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Published: June 20th 2022
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Friday's sea day went smoothly. Some time during the day the cabin steward bought around a Crossed The Arctic Circle certificate for each passenger. Evening Formal Night saw most people partake again.
Saturday was Honningsvåg for the North Cape. On arrival we had a 4 hour morning tour with Blue Puffin Tours, organised privately rather than a "ship's tour".
A really great tour. Excellent guide, very knowledgeable, very enthusiastic. The tour included the tour guide's fishing village, a king crab fishing village and 1.5 hours at the North Cape, as well as a 'photo view' and a reindeer photo opportunity stop too.
On the way back to the boat our tour guide handed out samples of air dried reindeer meat - an 'acquired' taste which Pip decided she didn't wish to acquire.
The guide also remarked that reindeer eat for 4 hours then sleep for 4 hours, rather like passengers on a cruise ship. ?
We spoke that evening to someone who had done the afternoon ship's tour. The ship was late pushing off that day because of issues with that tour. Apparently on the several busses to the Cape they had been instructed to catch
any bus back, last one at 4.30. Surprise, surprise too many waited for the 4.30 and they had to send out another bus to get them. Hence our +30 minutes late departure.
Also that ship's tour wasn't 'guided' - no commentary, no photo stops, nowhere else visited. Essentially just a shuttle to/from the Cape. And nearly the same price as the "full guided tour" that we had with Puffin.
The Northern Cape is marketed for tourism as mainland Europe's most northerly point...
Except - is not mainland, because it's an island.
AND it's not the most northerly point on that island. A different peninsula a couple of miles to the west is more north by around 1.5 miles, but has no road access, only a 18km round hike from the nearest parking space - which was rammed when we passed in the tour coach.
But, North Cape IS the most northerly point of Europe you can drive to ?
On our trip out we also saw all the "important spots" that we hadn't registered before, such as
- Northernmost supermarket
- Northernmost petrol station
- Northernmost fishing village, and
- Northernmost public toilet
There
was also a brewery pub in the town, but there's one of these on Svalbard which is much closer to the N Pole.
The return cruise past the North Cape on Saturday evening, in the bright evening midnight-sun, with a Hans Zimmer concert on the screen behind, was magical. And enhanced by spending that hour watching several pods of whales passing by between us and the shore. No noticeable breeches, but dozens and dozens of blow-hole activity.
And we are now travelling back southwards.
Sunday in Tromso was possibly a surprise to a lot of people for two reasons in particular.
1 - the port is 4.5 km from the city centre, so around an hour's walk, if you walk. Given the make up of this cruise that would be too challenging for many.
Princess provided a constant supply of shuttle buses but they wanted just short of $20 pp for the day. That seems a bit outrageous. There was a normal bus service nearby, approximately every 30 min on a Sunday.
2 - We were in Tromso on a Sunday. Norway, mostly, doesn't open shops on a Sunday. Very few shops were open
in Tromso centre, not even coffee shops. It was just full of 'cruisers' looking for somewhere to fill their time.
We walked in. Having been to Tromso before, for a winter Northern Lights holiday, we had no plans to do any of the major sights in town.
Just across the road from the port though was the Arctic Botanical Garden, the world's most northerly. And it was an absolute delight. Stacked full of flowing alpine plants. We were there around 1.5 hours and would have happily stayed longer. One of the best gardens we have visited.
Back on board, push off from Tromso was 40 minutes late again. Looking down to the port from our balcony a late "Sightseeing Tour" bus return was again the problem.
Weather has continued fine but cool, low double figures for temps. No rain though for a few days. However, around 2 hours out from Tromso the captain used the ship's horn because of the dense sea fog.
Overnight the captain announced that because of some routing problems we would be 2 hours late arriving into the Lofoten Islands today / Monday.
Our stop at the Lofoten Islands was
the first, and only, that we have on this cruise where we have to use a boat shuttle to get from boat to land. Manoeuvering around 3000 passengers onto shore by boat is quite an exercise, but the ship's tenders (its lifeboats) hold over 200 at a time.
We had a minibus tour here. The Lofotens are really beautiful, but very reminiscent of coastal Iceland, both in scenery and in housing infrastructure.
Since the previous post we have had a further 4 ship-board evening meals - two Main Dining Room, 1 World Market Buffet and the Crown Grill/Steak Bar.
The MDR is still acceptable and varied.
The World Market has some great choices from evening to evening. Last time Paul had two very generous large spoonfuls of saute shrimp, with some rice from a counter in another section, just as a starter!
The Crown Grill was delicious. The starter that Pip wanted though was not available, nor was one other. The starters being seafood heavy do not suit Pip when the other choices are unavailable. Both our steaks - one rib eye, one fillet - were done perfectly.
Pip's key lime pie bar in
the Crown Grill was the first creamy dessert that has delivered a hit of flavour. Every other flavour dessert had been lacking the advertised flavour, be it strawberry, mango or lemon.
They are still having problems providing most of the listed by-the-glass red wines from the wine list. The Crown Grill manager blamed it on "supply issues caused by the war"!!! What! How does the Ukrainian war affect the ability of Princess to access and load their wines??
The gelato ice cream has also been sampled and very nice too. And even a single scoop was very generous.
The paid for WiFi on board ship continues to be poor value for money. Very intermittent and very slow even when it does lock on.
We have a full sea day tomorrow. Time to try out the on-board activities again.
Carpet bowls anyone? Or Scattergories? (No really, we have no idea either what that is).
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