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Published: June 14th 2022
Hello all
It's been a while, again, though we have been away - a sunnyish week in Lanzarote in January and an all-inclusive 2 weeks in Hurghada, Egypt in March - but didn't look to blog those.
Now we are on our first ever cruise, a 2 week Land of the Midnight Sun trip up and down Norway's fjord coast. This was our first proper luggage packing for around 6 years too, all our other blogged trips being with hand luggage alone.
This trip was originally booked for June 2020 before the dreaded "C".
Two advantages of this change though.
1 - much newer boat, the Sky Princess, than our original booking, and
2 - used the +25% uplift for holding our booking to go from inside cabin to a balcony cabin.
Travelling from mid-Devon, we overnighted in Southampton Travelodge, conveniently, we thought, just 5 miles/10 mins from the port. And parking booked for 'at port' with CPS at a rip off £162 for the 2 weeks!!!
On the Saturday morning, being booked for a 11/11.30 port arrival we set off at around 10 am.
2 hours! Yes, TWO HOURS, to do
that 5 miles. The CPS guy checked his watch and said "good afternoon" to us. The number of lanes at various distances from the final port side road were horrendous, and given the direction we were coming from we were at the back of the "traffic zipping" queue.
Once at ship side though things were very smooth. Car check in took just a few minutes. Bag drop off was just next to car hand over. And the queue in the departure hall looked horrible but it moved very quickly. First stations was check-in /documents check and there were around 30 stations for this. Having quickly established who we were all that was checked was passport, vaccine certs, test certs.
This cruise line, Princess, uses a Medallion for control and payment on board - a little electronic gizmo which connects to ship's own WiFi. It also knows where we are and with the associated phone app we could order food and drink to be delivered to us wherever we are on the ship, and at any time.
Our cabin is practically on the top level - level 17 on the lift from 18, port side, forwards. Roomy enough,
plenty of storage space. We did some minimal unpacking from our day bags (rucksacks, suitcases to be delivered later) and headed off for some victuals and an explore.
The ship's buffet eating is called World Fresh Market Place and is just one level below us. This will probably be our go-to for breakfast and for lunches on our "at sea" days. On embarkation day it suited us fine for a salad + pudding lunch. Though there was some very enticing full meals on offer eg roast beef on the bone, pork tenderloin, Chinese, etc.
By the time we went back to our cabin, about 90 mins, our luggage was in the cabin and we could unpack.
The sail away party at the main pools/movie screen was, for us, a somewhat over-raucous affair, to be passed through for the more sedate wake pool group.
After sail away and some more exploring we have to say it didn't feel over full. On the Saturday each area we went to, with one exception, had space/seats, indoors and outside.
That evening we had a meal in one of the three Main Dining Rooms (MDR). Straight in for our 7pm
booking and to table. Reasonable/acceptable table spacing in these Covid times, and I also remarked that the table was quite large. We've had plenty smaller in michelin restaurants.
Meal was really nice. Just the puds disappointed - lemon pie bland, hazelnut soufflé stodgy and heavy.
We retired to the Take 5 Jazz lounge for another drink and then split around 9.45, Paul to the comedian /ventriloquist in the ship's very large theatre, Pip to the cabin (act not to her liking).
The theatre was the 1 area that was full for its first 8.15pm show. No problem as Paul wanted the 10.15pm show which turned out to be only 3/4 full.
Comedian was acceptable. The Cruise Entertainment Director open with some facts about this cruise - around 3100 on this cruise - 2400 brits, 450 yanks,... on a ship which can hold ~3800.
For breakfast, on Sunday morning using, again, World Market. Plenty of choice. Pip was impressed that they even had decent fried bread!! Paul was impressed that he could get cream, brown sugar and cinnamon for my porridge.... and black pudding ??
One disappointment early on. On boarding the initial info told
us was thay they had had a generator problem so top speed is reduced. As a result the first stop, on Monday, Haugesund, was now timed for 1pm arrival rather than 8am.
The first full day, Southampton to Norway, was a 'sea day' just getting up the North Sea to Norway. Just chilled out for the day.
For those that are interested in such things, the question of "dress formality" seems to excessively occupy the minds of regular, old-school cruisers. Our observations about dress in our first MDR on Saturday night - pretty much 'smart' with a few exceptions.
Regarding mask wearing - guests are probably at around 10% at most - we are maskless. The crew, who are following CDC instructions, are 100% masked, no exceptions.
For some reason, I'm guessing related to the purchased Internet package, my phone reverted to USA east coast time! And at one stage on Sunday, when I logged into The Guardian news website it welcomed me as a visitor from California ?
We have walked through the casino, on our way to elsewhere, a couple of times now. We would really like to use it once or twice,
just for the experience, but it's just vile. A horrible combination of stale tobacco smell being, presumably, unsuccessfully masked by some foul smelling air freshening.
Food wise, at lunch on Sunday we expected to go light again eg salad, but were both enticed by the fish and chips. And then Paul by the bread and butter pudding.
Sunday was the first formal night, of 3, for the cruise. As we entered the MDR we were in a sea of black and white. Most had made an effort of some type, many men in dicky bows etc, women in posh frocks. Paul, not quite his thing and doesn't possess the correct garments anyway, but he did run to his best black Nehru jacket and collarless white shirt. Pip looked fabulous in a dark blue velvet jump suit and medium heels.
After dinner we went, very early, to the theatre for Rock Opera one of the ship's two full-on shows, but only on twice, both on the first Sunday evening. Standing room only by around 10.05 for the 10.15 show.
The Rock Opera is a full on heavy hitter - rock and musical bangers given a full production
work over with some fabulous voices and professional production - think Britain's Got Talent favourite singing tracks, on finals night, on steroids.
When we got back to our room we found out it had been re-serviced - bed made, curtains drawn, new flannels again!, new floor mat in shower. ?
Up earlier Monday, into World Market breakfast by around 7.55.
Wet overnight. Decks somewhat awash with water.
WiFi still very slow. If I was staying in a land based hotel with "free WiFi" I'd be at reception complaining about it.
The ship's routing looked somewhat strange that morning. When we switched on 'location' on our room TV it showed that we had travelled north until we were level with the Southern tip of Karmoy Island. This is the long island that is west and south of our port, Haugesund. We had then turned eastwards and it looked like we were heading to go through the channel separating the island and mainland. We had then U-turned completely, and headed back out westwards before turning north again. So we did 2 + 1 long sides of a triangle to get to Haugesund rather than directly in
on the diagonal, so roughly as shown in picture. No idea of how much time that must have added?
Captain updated us over tannoy on weather - about 15°C and showers. In the end we docked at around 10.45 and were able to disembark at around 11.30, with a latest return time of 5.30pm.
To disembark all we needed was our medallion though there was a displayed notice to take our "Government ID" with us. This wasn't checked though.
The Haugesund Town centre was about 950 metres from the boat exit, via a very steep up and over concrete bridge. A shuttle bus was available for those who wanted/needed it at 60 króna for an all day pass (so around £5 based on the exchange rate we had for a purchase). We walked.
At the Dock there was also a land train which for around £25 did a HOHO tourist route of about an hour. Although we wouldn't have done this anyway we didn't know about it until we went ashore.
Also at the departure point was a small building with souvenir shop, and a free supply of help-yourself-and-return umbrellas. Useful, as we had forgotten
to take ours out with us. There was also a free town map, which had 7 walking itineraries on it ranging from 1 to 3 hours.
A digression, for future reference. We do what is called "Geocaching". This involves seeking out hidden caches - typically small containers ranging in size from thumbnail size up to tupperware boxes - which contain a paper log to sign. This is managed and registered by a phone app - isn't everything nowadays. There are 10s of thousands of these hidden all over the world. In the 2 years we have been doing this we have sought out and found around 800 so far. There are fellow cachers with thousands of finds to their name. Geocaching can give a walk a purpose and take us away from the commonly trodden paths.
Haugesund is a small, fairly typical scandanavian town. Whilst the centre is not inherently pretty - functional would be a better description - there are some nice individual buildings and several cute statues dotted around the town.
A walk around to find/log around a dozen or so caches took us nicely around the town centre. Pip's strava log for our walk
around registered a modest 7 miles.
The Town Hall - redhause - is a solid block, but the crisply carved water fountain outside is the star in this area of town.
The town centre church is a solid red brick building. Regrettably when we arrived at about 1.07pm visitors were being ushered out. It turned out that it was only open from 11am to 1pm. We managed to get past the outcoming flow of people and at least get inside for a brief look though not a look around. Well worth a visit.
There is also a cute Marilyn Monroe statue, here because of her father, Martin Mortenson, being Norwegian. BUT.... DNA testing this year has established that he was NOT her father. Turns out her mum had had an affair!
Some idle walk around of the main shopping street - Haraldsgata - filled the rest of our time along with a coffee, with some free and decent WiFi.
We headed back to boat to reboard at around 4.15 for some cabin r&r/tea/coffee.
The weather during the afternoon was a bit mixed. The umbrella was up and down. It wasn't particularly cold but
it was damp.
We settled on World Market buffet for dinner on Monday evening. We looked to eat before the 8.15 show. The show on Monday night was comedian Tom Binns aka Ivan Brackenbury The Hospital DJ. We've seen him at UK festivals and watched his TV series and he is funny. Looked forward to that.
Arriving at World Market two things struck us
1 - 6pm and although it was quite quiet all the window seats mainland-side were taken for departure
2 - barely 1/4 of the serving stations were open. I guess that from experience and MDR/other bookings they must know that 75% (?) eat in the MDRs and elsewhere. There are 3 other, pay extra for, speciality restaurants (French, Italian, steak), a complimentary Pizzeria, a complimentary gourmet burger bar, a small cost sushi bar, and a few other random snack places.
We won't go hungry!
It was Asian night Monday in the World Market buffet , as in a couple of curries, Korean sesame chicken, Philippine pork, BBQ carved ribs...., noodles.....
Pip had curries etc, Paul chicken & beef + rice pudding & pineapple /barleysugar sauce/ice-cream
We entered into theatre at 7.30 for the 8.15 Tom Binns show. By 7.50 theatre was filling at the same rate as previous night's 10.15 Rock opera show. Maybe people are coming earlier after seeing how full it got previous night.
We enjoyed Tom Binns. We know something of his work but had not seen this character - a spoof psychic - of his before. Later in the week he is doing an R rated late night show which I hope we can get into.
An observation - we have seen hardly any children on this cruise yet. Maybe half a dozen at most. Of course it is term time back in blighty. Where we have been able to assume/ascertain we think the children are American where their summer vacation starts ridiculously early (I have a brother who is a naturalised American for 38 years, married with children).
Tuesday, visiting Skjolden, we travelled 120 miles or so up the world's 2nd longest fjord.
We arrived in port around 7.30 ( due at 8am). As we were travelling through the fjord from very-early-o'clock we were up by 6am. We booked an in room breakfast for the earliest slot, 6.30am, so we could breakfast in our room and watch one side of the fjord pass by. Breakfast arrived in the middle of its delivery "window", around 6.45
Skjolden is a "town" of barely 250 people so the occasional arrival of 4000+ people (2/3 of crew allowed off-board at each port) is quite a hit.
Being at the head of a major fjord it's setting is quite dramatic.
We had a couple of good country walks in the area, with some geocaching, totting up around 9 miles. The weather was kind to us, the merest hint of drizzle. By the time the ship set off at around 4.30pm the rain had set in.
Later in the cruise we have 3 or 4 nights where the sun will not set - summer solstice combined with being above the Arctic circle. Tonight, Tuesday, for Skjolden the sunset time was due to be 23.53. However, we are travelling west first for 120 miles back out of the fjord, so sunset is going to be sometime after midnight. And sunrise around 2am.
Glad that the cabin has heavy black out curtains.
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AndrewHL
Andrew Lisowski
Norwegian Coast
Enjoying your description of your Norwegian coastal cruise. It's one we have thought about. Will you view glaciers and visit North Cape and Tromso? We did a Princess British Isles cruise in 2017, but I didn't notice a great deal of formality on Formal Nights. We're just back from Iceland and know the Midnight Sun!