Day 10 - Go With The Flow

Disney had no idea how much meaning "Going with the flow" would take on today!

ADVENTURE!!! Hi all. Kara again. Let’s just say that the theme of today’s post is going to be adventure all the way through. Remember that 82 page travel guide I made for us. We threw it out the window today!

Before I start today, let’s rewind back to Sunday night after dinner. We met with Adventure Guide Michaela to go over the plan for the week. We learned then we were going to be docking in Bruinisse rather than in Middleburg - our original destination for today. Our plan had always been to do Middleburg on our own (or as the Adventure Guides call it - OYO for On Your Own). The change to docking in Bruinisse meant we would need to take the bus with our fellow adventurers for 40+ minutes each way to get to Middleburg. So, we began discussing what we’d do.

Okay, join me back on today please! Ready? Here we go.

We had a second gentle easy morning as we weren’t scheduled to arrive in Bruinisse until about 1:00pm There was multi-subject trivia available at 9am and then a “Belgium waffle vs stroopwaffel” tasting at 10am. 

Gayle: Umm, “vs”? Why would you pit one sweet treat against another?! Instead it should have been (& as expected, was) “and”.

Kara: We decided to skip trivia but go up, ready, and down to the lounge around 9:30am - well ahead of the tasting. I think we might have done well on the trivia had we decided to play - or we at least did well on the last three groups of questions they did, which focused on waffles, Adventures by Disney®, and our Adventure Guides.

Flourin, our hotel manager, and Vanessa, our cruise manager, did the demo of making Belgium waffles - with Flourin taking the lead. It was quite, quite obvious that Flourin does not know how to cook and does not usually cook which made it all the funnier. Thankfully, only the Adventure Guides took bites of Flourin’s sample waffle. 

We then got to enjoy samples made by the actual pastry team which were good, although they’d sat under a dome for quite a while and so had gotten soft and quite cool. With the added chocolate and fruit sauces (and whipped crème for Gayle), it didn’t matter. We also got stroopwafflel’s. I decided to put mine on top of my coffee (today I chose the Latte), which is the traditional Dutch method of warming your pre-prepared stroopwaffel. It did actually make the caramel inside just a little gooier and yummier. 

We had plenty of time before lunch so we came back to our room to watch the world float by us and to discuss what we thought we might do this afternoon. Gayle was definitely leaning towards not going on the tour to Middleburg. I was not that far off from her, as one of the whole reasons I wanted to do a river cruise was to NOT do a long bus ride each way on so many different tours. (This is a lesson we learned on our 2019 Med cruise.)

Knowing we have at least one more bus ride at Floralia, I was hoping to just get off the boat and stroll into town today. Also, it didn’t look like Bruinisse was that interesting of a place to visit AND we were not docking in town, but instead in a harbor about 15 minutes from town. 

As we were having our discussion, they made an announcement into all of our staterooms (something they said they wouldn’t be doing) asking us to join in the lounge at 11:15am for an important announcement. Let me remind you again…today’s theme is ….

ADVENTURE!!!

At 11:15am Captain Hank joined us in the lounge to explain that we had been delayed around 1:00am by a lock that took more than 3 hours to get through. As a result, we were now 3 hours too far from Bruinisse. So, thanks to the Captain and navigation team, the Adventure Guides, the boat staff, and the shoreside Adventures by Disney® team and their suppliers, we had a new plan. 

We would be docking in Hellevoetsluis (do NOT ask us to pronounce it!).

Before we hit translate!

This meant slight changes for all the planned tours for today. But, it also meant that we would be docking in another picturesque Dutch town that we could simply get off the ship and go out on our own right in town just as we did in Kampen yesterday!!!!! YAY!!!!!

We did a little quick Googling and decided this was absolutely the right plan for us. While sadly, the firefighting museum of the Netherlands - which is located in Hellevoetsluis - is closed today (I come from a long line of fire fighters and have been to many firefighting museums in my life), we found a few options that looked lovely in order to explore the town.

With a new plan for the day made, we headed down to lunch. Today’s cooking station was a chicken and shrimp Tandoori curry which I opted for. Gayle went to the trusty always available menu with the Margarita pizza today. We also each had the apple tart which was quite tasty.

We went back to our rooms following lunch to get our bags put together so we could head out when we docked at 1. 

Gayle: On the radar it looked like we had about an hour before the rain would return. However, it made its appearance just as we got to a primary intersection in town. Note: This is the first (& hopefully only) experience we’ve had with rain - and that is saying something based on how annually rainy the countries are that we have visited. 

We strolled around a bit, capturing photos of old and new homes, the marina, and the charming town bell tower. Even though it is Tuesday, many businesses were still closed. So still stuffed from lunch, we headed back to the ship.

Neither of us is upset about this. In fact, I had remarked long ago, having more down time in the middle of this trip would be a good thing. The next/last four days of this trip will be marathons, so we will likely settle in for some afternoon reading and/or cards before dinner. Tonight’s entertainment is Bingo in the Lounge, which we will happily trade for a good night’s sleep.

Here is Kara's video from the day:

On that note… Disclaimer: I (Gayle) am a travel agent with Authorized Disney Travel Planner agency - Off to Neverland Travel. Contact me today for a no-obligation quote!

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