the hard work of the following people who take such good care of me and make
me feel so very special.
The first two gentlemen are my room attendants Suma and Mulyo. They always
anticipate my every need - or more correctly my every desire, since they
make sure I want for nothing. They are always there watching over me.
The third is my waiter Hajid (he always has that grin on his face, even when
dealing with some difficult guests). He and his assistant Sandy (fourth)
have my orders memorized and know if there is something on the evening's
menu that might tempt me to vary from my regular order.
The fifth gentleman is Arnold. He is our bar steward and when I sit down at
the table he already has my sodas and extra ice waiting for me.
And last, but not least is Ruel, our restaurant manager. He welcomes me with
a friendly smile and hello as I enter the dining room each evening and
always comes by our table to make sure everything was perfect. He really
outdid himself when one of our table mates brought a picture of a cake she
wanted that another Holland America ship had made for her on a previous
birthday (not one of the standard birthday cakes). This cake (actually a
Boston cream pie) was at least 18 inches in diameter - his comment was that
he wanted to make sure that no other ship would be able to top this. He even
brought up the pastry chef - they were very proud of their efforts. You can
see a picture of this in my post of January 16th. No, we did not eat it all,
we had them take the cake down to the crew's dining room on A deck so it
would not go to waste.
I cannot believe how fortunate I am to have such caring and extraordinary
people taking care of me on this cruise.
