Cruise Day 14 - Sea Day #4

We had a quiet day, a few games to be played, meals to eat, and, unfortunately, suitcases to pack.  I did win a few medals and some nice Sapphire princess coasters as well, in shipboard activities. Mary was happy to have some sun on our balcony today.  Also, we received our Arctic Circle Crossing certificates.  Very cool and this came as a surprise as we did not expect them. 

We enjoyed Pub Lunch (traditional British pub food) today.  I had Bangers and Mashed while Mary had Fish and Chips.  In the afternoon we passed a large field of oil rigs along with some large windmills (for generating electiicity). This is one example of the many that we spotted.

We will actually have a sunset tonight at 10:25 p.m. with sunrise close to 4:00 am tomorrow. After several days without seeing the sun go down, that will be different.  

I do not expect to blog tomorrow as it will be a very long day with our flight home.  It’s been a great cruise.  I plan to do a retrospective blog on Sunday or Monday with some additional pictures.   Many thanks to Mary for being my blog editor!

Cruise Day 13 - Bergen

Mary and I had an excursion scheduled, but cancelled it and went into town on our own.  This worked out well as we had a very good shopping experience. Click on the picture to enlarge it to see where we shopped.  Pretty cool!  

Bergen is a pretty town and seems to be quite pedestrian-friendly. While our ship docked in a commercial port, a shuttle took us part way to town, and then it was a fairly short walk to go the rest of the way.  Brrygen (the name for “old Bergen”) is a picturesque lineup of quaint shops, including the Schjott store along the old harbor.  Lots of tourist and souvenir stores. 

After we got back and had lunch, there was a Longest Putt contest which I was fortunate to win (I have a total of 4 medals now!).  That was followed by a Fastest golf Play contest where I tied with another guy by making putts in all 7 holes in 1:17.  That contest won a Sapphire Princess coaster for Mary.  

Tonight we enjoyed a Lobster dinner in the dining room. There were no King Prawns  included with the lobster as in previous years, just a lobster tail on a bed of rice.  It was delicious!  And to top it off they had Mary’s favorites Princess dessert - Floating Islands.  YUM!  

A sea day tomorrow as we head back to Southampton for our flight home on Saturday.

Cruise Day 12 - Alesund

We had a morning “City Drive” excursion around Alesund today.   Our first stop was a very nice aquarium. We arrived before it officially opened so we got to see the morning feeding of the seals.  Mary also got a picture of this cute otter posing for her. 

Next we visited an outdoor museum which had a lot of thatched-roof cabins from the past several hundred years.  Some were dated back to the 1600’s.  A nice job was done of showing the progression of house development over the centuries.  It resembled what we see when we visit Greenfield Village (in Dearborn, MI), but with much older buildings. 

We walked around Alesund afterwards. It is very picturesque, having been totally rebuilt with a common building design after the entire downtown burned in 1904.  The city leaders at that time showed a lot of initiative to decide this when rebuilding the city. 

Just as we were getting ready to head to dinner, we had a surprise.  From our balcony I spotted an unusual boat.  It was a fireboat that started pumping streams of water into the air as we left our dock!  That’s a first for us, to experience a sendoff like that.  

Bergen tomorrow, then…..

Cruise Day 11 - Sea Day 3

No port visit today. We had a few ship activities, but they were spread out across the day.  One night on the ship the cruise director announced the passenger counts by country. Great Britain had the most ,with USA second. I found quite interesting that Australia was #3 and New Zealand #5. Those people sure had to come a long ways!  To round out the top five, Canada was #4.

As we have done on most sea days, In the morning I went to Zumba and Mary went to a presentation about the next port. At noon, I participated in Champagne Golf (the winner gets a bottle of champagne) and tied for second by making 5 pf 6 holes-in-one. I did better in the afternoon by winning at Quick Cricket.  Later as I was walking around the ship, I saw that Doc (Adam Bricker), from the Love Boat tv show, was available for pictures. The line was short so I lined up and got my picture taken with him!  

After an enjoyable dinner we went to the production show Do You Wanna Dance which was as good as we remembered from seeing it on past cruises. We sure love the Princess production shows!

We could get spoiled by this Midnight Sun.  Right now at 9:30pm, Mary is on the balcony catching some rays! 

Two ports left, Alesund and Bergen, then a sea day to pack before heading home.  Our time in London seems like it was so long ago! 

Cruise Day 10 - Lofoten Islands

We were late into our port today because the ship’s pilot that Princess hired at Tromso was not certified to take our ship on the southern route, so we had to backtrack over 80 miles which added 4 hours to our travel time.  So the Shore Excursion staff had to scramble since we arrived at Lofoten Islands at 1pm rather that 9am.  The Captain decided to stay at Lofoten for the scheduled 9 hours so we did not depart until 10 pm. To make matters easier, they moved all excursions back by 5 hours so our excursion had to meet by 6pm and was not scheduled back until 8:30 pm. As you can understand, that made eating dinner a bit of a challenge. 

On a positive front, the delayed arrival did let the staff add a Zumba class in the morning and a few other activities like Lawn Bowling (I came in second out of 10).  We did enjoy seeing the mountains as we sailed in.  But having seen mountains like these for many days now , our picture taking was limited. After lunch, Mary and I used our Elite privilege to tender to the shore with no waiting.  But it was rainy and not much to see so we came back to the ship fairly quickly.  

After a light supper at the grill we headed out on our excursion.  Our excursion was a bus tour around a couple of the islands stopping at a small fishing village, then at two white sand beaches.  At first we were worried about getting back to the ship in the dark DUH!  (See post abut the Midnight Sun).  The scenery was beautiful with mountains soaring above the sea but the beaches, while quite nice, were not as impressive as those in our Great Lakes state.  After returning, we went to the buffet for a quick pasta snack and dessert.

Tomorrow is a Sea Day so we can rest up and participate in a few shipboard activities. 

Cruise Day 9 - Tromso, Norway

We had a quiet morning today since our excursion was at 1:00 pm.  The excursion was a short tour of the city, with three stops: a cable car to the top of Storsteinen mountain, a Lutheran church, and a local museum.  It was pleasant, but quite crowded at the cable car ride due to the number of buses and a cable car capacity just 22 people every 5 minutes.  But the scenery was nice, even if overcast and a bit rainy. 

The Lutheran church (also known as the Arctic Cathedral) was beautiful!  We even heard the organ being played.  Again, we felt a bit rushed, but were able to appreciate the architecture and beauty of it for the few minutes we had to visit.  We did not spend much time in the museum, which specialized in the local Sami people. But we did get to see a couple of nice videos there, about the Northern Lights. 

Nothing special going on tonight so we will enjoy dinner, then watch a movie.  On to Gravdal on the Lofoten Islands tomorrow!

I wrote a special Midnight Sun blog, but I don’t think it was emailed out so check it out here.

Cruise Day 8 - Midnight Sun

Mary and I stayed up to see the Midnight Sun last night.  Princess had a big deck party and I think about half the ship’s passengers attended!  They even blew the ship’s horn at midnight.  I took some pictures on my phone that you can see here:

Midnight Sun Photos

I think we have ons more night of Midnight Sun, then we’ll have sunset and sunrise times again. 

Cruise Day 8 - Honningsvag, Norway

Mary and I took separate excursions today.  I did a King Crab Safari on a fast Zodiac Boat while Mary took a bus to the North Cape. I was issued a flotation suit for my ride on a small rubber boat with twin 300 hp engines.  First they pulled two King Crab from a crab pot before heading to a site where they prepared and cooked the crab.  The crab was very good, but a lot of work to eat. On the way back the boat-driver did some tight turns and wake jumps which was a bit exciting. 

Meanwhile Mary visited the North Cape, at the top Norway.  This is the northernmost place on the entire continent of Europe at over 71 degrees north latitude. Unfortunately it was windy and quite foggy while she was there so visibility was limited.  They had a four season panoramic movie there as well as a chapel and a tribute to the former king of Siam (now Thailand), son of the “King and I” king, who visited years ago.

The Sapphire Princess singers and dancers put on the production show Born to be Wild tonight. It’s a musical tour of the USA in a pink cadilllac!  We had seen it a few times before but enjoyed it just as much this time.

Tromso today!

Cruise Day 7 - Sea Day #2

We had a busy sea day.  We were surprised to see some mountains from our balcony this morning!   My day started with Zumba while Mary went to a talk about our next port, Honningsvag. After lunch I played “quick cricket” (see below) in the basketball court while Mary went to an interview with “Doc” (Bernie Kopell) from the Love Boat TV show.  She said he was very funny and engaging as he talked about the various parts he played in other TV shows like The Doris Day Show, Bewitched, and Get Smart.  

So, you ask, what is Quick Cricket? Well, you’ have a batter, pitcher and fielders, but the scoring is based on your hitting ability - no running. It was quite fun and I came in 3rd behind two people who had played it a lot before.  A man from New Zealand complimented me on how well I played!

Today was the Captain’s Cocktail Party for frequent cruisers, where we met the captain and other officers. After that we headed to dinner, and then to a Beatles Tribute Show where we had a great time.  They sang many of the popular numbers and had the audience on their feet for Twist and Shout. 

Tomorrow we will be at the top of Norway.  Mary is taking excursion to the North Cape (northernmost point) while I’m taking fast zodiac ride to pull some crab pots and enjoy a fresh king crab lunch. 

Note:  The ship reports that Internet connectivity tomorrow is highly unlikely based on the position of the ship at these high latitudes, so my blog post might be delayed. 

Cruise Day 6 - Trondheim Norway

Note:  As we get farther north, internet uploads are getting slower, due, I assume, to distance to the satellite.  So pictures that used to upload at up to 50 kb/sec are now around 10 kb/sec.  So I will be posting fewer pictures for the next few days.  

The Trondheim fjord is one of the largest in Norway, but it does lack the high mountains coming right down to the water. It was still impressive to see as we woke this morning. We did have “night” for 3 1/2 hours last night, We will have a sunset tonight, but that is the last one for a while since "midnight sun" starts tomorrow. 

Our excursion today was to the Gransen Ski Jump with a bus and trolley tour of the city.  The city is fairly modern and we saw quite a bit of it, including the very large Nidaros Lutheran Cathedral, which was quite impressive, with dozens of statues on its facade. (Click the link to see a picture of it).  At the ski-jumping facility we were able to see ski jumpers practicing as we watched, which we really enjoyed.  Mary got some good photos of the jumpers as they jumped, and one even took questions from our group.  

The evening production show, Let Me Entertain You, was brand new production we had not seen before.  It was good, but aimed at a slightly younger audience since we only recognized a few of the songs.

Cruise Day 5 - Geiranger Norway

These photos are what we woke up seeing out of our balcony window this morning.  What a view!  What a great way to start the day.  We then enjoyed more beautiful scenery as we cruised up the fjord to Hellesylt where we dropped off a few passenger who are on a longer excursion, then headed up a side fjord to Geiranger, enjoying sunshine among the scattered clouds.  

The sail in to Geiranger was as beautiful as promised. If I had $1 for every waterfall I’ve seen, this cruise would nearly pay for itself!  This scenery is exactly what Mary and I hoped to see — and it has exceeded our expectations: large rock- or tree-covered mountains going right down to the sea with many waterfalls. The only downside is that while in these fjord, we loose contact with the satellites, which knocks out live TV and the internet.  But that just gives us more time to sit peacefully and enjoy the scenery!

Our excursion today took us to the top of Mt Dalsnibba.  The road there was unbelievable, as it rapidly climbed out of the valley, with switchback after switchback, to gain altitude.  The harbor was visible many times as you can see on the left.  Our ship is the farthest one.  The picture on the right was taken from the top of the mountain (click to enlarge) and also shows the ship, as well as some of the road we took to get there. The road was so narrow that often our bus had to let other vehicles clear a switchbacks since it needed the entire road.  It was quite a ride!  The other picture shows some of the scenery at the top of the mountain. 

After tendering back to the ship we enjoyed a spaghetti carbonara dinner with a chilled coconut soup appetizer. We finished diner in time to get to a concert by a VERY energetic singer who was doing an Elton John concert.  He was great!  

Cruise Day 4 - Flaam Norway

We woke up around dawn (well before the ship arrived in Flaam) and saw this out our window - what a great way to start a day, cruising down a fjord!  Since it was quite early we went back to sleep. 

Our train excursion today did not leave until 12 noon so we enjoyed a relaxing morning of reading,  walking and enjoying a pizza lunch.  Also, I played carpet bowling and won a medal! The port here is absolutely beautiful!  We have no internet service during the day today due to the high mountains blocking the satellite so I doubt the web cam was working, but it it had, you would’ve seen the photo the left.  I could sit and look at these mountains and waterfalls all day.  Below is my attempt at a panorama of the area.

 Our excursion was interesting.  Our train took us up the mountain from the fjord to a hotel where we enjoyed Norwegian waffles with raspberry sauce. It also stopped at a large waterfall. The scenery along the way was beautiful, but it was also very hard to get good pictures, due to the layout of the train. 

Flaam is located at the end of a very long fjord. Here are a couple pictures of the scenery as we sailed out of the fjord toward the sea. .  The captain said it would be over 5 hours until we reached the sea and turn north to Gieranger, our port for tomorrow. 

Cruise Day 3 - Stavanger Norway

We had an early morning boat ride excursion to Lysefjord, reportedly one of the most beautiful fjords in Norway. Both Mary and I took too many pictures, so choosing a couple for my blog was a bit hard to do.  The big attraction in this area is called Pulpit Rock which juts out from the cliffs nearly 2000’ (over 600 meters) above the water.  But the view from the water was not very impressive. The captain did take the boat up a small inlet and later against a waterfall so I chose those photos. One of the crew captured from of the water and handed it out to passengers as we left.  After seeing the sights, they took us to a small restaurant where we had Norwegian waffles with strawberry jam which were delicious!  

After returning to the dock we walked into the town and did some shopping.  I fell in love with a woolen sweater, but when I tried it on the collar was uncomfortable so I passed.  I’m sure we’ll see more in future stops. Back on the ship I came in 3rd in golf putting.  We enjoyed a nice dinner and watched a movie.  

Our days are getting longer as we move north.   Sunset is now after 11pm and sunrise before 4 am as our days get longer by 45 minutes.

Tomorrow in Flaam we have a train ride excursion. In the afternoon when the Sapphire Princess leaves, we have a long passage through a fjord to get back out to sea. 

Cruise Day 2 - Sea Day

Today was very relaxing and quiet.  We were awakened quite early by the rising sun shining into our east facing room, but closing the curtains took care of that!  In the morning, I did Pilates and golf putting while Mary went to a destination presentation and caught some rays on our balcony.  After some internet time (we have to pay by the minute on this ship — can’t wait until Medallion Net is rolled out to all Princess ships!), we enjoyed lunch at the grill. 

In the afternoon the Princess Dancers gave a preview dance from the Bravo show they are putting on this evening, then it was time for golf chipping into the pool.  I did not win any prizes today. Being elite status, and since it was formal night, we had complimentary canapés delivered to our room.

Mary treated me to a special Father’s Day dinner in the Sterling Steakhouse.  What a great meal!  Appetizer, soup,  filet mignon, and a delicious peanut butter and chocolate dessert!  What a great and thoughtful gift! 

The Bravo show is one of Princess’ best.   Very elegant construes and Princess actually brings an opera singer on board for it!  It is a series of well-known songs accompanied by dancers.  Mary and I instantly recognized all but one of them (I think that one was in Italian) What a great lineup of production shows we get to see on Princess! 

Tomorrow is a very early start as we need to be ready for our excursion by 8 am.  It’s a scenic boat ride up the Lysefjord.