The all-aboard time for the cruise ship was one in the afternoon so we’d gone to bed on the penultimate night of the 2024 cruise on Aurora with the expectation that we’d have time to get out and do some more sightseeing in the morning. The weather had different thoughts on the matter, though, so we shrunk our rough plan down to the basics instead, popped out, took the Metro one stop up to save on walking and getting damper than we needed to be, and headed back into Binnenrotte Square where we’d been drinking the evening before to finally took a look around the Markthal.
It was nice, don’t get me wrong, but it was still just a large space with food stalls in it when you break it all down. A lovely building, too, but again, it’s a place that sells food. Everyone’s different, of course, and the lure of a food market might be the thing that draws some people to cruise to Rotterdam, we guess. We’ve done it now so we can at least say that, and we’d probably visit again for food to take back home if we were close by and it was open but it’s not a location we’re likely to make a major point of visiting.
We picked up some beer cheese (for my wife) and some stroopwafel (for us and for my in-laws), with the latter being something we always bring back from trips to the Netherlands now. You can also see below our train tickets and the cruise prize book with winning stickers in it that we’d be able to exchange for a gift later in the day (a leather effect notebook), and if there’s a reason that I placed them all together for a photo then that reason is now lost in the mists of time.
In the first post in this short cruise series I did mention that there would be some more photos of our cabin later on and that time is now because it was when we got back on Aurora that I thought I’d better snap a few pictures. People like to see photos of food on cruise ships and people like to see photos of cabins on cruise ships.
The cabin on Aurora was a good size with largely standard layout. With Aurora being an older ship she had a little more metal around the balcony area than you tend to find on more modern vessels that utilise more lightweight materials and more gaps to cut down on weight, but we quite like that additional bit of privacy from your cruising neighbours. Balcony depth was reasonable, especially compared to newer ships too. The bathroom was perfectly adequate if a little dated in its colour, but nobody ever had an unsatisfactory wash because the walls were tinted salmon pink.
The afternoon came around – still drizzly – and Aurora headed off along the Nieuwe Maas. For us this was a lovely chance to see this river and all its fabulous architecture during daylight hours as we’d last cruised along this stretch of water between Rotterdam and the North Sea on Island Princess after dark (see: Night Cruise Down The Nieuwe Maas From Rotterdam).
I won’t repeat any of the observations made during that cruise a couple of years earlier – that’ll teach you for not reading everything I write and committing it to memory – but will point out some new things we noticed during this river cruise.
A lot of buildings did not survive the heavy bombing during World War II and provide the reason for why so much of Rotterdam consists of modern architecture, but one that did is the former headquarters of Holland America Line, now a hotel. For a long time it was the departure point for those wanting to seek a new life in America. Interesting to note that so many are now fleeing there to come to the relative sanity of literally anywhere else in the world. Well, not Russia, of course.
The day before in Rotterdam we’d visited Delfshaven and it was nice to see that part of the city from this alternate angle with the windmill clearly visible.
We spotted Tallink’s Silja Europa docked and assumed she was there for some kind of repairs or upgrades but she’s actually been used as a temporary housing location for asylum seekers since 2023.
We were quite interested in the colourful murals and street artwork on some buildings around some land that looked like it was a building site or dumping ground. It turns out to be Stadsstrand Vlaardingen, a sort of beach with bars and food places. We liked seeing the lighthouse there and given the function of the place it looks like it’s similar to Belle du Gabut in La Rochelle, so we’d probably like it.
The waterway entrance to Maassluis looked very nice and it also marked the start of a line of buildings with interesting architectural styles used in their construction.
The white bridge-like structure in the photo below is one of a matching pair of storm surge barriers on either side of the Nieuwe Maas.
The cuboid buildings on the sands at the exit to the North Sea which look a little bit like they might have been used in World War II as defensive fortifications are actually beach villas. Cruising past them in March probably didn’t present them in their best light.
So, that brought our time in the Netherlands aboard Aurora to an end. Some photos of the final evening meal on the cruise because, as I’ve mentioned, there are people who like to see these things. This was our only time in the main dining room on this short cruise. It wasn’t the best of meals. We’d encountered a surly attitude from the staff before getting to our table because we didn’t want to share on a table for eight, then we’d had some pretty dismal service during the meal too with food delivered perfunctorily and no offer to top up our water.
I’ve already summarised the cruise experience in the early thoughts post about our four nights cruising on P&O Aurora so won’t repeat much of that except to say that we generally like this sort of ship – older, smaller, quirkier – as you do have to make some allowances for that sort of cruise – dated, odd layouts, lacking some features – but the reward is that the ship and experience is then more memorable than the modern cloned vessels that many of the cruise fleets are pumping out. We’d happily cruise on Aurora again. And Rotterdam, we love. There’s a lot more still to see so we’d have no problem with repeat visits to the Dutch city. It seems a lot more welcoming than Amsterdam, too.