One cruise with three different grooves to explore
Holland America’s Canada/New England aboard Zuiderdam
“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive — it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we know all about everything would it?” — Anne Shirley
Meet characters from fiction and history, eat a gastronome’s dream dishes, seize unexpected opportunities for experiencing magnificent art, music and magic — and all at the height of fall’s resplendent colours. This is Holland America’s Canada/New England cruise aboard the beautiful Zuiderdam.
So much more than just a nautical pretty face, this 1,800-passenger Vista-class cruise ship is known for its sumptuous collection of art and antiques (definitely something to write home about), and treating passengers to irresistible plates and scenic ports with so many splendid things to find out about.
Meet Anne with an ‘E’
Fans of the Netflix original series “Anne with an E,” the latest show featuring the spunky orphan with the gift of gab created by Lucy Maud Montgomery, can revel in the Ultimate Anne of Green Gables experience on this trip.
When Zuiderdam calls on Charlottetown, P.E.I., admirers of everything Anne can visit the Anne of Green Gables Museum and its beautiful grounds as well as the Green Gables Heritage Place, the old farm site that inspired Montgomery to pen her beloved 1908 novel, “Anne of Green Gables.” They can also rhapsodize along with “Anne & Gilbert: The Musical,” staged at
Charlottetown’s Guild Theatre.
On Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, meet Ma Bell and her husband, Alexander Graham Bell, at the museum named for the famed inventor, who received in 1876 a patent for a contraption that would send a human voice over a wire. A year later, he founded the Bell Telephone Company and continued to amaze the world by bringing it the metal detector, hydrofoils and flying machines. Bell himself would be astonished by the transformation of his telephone, which kept users in a stationary place, to a mobile phone that travels everywhere and tells time, plays music, shoots video, keeps the world glued to Facebook and sends human voices over microwaves.
Halifax, N.S., tells a sombre yet fascinating story as the home of Fairview Lawn Cemetery, the largest terrestrial resting place in the world for those who died when the RMS Titanic sank on April 15, 1912. Here lies Alma Paulson, a 29-year-old from Sweden en route to America to reunite with her husband. Alma’s four children went down with the ship as well. The grave of “The Unknown Child,” identified with DNA testing in 2008 as 19-month-old Sidney Leslie Goodwin from England, stands out among the 121 tombstones with its toy and teddy bear tributes. Sidney’s parents and five siblings also perished.
Eat mouth-watering morsels and meals
Holland America has a solid reputation for serving delectable food, from the main dining room — which features nightly specials presented by Rudi Sodamin, the French master chef whose dishes may also be enjoyed on select evenings when the Pinnacle Grill transforms into Rudi’s Sel de Mer — to its upcharge restaurants, Pinnacle Grill and Canaletto. Nor does in-room dining, offered round-the-clock, disappoint, especially the Cobb salad. The very best version is served on a tray delivered to your door.
Even in the much more casual atmosphere at the Lido Marketplace, the food — beginning with a spread of appetizers right through to the chocolate chip cookies — is good. Speaking of apps, the Atrium Bar is the place to gather for a Sip and Savor-themed happy hour, offered most days of the sailing. It’s not too crowded and the bites — roasted pumpkin panna cotta, braised oxtail praline, caramelized pork belly — are paired with the wine of the day.
It makes sense that the cruise line fusses over its food service; after all, this is the shipboard home of America’s Test Kitchen. And it’s hard not to get hooked on the free cooking demos and hands-on workshops hosted by ATK chefs, as well as the lineup of episodes on the TV in your stateroom of this long-running show and its sister program, “Cook’s Country” — the most-watched cooking shows on public television.
By the time the ship docks, show hosts Julia Collin Davison and Bridget Lancaster will feel like lifelong friends, you’ll have a full repertoire of foolproof techniques at your fingertips, and the ATK cookbooks with their delicious and userfriendly recipes will have a come-hither hold on you.
Seize the day, the art, the port
Zuiderdam delights in the unexpected — whimsical sculptures placed all over the ship, including one of a mother polar bear and her cub on an ice flow perched at the edge of the Lido Pool; exquisite music that pulls you into its melodic embrace; a bewitching port that passengers can spirit away to for the day.
The million-dollar art collection made up of everything from antiques to contemporary works is museum quality and ranges from paintings to intricate shadow boxes to figures: a bronze of Neptune wrestling a sea monster; Commedia dell’arte figures; Volker Kuhn’s fascinating threedimensional constructions; a Waterford Crystal Seahorse that weighs three tons. Everywhere you walk, there is something beautiful and arresting to see.
Lincoln Center Stage presents gorgeous chamber music programming and recitals, juxtaposing music of different genres and eras — Bernstein to Bublé, Piaf to Peanuts, Masterworks by Schumann and movie classics. Sit in the audience facing the musicians or claim a chair in the adjacent lounge. This is the place to bring an after-dinner cocktail and simply be.
The Canada/New England itineraries call at Boston, putting passengers just over an hour away from Salem and the spellbinding sights of Witch City. A 10minute cab ride whisks you from the pier to Long Wharf to board the Salem Ferry. The jaunt is less than an hour, much of it narrated, and drops visitors near the House of the Seven Gables and Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace.
From here, follow the red line painted on the sidewalks to all Salem’s witchy wonders. Those arriving in October — the busiest time in Salem because of the month-long Haunted Happenings — can enjoy walking tours, live performances, museums, restaurants and more without worrying over parking issues and room reservations.
Other surprises aboard Zuiderdam include the immersive BBC Inside Earth productions, including a Mainstage show called “Planet Earth II in Concert,” a merging of live musicians and a backdrop of breathtaking landscapes, with swelling music and animals cavorting in the wild; a Screening Room with generous, cushy loungers for catching recent releases and classic movie faves; and an around-theworld wine festival with luscious wines selected by a sommelier who knows his way around the territory.