The Koningsdam Experience

The performance staff invited us all up on stage after their performance on the last night of the cruise for a picture.

A cool Koningsdam experience?  They took us to the back of the ship and let the kids try out the firefighting equipment.  Here Noah us using a fire extinguisher.  

Sporting our Goodall Life shirts from the Riddles

Bonus dessert at our last dinner on the cruise

Captain Jonah.  Seriously - the tailor came and took Jonah's measurements and then crafted this mini captain uniform overnight.  With all this effort, guess what I'm going to try and get Jonah to be for Halloween?

Brothers

On the second night of the cruise, the captain and his team introduced Jonah to the whole ship as a junior captain.  This is a "behind the scenes" picture before the big introduction.

This is Josh.  He was the mastermind behind all of our wonderful Koningsdam experiences and a master of making each and every experience super memorable for our family.  He was also exceedingly tolerant of all of the energy and love of 4 excited kids.

In Edfjord it must get super cold in the winter because all of their trees wear sweaters!

The pastry team put together a decorating class for the kids.  They learned to make marzipan animals, frost & decorate cupcakes and make fruit tarts.

For our pastry class, Julia ended up making marzipan "cookies" because she had too much fun with the marzipan to be bothered with anything else.

The older kids really enjoyed the pastry class and it has sparked in Anna a bit of a cooking bug.

After all of the decorating we got to sample the products and they were good - full of sugar - but good.

This bridge was super cool because our ship barely sailed under it - there was only feet to spare!

One night we came back to our room and found a towel zoo.   It was so much fun to see all of the towel creatures in one spot at the same time.  

At Alesund we rented a car and drove the Troll Road.  Outside of statues like these, the only trolls we saw were disguised as rocks, but we had fun looking.

Sheep on the troll road

 While we were in Geiranger, Josh had the team bring us out of a private tender boat for the kids to drive around the fjord.  Jonah got the first go as captain and not only was he a boat donut master, but he also temporarily "broke" the tender boat.  The team was able to quickly resolve the issue, but this cemented the real captain's decision to NOT let Jonah drive the big ship.

Anna also had a fun time on the tender boat, but she was a more measured driver than Jonah.

Noah peaking out of the front window of the tender boat

Julia trying duck face

A little girl's dream come true - Julia got to dance on the performance stage with some of the performers.  To be honest, she didn't even care that she was sharing the stage, so was overjoyed that she was projected on the big screen while dancing on stage.

The cast took us behind the stage to see their costume room and changing space.  Although the theater is pretty big, the backstage area requires additional talent because it's pretty close quarters.  Luckily the Koningsdam has a talented bunch of performers. 

Julia using super expensive binoculars while on our bridge tour.  We made her put them down as soon as possible.

Bridge tour.  The Koningsdam is Holland America's newest ship and very high tech - a bit like Star Trek.

Noah on the bridge

Anna on the bridge

After our super cool towel zoo, the kids got to take a towel folding class, so if you come and stay with us - maybe there will be a towel animal waiting for you!

As if the fire extinguisher wasn't cool enough, the kids also got the chance to use the water hoses and shoot water off the back of the boat.  It is possible that the staff that was with us was having as much fun as the kids, but it is hard not too when you get to play with equipment.

 One of our hosts was named Julia, and she and Julia had great adventures together.

Noah wearing the headgear of a ships firefighter.  Although the attached light was bright, he was mostly distracted by how heavy the hat was.


As our summer of adventure continued, we boarded Holland America's ship, the Koningsdam for a week long tour of the fjords of Norway.  The scenery was lovely and the weather wasn't too bad, but what really made this week special was the amazing staff on the ship and all of the wonderful experiences they gave us a chance to have.  Josh was the main planner of events for us, but his plans were supported by Sara, Mark and Julia and we were never without a friendly face.  I'm not sure how they did it, but it seemed that every staff member knew who Jonah was and greeted "Captain Jonah" wherever he went.

This was a trip the really reinforced that where you are matters so much less than the people that you are with.  Sure, we were in the beautiful fjords of Norway, but our memories will be because of the people that we were with that week.