HOW TO DO AMSTERDAM WITH A CHRONIC ILLNESS!

Finally in Amsterdam! Evie agreed to wake me in the morning, but forgot that her alarm was set on UK time, not European time, so we were a hour late waking! No time for breakfast, it was up and out...
  The shuttle was just nicely busy at 8am with no queues and not a long wait. Luckily Evie had snaffled some biscuits from the room, so this was a rather impromptu brekkie. P&O lied! In their on board programme it said the transfer time was 50-60 minutes. Actually it was 30 minutes. The shuttles are running frequently between the Cruise Terminal and Amsterdam for most of the day and evening. Then tomorrow we can do it all again as we are staying overnight.

  We were dropped off just down from Central Station, next to the River boats. That was a fascinating experience. There must have been about 30 river boats there. On seeing them, Evie wants to go on one. We walked to Central Station, couldn't find how to do bus tickets and left. My health hasn't been too good and I can't walk very far, so I was getting frustrated at not being able to see anything because I was getting exhausted.  I'm a great believer of what starts off bad, ends up good though! We came across a Canal Trip company and went on the canal boat round Amsterdam. It was lovely. We didn't need to walk, we just sat and enjoyed the scenery. My kind of trip! Evie and I totted up the trip... 12 euros each for boat, free shuttle. P&O were charging £42 per person for the same trip. We saw Houseboats, the Hat and Handbag museum, the Mayor's House (they have a lady Mayor at the moment) and more houseboats.

We headed back to the River Boat terminal with a view to either going home or catching the open-topped bus (OTB). We could sit, see another face of Amsterdam and relax! En route we saw the Rijksmuseum, Heineken Museum and a Windmill. I was so glad to have taken both the canal and bus tours as it has given us two totally different aspects of the city.
   Evie has now wandered off. As most of the 'children' on board are post-GCSE and they have their own area, Evie is now away doing her thing. In fact, I don't expect to see her tonight except for food! She's made so many friends and it is brilliant to see her being a teenager.

OVERNIGHT AT IJMUIDEN

As part of the itinerary, Ventura was staying overnight at Ijmuiden (I still can't pronounce it!). Evie went up to the teenagers club to make mocktails, while I ventured off to the Tamarind Club and the decks to pass a few hours.
  This evening was the Comedian Mike Doyle in the Arena Theatre. I have never laughed so much in my life! He was fantastic! If you are ever at sea and he is on, you must go and see him. My sides ached with laughing so much. P&O certainly have good entertainers on board.
  Then I met up with Evie in the cabin, and we decided to go off to take evening photos of our lovely ship. It's unusual to get evening shots, as usually the ship is at sea; so this was a rare opportunity!