Always a Good Time to Celebrate Another Wonderful Year

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Day 90, 2025 Grand World Voyage

Friday, April 4, 2025; Praia, Cape Verde.

Another trip around the globe, and another trip around the sun.

Celebrating a birthday on a cruise is always fun, but I had cruised 778 days before I celebrated my first at sea. Somehow, my cruises never came in my birthday month of April. I was denied what I thought would be my first at-sea celebration in 2020 when the pandemic sent us home two weeks earlier.

Then in 2023, I was scheduled to be away on a short overland excursion to Marrakesh on my birthday, but a missed step ashore the day before resulted in my fracturing my patella. I double dipped – not only having a planned pre-birthday dinner a day early, but a repeat experience on the actual day, both times sporting a cast.

This year would be my third birthday aboard – no longer a momentous occasion except for the fact that it represents a change in decade for me.

Holland America makes a special occasion of birthdays on grand world voyages – most nights in the main dining room we hear the wait staff singing Happy Birthday — in Indonesian — two or three times at various tables. It is accompanied by a decorated chocolate cake.

All morning long I found new birthday wishes in my cabin – balloons and a card wishing “more years packed with adventure” from the Guest Services team, complete with a dozen hand-written wishes in English, Filipino, German and Thai.

A cupcake from the captain and crew. A clever layer cake formed with towels from my room stewards.

Cards magically appeared from my travel agents and friends. My phone yielded email and Facebook wishes.

During pre-dinner drinks in the Ocean Bar, bartenders Rey and Eric surprised me with another cupcake and even an improvised balloon drop (which no one managed to photograph).

Friends celebrated with me at a Pinnacle Grill dinner, complete with yet another cake. In accordance with the “no-flames” rule on ships, the staff has become very good at holding battery-operated candles so they flicker off as soon as you start blowing.

And to top it all, the previous night my friend Jeri celebrated at dinner with a special poem and a giant box of Maltesers she bought back in February – and exercised the self-discipline not to open herself. I could never have sat on a box for more than a month.

Perhaps the biggest laugh came via Facebook. As I’ve written before, my sisters are on the pole-to-pole cruise on the Volendam (on the Amazon River at the moment). We chatted earlier today, but they posted a photo of themselves with friends Jett and Kelly that they were “celebrating Jo’s Birthday with a special dinner on the Volendam…. Too bad she’s on the Zuiderdam!”

Sharon had the perfect response: “Too bad you missed a fun dinner on the Zuiderdam. Thanks to you both being on the Volendam celebrating Jo’s Birthday without her, she invited us instead. Thanks for the wonderful dinner.”

Just to remind me that at this age “getting older is better than the alternative,” I have been suffering a bit with the “fill in the name of the ship” cough. It seems to go around every world cruise. I decided not to go ashore in Cape Verde today, but instead to rest and actually take a nap. That – plus the antibiotics I got from medical yesterday – helped me enjoy all the celebrations.