"Land Ho!"

cute puzzle, thanks so much!

Well done - loved the poem.

Love the poem, Cap’n!

Newfound wonder (is no man's waste)!

I wasted time looking for HOs (no comments, please) but then remembered that in a Cap'n Rick puzzle, the themers are always symmetrically located. After I got the answer, I went looking for Easter eggs but could come up with only "Ductch" nestled in the clue for AMISH. No doors, treats, uncles, ovens or anything else. But that's nether [sic] here nor there.

Ok, I'll admit that I guessed Holland based solely on 7D. What are the other meta clues? What's this poem? What did I miss?

Very clever, especially the title! Loved the poem too!

VERY clever!! Elegant construction as usual. And love how the meta answer is nearly an anagram of the title. Thanks Cap'n!

Nice puzzle! I got stuck in some rabbit holes, but made it when I took a second look. 1A could be KOHLER or DELTA. Also with 43D I thought of Easter Island.

Ho ho ho! NO. Koehler and Delta. NO. Finally landed on the right metanism. Ha ha. Fun puzzle and cute poem.

Enjoyed it! I’m ready to travel now.

Got stuck in the HO rabbit hole for quite a while (as Jay said, no comments please), but finally found my way to the right mechanism. Great puzzle, Rick! And loved the poem. Thanks!

Wow, that had me going for a while. Putting all those stray "laughs" in there was a HO rrible thing to do to your solvers sir! When that did not work out I got creative; LEI and LEA, lets see HO LEI/LEA LAND = ISRAEL...good idea but wrong. Then I saw ICE, and I tacked a LAND on and thought No, WAY too easy, I'll bet there are more. I did see the TULIPS Easter Egg, and the Amish (though, freshly picked nit, they are not necessarily from Holland and in truth most of the Pennsylvania Dutch came from Alsace or Switzerland) and even the Easter Egg Easter Egg since it was the Amish who introduced the Easter Egg idea to America. Anyway, as per usual, a fun puzzle which totally "Cap-tured" my interest with it's "Mad Cap" twists and turns and "En-Cap-sulates everything that is fun about this amusement form. Then to Cap it all off we have poetry, so you've gone from Mad to Verse.

Thanks Rick - now what was the PM you sent me by mistake?

thank you for accepting netherlands :) meta christmas to you as well!

Terrific, thanks Capn Rick!

Fell down the rabbit hole of seeing all the clues beginning with a country adjective, Jamaican, Scottish, Italian, etc. and the 5 HOs… but GAR-land, ICE-land, WET-land got me headed in the right direction of travel! Thanks Cap’n!

Have to admit, I guessed it from Land Ho --> Ho-Land. But after looking again, was able to backsolve. Thanks for the fun Monday treat!

This was mighty clever! I will forego trying to add to the high level of -land comments here… you people are just too too clever. Rabbit holes for me included HO in the clues (HOsp., saxoHOnist, pHOto, HOtel, cHOcolat, autHOr….). I thought maybe the letter before HO would spell a word (land, HO). Then I spotted ICE right smack-my-head in the middle. Also, TULIP was on my list of Easter eggs, and I did actually try to think of the city you fly into in Aruba because we were there not too long ago … if I could have thought of the name I think that would have tipped me off, added to tulip. (Orangestad… I had to look it up. My brain…).

Took a minute and was flipping coin between Japan/Greece/etc and ICELAND...asked if I was on right path go the thumbs up and saw 33A and yeah, opened up from there. BTW, my inital guess was going to be Netherlands as they are the owners of Aruba. (and also where Holland is located, nice 43A)

Did the grid yesterday, but then got distracted with all of the HO, HO, HOs. Came back today and immediately saw the LANDs, and their alternate clue answers. Enjoyed it! Thx for the puzzle!

Been a busy week so didn't get past the HOs and various lands on Monday. Came back today and got it after the second nudge, though I admit I initially missed GAR / WET and had to backsolve both them and ICE. Did see TULIP/CLOG/AMISH though. Also HOE-LAND seems like it might have been on purpose.

Guess when ya solve days after everyone else, all the pertinent comments are already taken! EASTEREGGS in SPADES and ARIOT as well. Thanks Cap'n, the EAPOET of MMM.