 am we were on the tenders, taking us into the river channel near the historic old town, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The ship used local tenders in addition to its own tender boats (shown in the photo above) to speed our arrival into the dock. Once we arrived in Malacca about 8:45 am, we found the city to be quite sleepy, without much of the usual throng of taxi drivers and tour sellers.

We set off walking. The city of Malacca is a contrast of very old historic buildings and brand new high rises and condo buildings.

Our first priority was to find an ATM to obtain Malaysia currency as we would have four Malaysian ports on our cruise. One Malaysian ringgit is equal to about $.28 US dollars. (My quick currency conversion cheat – divide the ringgit cost by 4, and round up.)

The city was very hot and humid, and overcast with some rain showers. We found an ATM after walking about 15 minutes, in what turned out to be a very modern hospital.

Ringgits in hand, we headed into a beautiful hotel attached to a shopping mall. We were in search of Wi-Fi and coffee, and wanted to take a look at Google maps.

The coffee shop in the mall didn’t open until 10 am, but the lobby of the the Hattens hotel was a gorgeous place to hang out, cool off, and people watch until the coffee shop opened.

The coffee was killer; worth the wait. Plus, the wi-fi was complimentary to customers, so we could look at maps online and get our bearings.

We had done a little advance research on Malacca, learning that it is a melting pot of the different cultures that have ruled the area throughout its history. (See 16 Fun Facts About Malacca, Malaysia.)

The city was founded by Parameswara, the last king of Singapura who ruled from 1389 to 1398, and then fled after an invasion in 1398. He found a good port strategically located narrowest point of the Malacca Straits, where he established Malacca in 1402. The Portuguese captured Malacca in 1511, and then the Dutch defeated the Portuguese and ruled Malacca from 1641 to 1798. Under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, the Dutch ceded Malacca to the British in in exchange for Bencoolen on Sumatra.

We hoped to see the Christ Church from 1753 that reflects its original Dutch architecture, and houses a replica of “The Last Supper,” as well as other parts of the historic old town and the Malaccan Museums Complex.

While leaving the mall, we were admiring the name and the logo of the Fat Boy’s Burger Bar when we learned how friendly the locals were. The workers insisted that they should take our photo by the artwork.

As we headed out to walk to the sites, the skies opened and a downpour occurred.

Suddenly, we couldn’t get excited about walking around in the rain.

We caught a taxi back to the dock where the tenders were dropping people off and taking others back to the ship.

We took this “yellow-submarine-looking” tender back to the ship.

Our bottom line on Malacca, Malaysia:

If you want to see and understand the historic sites, take a shore excursion or a local tour.
Hope for better weather than we experienced.
Realize it is a somewhat sleepy, yet-to-be-overdeveloped cruise port. (That’s not all bad.)

Have you visited Malacca, Malaysia? Here are some reference materials if you are planning a visit:

City Maps Malacca Malaysia

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur & Melaka

You may want to check out these other posts about our trip to Singapore and cruise on Holland America’s Volendam:

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Or, check out our boards on Pinterest and/or our photos on Instagram.

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