Norway/Arctic 3 week cruise, flights and hotel
NORTHERN EUROPE ARCTIC CRUISE-2017
7/13 Alarm goes off at 4:15 am. Fortunately, we had gotten up a bit before and were all packed and ready to go. Super Shuttle showed up at 4:30 am. We had booked an exclusive van for transport to SAN at 5-5:15 am. The van is $80 + tip each way. The driver is early, but he waits at the curb until we come out.
We arrive at the airport quite early for our 8:20 am flight to IAD and then on to AMS (Amsterdam, Netherlands). We walk up to the Polaris/1K (P/1K) check in. Our first leg is in coach, as part of a business class award ticket. We are waitlisted for first on the domestic leg, but it is full. No issue using the P/1K line (we are on a Polaris route, we are told). We both are given precheck for TSA (this happens for us on United Airlines (UA), perhaps because Leslie was once IK-g, the highest level with UA, in the past. This made TSA easy, short line, no shoe removal or belt.We do not have access to a UA club with our tickets, but we have one-time passes (they come with an upgraded credit card with UA). We are usually in business, so these passes are normally given away by us on Flyertalk.com. The UA club is up the elevator. It is nice enough, but offers little in the way of breakfast. They do have OJ, frozen/defrosted croissants and bananas. We did not order a bar drink, and I believe there is a change to do so. We have 2 very old UA Club (Red Carpet) drink tickets, but did not give them a try. We went down to the gate about 10 minutes early. The flight was just about to board when they announced a weather delay.
PANIC? We only have 57 minutes to get to our connecting flight after “scheduled arrival” at Dulles, Washington! Our flight does not end up going for another hour plus. While our pilot will make up some time in flight, our connection is gone, if they do not hold our flight. We land at gate C27, and need to get to D7 already! Final words, we must run. If you know me, running is no longer in my vocabulary. Both hips are bad, I am 72. Wife is also 72, but Leslie is in decent shape and I have her go on ahead. Perhaps she can plead my case? …if SHE makes it. The pilot has done a good job, as had Leslie. They hold the doors (we are less than 10 minutes to take off).The flight out of SAN was okay. The seating was really tight for leg room. I was in 28C, Leslie in 27D and the middle seat in her row was empty, one of the very few. There was a change for food. I don’t know what it cost, but there was only one choice when they got back to us. Egg whites on pizza, or at least that is what it looked like. We pass. A small offering of cheese and crackers was $6. We passed on that as well. We did have some wine (still have lots of old drink tickets for UA). They announced, on landing, that several people are on tight schedules, so please, if you can, let those off first. I thanked both of the couples that stayed in their seats!Our second leg (IAD-AMS) was mostly smooth. We are in business 2x1x2, about 10 rows. Service was very good. Brian took care of us. UA is introducing a wine tasting option. 3 reds and 3 whites, or a mix. Basically, the two wines offered and one additional not on the menu. We were served dinner shortly after takeoff. Leslie and I both had the pork chop. It was very thick. A tasty meal. They offered 5 choices.
7/14 We were offered breakfast about 1 ½ hours before arriving to Amsterdam. Once in the terminal, there was no paperwork. You do go thru customs. It went smoothly. Our luggage (yes it made it to the plane as well) was at carousel 17, a major walk from the plane gate. Once you have your luggage, then you pass a “something to declare” or “nothing to declare” station. 5 workers were eyeing everyone, but we were not stopped. Next, we found an ATM machine to get a couple hundred euros. We find the exchange rates reasonable, and the convenience of the ATM the best at Airports, when we travel overseas. From that area, there is a continuous dashed line leading to the “official cabs”.
Our cab ride to the Movenpick Hotel Amsterdam City Centre was 65 euros, with little traffic. This was a bit more than the amount generally suggested by websites. We arrived at the hotel before 8:30 am. Our room was ready (booked an Executive room), and we had been further upgraded to a two-room suite. Our room, 1627, was small but functional. We were not asked to pay any extra for our VERY early check in. I had written Albert Rouwendal, the GM, suggesting we would be very early to arrive. We received a nice note from Gloria Nielfa, hispersonal assistant. Our room rate ($400) was very high (booked late with limited availability). The honor bar is free (2 beers, 2 sodas and 2 juice), so no big deal. We also have club, which is located on the 2nd floor. The hotel is next to the ship terminal (the reason for booking this property), a short walk. There is a bit of a sprinkle and its about 60 degrees. There is a Holland American Lines (HAL) rep in the lobby to answer ?’s. We asked about how the luggage was being handled, etc. After checking in, we decide to take a couple hour nap (about 10 am). After our nap, we walk down the block. There is a sandwich shop (unbranded local), and a few more doors down is a Subway. We purchase a 12” BLT for 6’30 euro. They have indoor and outdoor seating, but we opt to take our sandwich back to our room. We eat our sandwich about 2:30 pm. We went downstairs to check out the Club. It was not much to look at. We do plan to check it out again a 5 pm. They offer drinks and snacks for two hours in this room for those on the Executive floor. Breakfast, for us, will be in that room as well. The 5-7 pm reception was quite good. They offered a modest wine, and 10 or so different snack items. Best of all, the club room attendant kept the offerings full. Several people took advantage of this benefit. We met with a few and had some conversations. Next was back to the room. Time to shower, organize and get some sleep (about 9 pm).
7/15 At 4 am, we were up for the day. The room is very cold. The room is supplied with robes, which helped. About 5 am, we thinned out our paperwork load. We are traveling quite heavy. Two large suitcases. We did not pack as many basics as usual, as we will have laundry service on the ship, but we do have a lot of bulky clothes for the cold weather.
We plan to get dressed and have breakfast early (starts at 6:30 am). We expect many of the “zombies” to be at breakfast, as this is the hotel many people use that are on cruises. They come from all points of the world, on many different time zones. The breakfast buffet is served from the same room for all the guests. This room is between the executive club, and the general dining seating. We will again be eating in the Club room where they have sparkling wine for mimosas. There are lots of food choices to be had. Unfortunately, the place has overlapping lines for the guests, poorly equipped area for the egg preparation and some lousy food conditions. The bacon was near raw (to discourage consumption?), dried out ham, and funny eggs cooked to order, as the eggs stuck to the pan. Yesterday we checked out the route to the terminal. It is very close to the Subway. Leave the lobby of the hotel, turn left and go 50 yards or less and you then enter the building. Check out was easy, although a bit slow. There is a 10-euro tax that is required at check out. It was undisclosed on the website, the travel agent, and at check in. We paid.
The HAL rep. was taking bags, so we got them to take ours too. We sat in the lobby for a bit, as it was unlikely we could get into the line before 10 am. There are lots of people in the lobby, as several ships are leaving from the general area, many on river cruise boats. Ours is the only ship. About 9:45 am we walk over to the port office to see what the status of getting on is. We are told it would be, at the earliest, 11 am. The waiting area is divided into priority waiting zones. When you check in, you are given a priority number. Check in started at 10 am. We were given priority #2 (wrong). We are 4-star, which makes us #1 (as are 5 star). I questioned the agent, she has no clue. She does go and ask the powers that be, and comes back with a priority 1 pass. The priorities determine when you are let onto the ship. The numbers are 1-7. Group 1 waits in a remote area where coffee and cookies are being served, along with tables in small group seating.
About 11:30 am, the group 1 room is full and they start boarding us. We first go to our stateroom and check it out. No luggage yet. We then go to the dining room to scout out tables of 2, that are to our liking. From there we go to the lounge where we can “book” a table type for our dining on the cruise. We gave the gentleman 3 choices we had selected. We are in “open seating” so we can pick our time to dine, as well. Next, we go to the Lido (very large informal dining area, buffet style) for a bite of lunch. Leslie opts for some pizza, while I go out by the pool and order a burger from the Diner and Dive, to bring back and join her. After lunch, we head back to our Signature Suite, #054 on the Prinsendam. Only one of our suitcases has arrived. We do a bit with it, but at 2 pm we have an exclusive Mariners reception in the Crow’s Nest for 4 and 5-star members. We shake hands with the captain (Captain Jeroen Schuchmann), have two glasses of wine, talk to a few other passengers and at 2:45 pm the reception shuts down. On our way back to our room, we meet Juli, one of our cabin attendants. We go over our schedule a bit. We brought a 17x22 handmade calendar for the days on ship. We post this on the wall with magnets. It shows when we eat dinner, that we eat breakfast in the room, what tours we are booked on and the times, any special events we will be attending, etc. This helps them keep our room up to snuff without interfering in our time. I mention that one of our bags is still missing (it is identical to the other, except it has #2 on it versus the one received already, which has #1). The numbers are written on yellow tape. This help us with finding the bags at the airport and knowing which has what stuff in it. At 3:30 we need to be at the Passenger Emergency Muster drill. For the past couple years, HAL has not required passengers to bring their life jackets for the drill. Our muster station is #8, on floor 7, down from 10 where our room is. We are done by 4 pm. By 4:15 pm our second bag arrives, and it is all put away by 4:30 pm. We put together our first bag of laundry, for the staff to pick up and handle, before getting ready for dinner. First day on ship, and one of the two pairs of shoes I brought has the sole starting to part with the side. I will try to milk these shoes at dinner, and wear the others for tours and around the ship. Oh well, best laid plans!The ship starts its sail away at 4:35 pm.
There are lots of people on deck yelling to people on shore, and vice versa. This is HAL’s home port and we have a large contingent of passengers from the Netherlands. This is the noisiest sendoff we have ever seen, except on TV! Our dinner time is 5:15 pm. We head down to the dining room and wait 5 minutes before they open. The gentleman in charge of seating, Iggy, has our first-choice of table available for the first 3 nights. If we still want it, then we can have it for the length of the cruise. It is a table for 2, one of three along the window. You can talk to your neighbor, or not depending on how you get along. You order a table for 2, so there is no waiting for late comers. The table is #130. For reference, on the Zuiderdam, a similar set up is table 111 (we have sat at that table for 2 cruises). One seat faces the windows, and the other has its back to the window. Zaidarrani, or Z, is our waiter. His assistant is “A”. So we have A to Z!. The area supervisor is Jaya (Jai a). Leslie and I both have onion soup, flat iron steak (fairly tasteless, but tender), no vegs, plus rice. Too much to eat, so we left about ½. We both did have enough room for ice cream, Leslie had vanilla and I had a pineapple sundae. We had a half of our bottle of Carmenere. We will drink the other half tomorrow night. We had 2 mimosas at the hotel for breakfast and 2 glasses of wine each at the reception…enough. We purchased a 7-bottle package of wine during lunch. The list price is $199 plus a mandatory tip of 15/18%? The wine package is discounted 50% for 4-star mariners, the tip is not. It is quiet at the table tonight, as the neighbors are talking Dutch. Back in the room. It is about 7:00 pm. Budi and Juli have straightened our room, turned down the bed, taken the dirty laundry and left us a new bag for the next load. As they will each night, we get a candy on our pillows, the daily program for the following day and any other materials sent to us (ads, tickets, invitations, etc). Before going to bed, we put out our breakfast order on the door. Eggs are offered over easy only. Fake eggs (egg product) are offered scrambled. We order an English muffin for Leslie, a bowl of cereal for me, and bacon, orange juice and mimosas (mimosas are free for 4-star mariners) for both of us. This will generally be our order for in room dining at breakfast each day. Full breakfast is available in the dining room and the Lido each day. Those on the club level (the cabin level one above ours) can have breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill or a light touch in the club room. We both went out like a light, Leslie at 8 pm and I, at 8:30 pm. The ocean is very smooth. We must have taken 2 ½ hours just to get to the open ocean from port. The ship is very quiet.
7/16 About 5 am we get up. Our breakfast (you pick the delivery time the night before) will not be delivered until 7 to 7:30 am. At 6 am, we spot what we think is the Rotterdam, another HAL ship, left Amsterdam from a different port. While waiting for breakfast, we watch a recorded presentation, on the TV, covering the upcoming ship tours. The actual live presentation is being held later this morning (ours is recorded from a prior cruise). At 7:10 am breakfast arrives at the door. Our room is fairly large, with a permanent table for such dining. After eating, we call for tray pickup, put the “service room” on the door (we discussed this with Juli, and he preferred we do that in the mornings, so he would know when we were done with breakfast). We are only too happy for them to come in and clean while we are there. When the weather cooperates, we will sit outside on the veranda. Doing a room is only about 10 minutes with the two of them, even with towel animals!
At 10 am we have a “meet and greet” with a group from CruiseCritic.com in the Crow’s Nest. There are about 30 or so people for this get together. We have been sharing plans for months on the website. Mostly this is for setting up “not ship” tours on shore. We join, mostly to share information and ask questions. Here some of the arrangements are finalized, discreetly.Next, we go to the office to get the newspaper and puzzles. On all the ships we have been on, they supply a few pages, 8 1/2x11 newspaper from various countries most days. They also have sudoku and crosswords. You can have the paper delivered to your stateroom, but this is often well after it comes out, and sketchy on delivery. Leslie takes a shower while I read the paper. It is really cold in our room, so I again raise the temperature gauge, now on 30C! Two hours later Leslie goes out on the balcony to take a picture of an oil rig, letting in a blast of cold air each way. We go to a presentation on the first couple ports. This is more on the ports and what there is to do, not on the tours that we had watched on TV. Tonight, is the first “gala night”. The rules have changed on HAL, no required jacket for the dining room. Gala night requires only slacks and a collared shirt (same as the old regular night). I wear a long sleeve dress shirt and tie, along with my slacks. Most men have a jacket, of various dressiness, and many still are wearing a suit. The women are wearing such a mix of clothing, that it is impossible to describe. We both had 1 ½ orders of lamb chops (one of our favorites) with rice. Leslie has the escargot and I had two shrimp cocktails for starters. She has a strange cheese cake and I, ice cream, for dessert. We also finished our wine from last night. There is a Captain’s toast in the showroom at 7:30 pm, but history tells us this will be crowded, seating difficult and only one drink. We skip this event and just go back to our room. We get our first towel animal, from the room staff. Guess what it is? We do not know either, and we saw it! Around 9:30 pm the ship does a bit of shaking. Leslie turns in. The shaking calms down a bit at 10:30 pm when I turn in. I don’t sleep that well, perhaps the nap hurt my schedule.
7/17 at 5:30 am and we are cruising thru the fjords. There is a water fall most everywhere you look. There is a bit of rain, on and off, that is probably contributing to the falls. Nice to have heavy clothes so we can enjoy our balcony. We have thermal underwear, ski masks, down coats, etc. We are giving it a test this morning. The high today is forecast to be 43 F. It does not feel that bad with all the clothes and a hood. A knock on the door, and it is breakfast time. We are tendering into Eidfjord, Norway today. We pack up our backpacks, which includes bringing the umbrella from our room (few categories of rooms have umbrellas). We have our own small ones too, but take the bigger one, given the nature of the clouds. I get 750 NK for $100 US at the office before we go. We then go to the showroom to get our tender tickets. With our cabin designation and 4-star, we get priority tender schedule. We then go down to the tender loading, and get on the few seats left after a ships’ tour group gets on (they always have priority, as it is money for HAL). The tender ride is not long, but we note that Viking Cruise Lines is parked at the sole dock at this port. It is not quite 8:30 am yet, but the information office is already open. We go in to inquire about the trolley-train. The lady tells us she “hopes” the first train will be at 9 am. This also suggests, it might not be. Two ships are in port and they have not started the train? There a few sites to see here. Up the hill, a 30-minute walk is the new church, old church, school, abandoned original houses and a woodcraft shop. We decide to walk. It is a bit of a climb for me, but the ground is mostly paved and smooth. The first three blocks are fairly steep, to get to the modern church. It is open to view, but only a janitor is inside. There is a basket to leave a donation, which I do. The church is modest in nature, but surely valuable to the community. Another two blocks, and we arrive at the old church and graveyard. The church is open to the reception area, but barred off into the church itself. It is possible to get a picture between the bars.Leslie’s camera is acting up. She is quite unhappy (a gentlemanly way of expressing her dismay). She was getting pictures of the fjord, but now sometimes it works, other times it does not. Her camera stopped working toward the end of our Africa trip (fortunately very near the end). She took the camera in to a shop here in Escondido, and for about $125 he fixed it. Or did he?A bit further up the street is the Trebua woodcrafts shop (https://en.hardangerfjord.com/eidfjo...odshop-p966393). This sole proprietor does violins, and other specialty wood work. He is just sweeping out his store when we arrive. It is a small shop, with modest viewing available. There is not that much to see, so no use passing anything. Next, we walk a block over and there we see several original homes, with material stacked up inside. It appears that some restoration may be in progress or in the planning stage. On the way back down, we stop to walk thru the cemetery. OH, surprise, here comes the trolley-train. We saved 90 nk each, and about an hour of standing around the information building. The school parking lot is a bit further down the road. It starts to rain, so we raise the umbrella and proudly toast our forethought while standing in the parking lot. It rains for 30 seconds, and stops. We get back to the tender and head back to the ship. There are only a hand full of passengers headed back, the offloading ones are full. I had taken my coat off coming down the hill. It had seemingly warmed up some while walking. OH, darn…we forgot to do wi-fi while we were off!The internet is down on the ship. No paper (because of same). We return to our room and open our bag of fancy mixed nuts (Costco-brought with us) and have a few. We go up to the Lido and have a light lunch an hour later. While in the Lido, we order a bottle of wine from our package to be delivered to our room (there is some value from that tipping). Once back at the room, the wine arrives and I have a glass. Leslie decides to have a nap instead. I work on this write-up. We spend considerable time on our trips doing these write-ups and managing, enhancing and titling the pictures. Hopefully, our friends will enjoy the story, our pals from flyertalk.com will gain insight into the trip, cruising, HAL, clubs, flights, etc. We seem to enjoy it too. It would be crazy to spend the hours we do, otherwise.It’s 4:30 pm, time to start getting ready for dinner. Tonight, they offer Prime rib. Note this is the generic use of the term, it is not the USDA rating, not even choice. Leslie and I both have scallops for a starter. These are clearly the worst ones we have ever had. They were stringy, and chewy, then gulp them down. They were beautifully presented on the plate. Leslie had (as requested) a thin piece of prime rib and rice. I had fried chicken and corn. Both mains were a bit better than just acceptable, not great. We both had ice cream for dessert. This is our third night at table 130, and our first set of talkers next to us. Bill and Mary are from Cairns, in NE Australia. Their cabin is on 9. They are very nice, and we hope they come back. This is open seating, and unless you reserve a table, it is occupied based on the Iggy’s decision each night.After dinner, it is back to the room and do paperwork and soon to bed. Note, there are shows in the showroom almost every night, but we seldom go. The attraction must exist for us and the willingness to sit in a crowd. We are still having a bit of time zone issues, which is unusual for us. Leslie sounds like she may be on the edge of catching a cold.
7/18 It’s 4:30 am, and we are just pulling into Bergen. It is light out, but we are not due to dock until 7 am. We have breakfast scheduled for 6:30 to 7 am. I decide to go back to bed, but that only lasts an hour. It is up at 5:30 am to face the new day. The Fjords leading into Bergen are much more populated that Eidfjord. There are far less waterfalls. We back into our dockage for about 45 minutes. Where we dock, is about a 30-minute walk to the city. Our breakfast arrives at 6:50 am. We doubled our bacon order (to 4 slices) and got 8. Too much. The rest of the order is correct: 2 cereals, one milk, orange slices (me), 1 English muffin (Les), and 3 OJ’s and 2 mimosas (us).Leslie decides to stay behind today and fight off her cold. We have no tours scheduled, so it is a wise decision. I go out early with no particular target in mind (except being out of sick bay?). There are other ships in port, all larger than ours. The Zuiderdam, twice our passenger level, is here.
It is a couple of blocks walk to the port exit gate and across a modest street. There are 2 hop on/off buses, but they do not start for about an hour. I start the walk into town. It was cold at the start, but after about 10 minutes, I shed my jacket, down to a T-shirt. I am in the minority, dress wise, but I do not feel cold. I believe it is in the high 50’s F. I pass 2 museums, but neither will open for almost 2 hours. Everything is wet. Either it rained earlier, or there was a lot of mist. The main result for me, was there was not a dry seat to rest on. I do notice a McDonalds down a side street, but decide not to go there to rest. There are other, eateries in the area. The outdoor seating is wet, and indoor, ordering food would be required. Eventually, I get to the “fish market”. There are stalls, and roped off seating areas (informal dining). You can get fish (mostly shell fish-lobster and crab) to go, or cooked and to eat here. There are specialty products being sold as well. The structure is a series of tents and folding chairs. They must open very early, as everything was fully operational when I go there. I saw no public toilets on my way, but one could likely go at McDonalds, or there might be core area toi’s in the Radisson hotel. I walk back from the fish market to the port. Port security was a single agent in a small enclosure, checking your ship’s key. Once inside the port, the walking gets complicated. There is an 8’ wide roped off area to walk in. Unfortunately, for me, I am coming back and everyone else is leaving.
When I got back to the room, I find that Leslie had stepped out to take some pictures and gone down to the Library to get the paper and puzzles. She has started to consume the cold meds and cough suppressants that we brought with us (just in case). I offer sympathy, but stay away. It is 10:30 am and I decide it is time to have a glass of wine, read the paper, work the puzzle and maybe do some of this write up. This seems to be the day for crew exercises. We have had faux emergencies for an hour now, including some ear damaging blasts. Hopefully, that is over. I decide to go up to the Lido for a sandwich and ice tea. When done, I get a slice of pizza, cream cheese cake and ice tea for Leslie. She has definitely lost the battle to her cough/sniffles. She spends most of the afternoon in bed, and by dinner feels well enough to join me at dinner. Tonight, we get a new wine server, Lee. I believe she is relatively new to do this job, as well. She has a great attitude, smile and willingness. Perfect. She will be assigned to our table for the rest of the cruise. We get yet another new Australian couple at the table next to us. They are from just above Newcastle on the coast. The couple, at the other table for 2 (one more over), are Janet and Hugh, also from Australia. Janet and Hugh have been there each time, but we have not talked past the in between table to greet them, but now we do. Leslie and I both eat half a bowl of onion soup and have the short ribs and rice for the main (note, we are requesting rice each night, but the entrees come standard with various vegetables). The short ribs are excellent. We have some wine and finish with some ice cream. We finish dinner and head off to our room to read the “When and Where” ship guide delivered each night, do our teeth, eye drops and head to bed.
7/19 Leslie had a tough night. The sailing is a mix of smooth and rollie seas, but her coughing is keeping her from getting a good night’s sleep. At 7 am we are docking. The Zuiderdam is already docked at the pier just in front of us. We will likely share some tours, as economies dictate. Breakfast in the room shows up a bit after 6:30 am, as ordered. We receive double the amount of bacon as we ordered again. We received two plates, each with the amount ordered. Leslie did not want any bacon, so I did not add the word crisp. It all came out that way just the same. The rest of the order was as requested. We are going on tour this morning. It is mainly a bus scenic ride with a couple photo ops.
We will be going to a different island thru submarine tunnels (just means they go under the water). The islands are Giske and Godoy. It is a short tour starting with a ride thru the Art Nouveau quarter of Alesund. We head to the islands via the tunnels. The tunnels were original built to access the airport for the mainlanders. Our trip took us to the lighthouse. Along the way we go up Mount Aksla (to enjhttps://www.visitnorway.com/listings/aksla-viewpoint/1116/) to enjoy the views. The tour is 3 ½ hours and $110 pp. HAL sold about 100 seats, split on to two buses. The tour left at 8:30 am, so there was plenty of time to tour the city afterwards. There is a hop on/off bus, a trolley-train and walking opportunities. TOI’s were available at the lighthouse and on the mountain. It was medium cool. A bit more than a t-shirt needed. There are cows, sheep and lots of sea birds. I went to lunch alone again today. I had some fish and chips along with ice tea. I brought back ice tea and some French fries (her choice) for Leslie. We have nothing planned this afternoon. We are watching the ships programming on future cruises and tours and history of the areas we are visiting. We are also keeping an eye on the scenery (homes, waterfalls, snow, and ice) as we make our way thru the fjords.Dinner is also by myself. Leslie stays in the room and orders something to eat there. She does not want to have to hold back the coughing. I have onion soup, lamb chops and ice cream. We have another new neighbor. They are from the Netherlands. We talk a bit about their travels out of Amsterdam on HAL. They get a substantial discount under a friends and family program based on some tie-ins. Our wait staff, asks about Leslie. Lee brings a bottle of Pinot Noir. Tonight, Leslie seems no better. I’m on the edge of okay or losing to her cold. Sleep is mixed. The temperature is hard to timely change. Sometimes the gauge setting seems to mean something, and others is it meaningless. Sometimes cold comes thru the vent, even when set on 30 degrees C!
7/20 We get up at 5 am. We turn on TV and get some of the news. Senator McCain is diagnosed with 4th stage brain cancer. Rosie O’Donnell is asking people to play a game in which the President of the United States is Murdered. Enough of the “news”, off goes the TV. We are on vacation!Breakfast shows up at 6:20 am. I ordered 4 slices of bacon, and we received two plates, each with 8 slices. Tonight, I will order NO bacon for tomorrow breakfast to see what we get. All else was fine. Lots of food wasted.The room stewards show up to do our room around 7:30 am. They work around us, as agreed. We report the heater issue…let the games begin (we have been thru this with HAL on another ship). We get a call from Luegi, of guest services, about the temperature. He asks me to set the heat at 29 and call back in 15-20 minutes. I waited until 9 am, and still no change. The vent feels slightly warmer, but nothing is coming out that you can feel. The leakage from the sliding door of cold air, is coming in with some modest force. I call and left word on the heater test.I watched a movie on TV. We are at sea. It is very calm. We see a few seabirds, but not much else. Leslie is still not well and I am struggling not to join her, or at least stay well enough to function. I head for the Lido and go out to the Dive-in for a burger. I eat it and take back fries and an ice tea again for Leslie. No one has come to check our temperature issue, as they had promised. We find out that many other complaints have been rolling in. A technician comes at 4 pm and turns the setting to 30 C, and “opens up the flow” into our room. He tells us that they have increased the heat flowing into the system for our floor. Dinner goes fast tonight. I order and get my soup before anyone shows at the table next to me. The new couple is from Australia, they were there a couple nights ago. I am not thrilled with the choices of mains for tonight. I order the stroganoff. It was okay, once I scraped off the sour cream. Rice, meat mushrooms and green beans…what’s not to like. I stayed long enough to have a cup of coffee and get some ice cream to bring back for Leslie. The room is very hot. I turn down the temp to 26 (should still be very hot, but we will see). You can feel the change fairly quickly. Maybe it is fixed?The itinerary on board tomorrow looks way better than today. There are 3 lectures, 4 Windows 10 classes and a captains meeting with the passengers. No wi-fi yesterday or for some time to come. We are in the Arctic Circle. No more sunsets either.
7/21 Last night, I fell into the abyss of Leslie’s cold. At 3 am I started cough drops, and later, Contact with breakfast. We will be cruising again today. Time to stop and give you a few facts on ship:
CABIN: Our cabin is #054, a Signature Suite. This is the second highest category on the Prinsendam, HAL’s small ship. We are on the 10th floor and slightly aft. The cabins on this ship, category to category are grossly smaller than HAL’s average ships. Our cabin includes a step-in closet, 2 sinks (one in the separate toi room). The shower is over the tub. There are no medicine cabinets (a loss). The TV is set up for watching from the bed, not the corner couch. There is a table suitable for 2-4 people to eat on. There are two areas to sit at to use as a desk. The balcony has about 4’ depth. There are no drawers under the bed (loss). The bed is not high enough to slide our suit cases under (loss). It would be a great cabin, if we had not travelled with HAL many times before, and had much more for much less. It comes with binoculars and an umbrella. SERVICE: average for HAL, and that is good. The amount of follow-up is more, but the results seem less so. With every dinner meal, we have been asked about our satisfaction by the waiter. We are always offered more or an alternative. The area supervisor often does the same. When we call in the AM to have our tray picked up, they too, ask of our satisfaction. As previously mentioned, they deliver breakfast with all you ask for, and often much that you have not. Service at the Lido (buffet) is better than any of the other HAL ships we have been on. They almost always offer to get you a drink (the free ones, not just sell you something) and generally come around with refills. The servicing of the room is very good. We have found this to always be the case, in terms of the rooms stewards. We post (magnets) our schedule on the wall, so they can plan for servicing our room. After breakfast in our room, we put out the “please service” sign on our room door, so they know we are ready for them. We often stay in the room, or on the balcony while they work. We eat dinner the same time (early) each night, so our room is taken care of after 5:15 pm, and before 7 pm, when we return.
ELEVATORS: On the Prinsendam, the elevators are often quite slow for the traffic. There are only two elevator banks. The other HAL ships have 3 areas of elevators, and many more shafts. The passengers on the Prinsendam, at least on this cruise, are at least as old as other ships we have been on, but had many more people with walking issues.
As I write this, Budi and Juli (our cabin stewards) have come to do our room. Our balcony has again been flooded by the window cleaning done from the floor above. We have not had this problem on other HAL ships, but encounter this problem 3 times on this voyage. It is all across much of our floor #10 and seems to impact floor #9 as well. I ask Budi to dry it up some, if possible. We go to the presentation on Longyearbyen and Ny Alesund in the show room. The lecture is packed, even with added folding chairs, it was difficult to find seating. Longyearbyen was first a whale oil boon. Later it became a fur (bears and fox) harvesting area. When that ran out, coal was mined and shipped from there. Today it is mainly for tourists. Ny Alesund is a research island and receives about 30,000 tourists a year! It is arguably the northern most city, containing the most northern church. After the lecture, Leslie and I go to the Lido for a bit of lunch. I have a pastrami sandwich (premade, with little meat) and chips. Leslie has some pizza (several different choices, available in the warmer, premade). Seating in the Lido is very crowded. We were going to another lecture at 2 pm, but decided to skip it. We goof up and turn on the news again. Trump has dumped another “loyalist”. Leslie heads off to the ships store for meds. We always bring some stuff, but if we both get a cold we need more.Tonight, we go to dinner together again. Leslie is coughing less, and we both do well. Leslie had sole and I had prime rib. Z and A take care of us, and Jayla stops by to say hello. The stock market continues to set a good pace, as oil is sagging. Interest rates are still low and inflation is modest. Hugh and Janet are in the table 2 over and we chat. Back in the room, we read tomorrows agenda and get ready for bed. We have an array of meds to choose from and try. Sleep was a mix. We manage to stay in bed, 9-5 but with little sleep.
7/22 I get up early and take a shower. It seems to help me feel better. It is really cold out. Nothing in sight out our slider. Visibility is limited. Seas are calm. Progress seems slow. Breakfast shows up on time (6:40 am). No follow up call today on the food? We did not call for tray pick-up, but they show around 7 am anyway. A bit after 7 am we spot a large flock of seabirds, floating along. The acted a bit like penguins, but were gone before we could id them. It is almost 9 am, and no land in sight. Juli and Budi have not shown up to do the room yet. Today is different, just don’t know why.We should be docked in Longyearbyen by 12:30 pm. We intend to get out and do a bit of a walkabout on our own. I stand out on the balcony for about 10 minutes and decide long johns are appropriate for the day. The HAL news says it will reach 49 degrees F today, but it is nowhere near that now. Daylight never left again last night. I don’t know how far Leslie and I will get today, but we will give it a try. This will be our last trip to the Arctic, and we can get well some other time!? It’s 9:30 am and we can see two glaciers from our side of the ship. For most of the next 3 hours we will be slowly making our way to Longyearbyen. No buildings, but we do encounter a small speed boat and a fishing trawler. Several individual and flocks of birds are spotted. A group of birds in the water act like hopper penguins from the Antarctic, but they pass by too fast to get a good look. Breakfast is the usual. Once docked, we let the tour groups off first, and a few very anxious people. We are leaving from the 5th floor, very awkward walking. No fanfare on shore. The ship has a tent, sitting area, water and checking station, as usual. The locals have set up a few tables to sell stuff. We walk thru a gate to start our way to town. Everyone before us turns left, so we do too. It is a mile or so to town, so there is no hurry. You walk on the highway or the shoulder. There are a couple of resident people who have rifles, but we only saw two. Apparently, the threat of polar bears is not that serious. Once into town we go to the Svalbard Museum. It is one floor, bilingual, and heavy on reading. An hour is plenty of time. The cost for seniors is 50 NK PP. There are free lockers to check your bag and a mandatory shoe cover program before entering the exhibit area. They have a very modest collection of “stuff” you can buy. It is crowded, as a bus of passengers (on tour) enters just before us. I was done in 40 minutes, but Leslie was a bit longer. She was taking photos. They have a few benches outside the museum to sit on, which I did while waiting. Svalbard Museum Further down the road is the Spitsbergen Airship Museum. We did not go there. Up the street from the highway a couple blocks, is the shopping area. Even further up is the church (1958). The “climb” up the road is fine for most, but we pass. There are 8-10 restaurants open and a Radisson Hotel. We did none of these. The ship offered several tours, none of which interested us. Spitsbergen Airship Museum Longyearbyen is the world’s northernmost town (about 600 miles from the geographic North pole), based on the handouts. It was set up as a coal town (Arctic Coal Company) in 1906. Prior use of the area was for whale oil, participated by several different countries. Fur (seals, polar bears, and Arctic fox) and ivory (walrus) were also harvested here. The town was destroyed in WW II. Today’s population is about 2,000, supported by some mining, tourism and support services.Because of its location it claims the northernmost church, post office, museum, university, airport, etc. There are no roads leading into or out of town limits, only snowmobile trails. All the houses are built on stilts, because the ground is permafrost. Longyearbyen is the only city in which the sun does not rise for four months, from Oct. 25 to March 3rd , each year. Now it is “24” hours of day.We are in port from noon to 6 pm. That was ample time for even the most adventurous passengers to go into town and see “it all”. Leslie and I are back on board early enough to do a modest late lunch in the Lido. Our verandah is again flooded. We are on the same side as the port, so sitting out there to see all the passengers coming and going would have been our activity otherwise. We called and complained. As the crew is causing this flooding, it cannot be new to customer services, but they put on a good bluff. Dinner is a list of more disappointing options for me. They have flat iron steak again, one of my, at home, favorites, but the prior time I had this option here, it was tasteless and tough. I order the sweet and sour shrimp with white rice. We talk with our new mates, a couple from Chicago (Gail and Wayne), our first Americans. After dinner, they head for the show, and we, back to our cabin. Leslie stops by the ship’s store for more cold supplies. Sleep is mixed, as we trade coughing spells.
7/23 We are up at 5:30 am. This is scenic cruising day. We will cruise the Liefdefd Fjord this morning, and the (a) Polar Icecap later. This morning we have already seen material pieces of ice floating by. The pieces of ice are minor compared to those we saw in the Antarctic. A large piece here is 3 meters by 3 meters by 15 meters. In the Antarctic, many pieces were bigger than our ship. This ice field was quickly passed and not repeated until about 7:45 am when we slowed and passed by a block almost 50’ long, but modest in height.
The area is a “channel”, as there are fjords to see, mostly black with modest amounts of snow here and there. Breakfast is the same basic in room dining. We put up the service sign, and shortly thereafter Budi and Juli show. We are back and forth on the balcony. We are wearing our ski masks. We did not scare them, but I saw a bit of surprise! I did a bunch of “life” searches in the hills, but saw only an occasional sea bird. We are cruising all day, but the commentary is on and off. There are rules the cruise ships must abide by, and no extra sound is one, in certain areas. Captain Schuchmann announces a bit of a change in the schedule, but we could not hear it clearly. Changes are to be expected based on the sea ice and visual restrictions. I receive a call from Guest Services on the balcony flooding. Somehow, she believes the problem has been solved. We doubt that. We spend hours on our balcony in a puddle, as this area is clearly a major highlight of the cruise, not to be missed!The layman explanation, I am a layman, is you cruise slowly in calm waters between two sets of low mountains (fjords). These mountains have areas of snow and ice, with the balance appearing barren. There are valleys, and in them sometimes is a massive ice flow (glacier). The sky is cloudy to clear, with interesting formations. We avoided the rain, but often rain is part of the experience. Winds are common, and we experience them. Cold is everywhere, so you wear everything you brought. We are wearing our ski masks, long sleeve top, fleece shirt and coat with hood. Add thermals and gloves for comfort. Oh, it is sunny bright, so sunglasses as well. The water is smooth, but it does have flow and modest white caps. There are ice floats that are large broken sheets covering huge areas that we pass thru, and more compactly structured ice floats that we avoid.
The non-ship noise is confined to the cracking of ice and the cries of the birds.The afore explanation could easily apply to some of our Antarctic cruise, but is a junior version and without the wildlife. It’s early, we will see how it goes. This is much more like cruising Alaska. We have gone into Liefdefd to the “dead end” of Liefdefd Glacier. We spent 30 minutes turning the ship for all to get a splendid view and pictures, before starting our way back out. WOW, that was cool (in more ways than one). It’s hard to pull away, but with so much more to come later, we choose to miss 30 minutes of the return trip to get a bite in the Lido. After eating, we take shifts watching and doing our report work. Most of the time is from inside the cabin. Preparations for balcony visits take time for “redressing”!It is after 1 pm, and the commentary has not resumed. Moffen Island is scrapped because of some conditions in the area. About 3:30 pm, we are nearing our new destination Smeerenberg (good luck on finding this spelling). We pass a 30’ sail boat! Then we see another sailboat, smaller than our cruise ship, but still substantial. They are lowering into the water their zodiacs. Something exciting is occurring on shore a few football fields from us. A couple polar bears have been sighted. Leslie’s goes to floor 7 for a better angle. I go to 12. The zodiacs are just off shore now. Our ship puts in one of our small boats to get pictures. We are told that a whale is beached and the bears are dining on it. The temperature is near 40 F. There are also a small group of walruses. Leslie and I meet back at the cabin to share. I have seen the polar bears with the binoculars “probably”. She has pictures “maybe”. We pull up her shots, and sure enough she has a couple great pictures. Captain Schuchmann starts pulling away and we hurry to change for dinner. At dinner, we share “our” polar bear pictures, and some others do as well. Most passengers really did not get any. The crew was happy to see our pictures. The captain announces that we should be at the (a, as there are many) polar ice cap at 9 pm. We stay up to see “the” polar ice cap. We send out a tender to get pictures and a chunk of ice. The ship goes about as far as possible to get a reading. It is now about 10 pm, and we retire.
7/24 Today’s port arrival is about 6 am. We are docked with our side facing out. We have a pleasant view of low “mountain” fjords, with 5 % snow cover, a glacier and the wonderful bay with birds, shelf ice and surreal silence when our neighbor is not talking. Our port is Ny Alesund, Norway. The community was established for coal mining in the early 1900’s. It became the shortest route to the North Pole. Coal mining ceased production in WW II, as the community was abandoned. It resumed after the war, but was shut down for good in 1962, after a series of accidents killed 21 miners. It became a polar research station, as it is today. Ny Alesund has about 30-35 permanent residents and about 100 residents in the summer. They host about 20,000 tourists each year. The tourists come to see polar bear, arctic terns, arctic fox, barnacle geese, walrus and reindeer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ny-%C3%85lesund
The walk into “town” is 2 blocks. Once in the gates, there is an abandoned steam train from the coal mining days, a small museum, and a shop with snacks. Here, you are at a place near the top of the world. I guess there are two buildings for every permanent resident. No one saw any of the “animals”, except for the substantial number of terns nesting on the “tank farm” just off the walkway. Several passengers walked off the path up to that area to get pictures, upsetting the bird colony. Eventually, someone “removed” the passengers and stood guard on this area. We were told they would be nesting and to stay away. Not only do we upset the birds, but put some passengers in peril from the dive bombing by the birds. I was upset by the inconsiderate people that took this approach to nature.After a bit more walking, I returned to the ship, leaving Leslie to do her picture taking (for you, and me). There are “200” passengers and/or employees out at any time during the morning. At 12:30 pm we depart for our next destination. We are going to Muller fjords and Lilliehook fjord. This is all part of the Spitzbergen National Park. Lilliehookbreen Glacier at 2:40 pm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordve..._National_Park The route to the glacier is filled with chucks of ice. The Prinsendam is not rated for ice breaking, but is okay for the “open water ice” we are navigating through. The ice is everywhere now. We are going very slowly. You can hear the ice pieces banging against one another. It is dead silent, except for the motor and the ice. Occasionally, birds fly by. Eventually, we start seeing flocks of birds floating on the water. The fjords are a mix of rock and snow. Increasing, the valleys are modest glaciers, until the cumulation of them becomes a massive wall of ice, perhaps 30 meters high (above the water). The horseshoe area, that is our dead end (water’s edge), continues, as ice, as far as one can see. Captain Schuchmann continues until it is difficult to see if we have hit shore or not. We sit there for a few minutes, get some readings, then back off. Shortly, he moves the ship around so that all can get the impact of the total view of the glacier. I see no calving during the hour or so we are in the immediate area. The massive amount of shattered ice suggests, we just missed seeing the calving.
The WEATHER so far has been generally crisp, but only a couple of times have we wore our ski masks (glad we brought them). Rain has been virtually non-existent. We have had lots of sun. Yes, we have had some foggy overcast periods, but so far never during a valuable time.
REPAIR has been addressed timely so far. The results are generally good. Controlling (getting) the heat has continued to be a problem. We are fortunate that we brought lots of warm clothes. Today, they came and checked the drains on several balconies. Tomorrow, they come and caulk a few areas on our balcony and later someone comes and replaces our sliding door handle and mechanism (needed). They have not washed down water from the Lido since I (and likely others) called. The jury is still out on that one. Dinner is almost a bust for Leslie and me. She settled for bowtie pasta, with mushrooms and asparagus (and her usual onion soup). I have Caesar salad without anchovies and without dressing (simple salad, without character, but I liked it), and roasted chicken and rice. We both have vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce for desert. We trade e-mail addresses with Gail and Wayne, so we can share polar bear photos.We change the clock back one hour tonight (at 2 am). Tomorrow is a day at sea, so we plot the time for breakfast to be delivered. We catch up on our write-ups and do the crossword puzzle. Tomorrow we will have a lot of time to do our trip reports stuff and some planning for the balance of the cruise.
7/25 It is Tuesday, at sea. Sleep was still mixed, but I did materially better as the coughing was less and only 2 Tums and 1 cough drop. Leslie got up before 5 am. I stuck it out until 5:30 am. We are expecting breakfast at 7 am. The fog horn was quite a surprise. The Captain tooted twice, several times over the next 45 minutes. Juli and Budi could not hear the horn where they sleep beneath the water level. We took a peak out the curtains, but the visibility range was less than 100 yards. An hour later, we could again see “forever”. Breakfast came shortly after 7 am. Yanto always greets us. He goes over the list (right or wrong). Fist bumps follow some kidding back and forth the first couple days. He then heads off to his next stop. He is a polite, neat and efficient young man.This morning, after breakfast, we go out on our balcony, while our guys do the room. It only takes 10 minutes or so. The “heavy lifting” (changing the bed, washing the sliders and the balcony floor) was done a couple days before. On those days it takes 15-20 minutes. Leslie and I watch a movie. Leslie heads out for the paper, puzzles, Contact (meds), and an update run of our bill. Tomorrow our form for exiting the ship is due (I hate that we have to do that so soon).
We can “get off on our own” and take a cab to our airport hotel (risking that we cannot get a room that early); take the ships bus to the airport ($29 pp) and walk to the Hilton AP (that will get us there an hour or two later); or take one of the two tours in Amsterdam offered by HAL (this will get us to the Hilton about 1:30 or 2 pm). One of the tour/transports includes a canal boat ride (we have done this here before) and is $105 pp. The second tour/transport includes a trip to a windmill and a visit to a cheese shop. We opt for the windmill (also a repeat, but not in Amsterdam). I take the form down to the desk, check out the location of the Pinnacle Grill and then get a latte, before returning to the room.
Two repair people have come and gone in my absence. Some of our planning involves using up our On-Board Credit (OBC). As part of our booking, we have $550 OBC. Our gratuities (not including drinks) are included in our package. We paid for our tours before getting on ship, so those do not apply. Our first qualifying expenditure is first 7 bottle wine package (1/2 bottle per day, most days) is $130 (after our 50% discount for being 4 star). Our one Pinnacle Dinner ($35 pp upcharge) is only $35, after our 4-star discount. We think it will be about $100 for cold meds. I’ve done a couple latte’s and will likely do a few more, as will Leslie? We will buy at least one more wine package. It’s fun to try and balance these things, but not to “leave money on the table”. Anything not spent is lost. Paying more is just part of travel.
We skip any thought of lunch, as we will be dining in the Pinnacle tonight. Our reservations are at 5:30 pm. When we arrive, they have already seated 2 couples before official opening time. We are given our choice of any unoccupied table (I like that policy). The Pinnacle is small on the Prinsendam, as most things are. Most of the tables are for 2. You are invited to select a more expensive wine from their menu, but most people are on some package that does not include these. We are told we can choose one item from the starters (recommend the crab cakes and the shrimp cocktail). We can choose one item from the mains (they also push adding lobster for an additional upcharge). There is a list of sides to “share” and apparently no limit. One of the desserts involves more time to fix, and must be ordered now, if that is our selection. We skip that. Leslie selects the lamb chops as her main. She receives 3 thick chops with long cleaned bone. I choose the king crab, perhaps (1/2 to 2/3#), all presplit for easy access. A fancy “fork” was also provided. It looked like a gardening rake for a mouse. It was handy in getting to all the crab. The crab portion was smaller than the one I had on the Zuiderdam, but still plenty. The price was also $25, versus $35 this time…a year later. For the shares, we opted for mushrooms caps, grilled asparagus, and shoe string potatoes. The mushrooms were excellent tasting, but not the best combination with my crab. The asparagus were highly spiced. The potatoes were still a bit pliable, as I prefer them. Other choices, not selected by us, included grilled carrots, baked potatoes, zucchini, and spinach. We passed on all of the additional upcharges. Everyone was given a small portion of oxtail and “stuff”. Leslie tried it. She thought it tasted like pulled pork. Surprisingly, I tried it as well. I thought it looked like pulled pork, but the consistency was more like Iams (cat food). Coffee and tea are offered at the end (included) and I was even offered a refill. We were given a plate with a sampler of 5 candies (think truffles). Where is a plastic baggie when you need one! Leslie chose a cream cheese pie and I had a “volcano” desert. We had a full bottle of wine and stayed 15 minutes longer than many others, approaching 7:30 pm.We sat at one of the partially obscured window tables. The fog rolled in before we left eliminating any view. The prior view included a couple employees washing off the chairs and deck. Pinnacle leaves their double doors open, allowing the music and noise from the adjoining bar to filter in. This is not too much of an issue as the noise level in the Pinnacle is loud anyway. We decided not to return to the Pinnacle this trip. The service was good, nearly always, but failed in some respects.
We returned to our room to read the “When and Where”, fill out our breakfast order, do our personal prep for bed and work up a response to our towel elephant for Budi. He leaves me a towel animal and I work up a “response”. I do a stuffed person in bed, various paper animals, etc. It is socked in foggy. The Captain is sounding the horn every 2-3 minutes. This tooting continues throughout the night. Something spicy I ate keeps me up most of the night anyway. At least our coughs are much better. We move our clock back an hour once again.
7/26 It is Wednesday and the fog and fog horn are still in full force at 5:30 am. We are cruising Jan Mayen Island? The fog starts to clear about 7:30 am, just enough to eliminate the need for the horn! By midday the visibility is pretty good and the Captain “steps on the gas” to get us back on schedule.
Lots of ACTIVITIES on ship, as it is a sea day. We find it easy to ignore all of these activities. We really must be motivated to get involved. We could : do a fitness class; hear a commentary on what might have been seen from the ship on this day at sea; go to Mass; do yoga; take a Windows 10 class; hear a presentation on Iceland (it will be on TV later, without any crowds); play bridge; do a bean bag toss; see a presentation on Viking symbols; do music trivia; play Texas hold’m; go to the spa; learn to marinate cheese; do golf chipping; do Norway trivia; make origami boxes; have our tongue and pulse analyzed; play Mahjong; attend a violin concert; have afternoon tea; attend a Craft Beer tasting ($15); play jackpot bingo; have a LGBT meet up; make lobster rolls; sample martinis ($3); do food trivia; attend a diamond showcase; play blackjack; go to the Variety Show; happy hour and meals. These are a few of the choices to do today. OH, then there is walking, reading, relaxing, talking with others, watching TV, doing the crossword puzzle, doing this write up and going thru the pictures. I include this paragraph for those who think there is nothing to do on ship, just because we prefer a more relaxed mode.
Tonight, is a Gala Attire dress code. That means at the dining room, and in the lounges after 6 pm. The dress code on this ship seems to be entirely ignored by ship management. Dinner in the main dining room has 10% of the people in blue jeans. T-shirts, or other non-collar shirts about 5%. A jacket is no longer required for the Gala Attire nights, but blue jeans and a t-shirt!? Historically, you could only dress like this in the Lido. As for the food, it is a bit more upscale on Gala nights, both in the dining room and in the Lido (and delivered to your room, if you choose). The dining room is spiffed up and the photographer comes around to hawk pictures (no pressure).We need to watch a presentation on the next three ports, it is on TV today, and was live yesterday to a packed showroom. Oh, we have TV back now, in addition to the ships programing and movies. My write up is falling behind.The Captain lets us know that we will be able to see a sunset “tonight”, about midnight. Sunrise will be about 3 am. Things in the sky, and there timing, will slowly return to normal as we approach Iceland.It’s about 1:30 pm and my plans are to read the newspaper (NY Times Digest), and then watch the couple of ship presentations we have fell behind in. There is also a crossword puzzle in the Times. Tonight, at the Gala Dinner, there was a significant increase in coats for the men. I suggest that had to do with the temperature, as much as the dress code. The menu is upgraded. Leslie had duck and I had king crab legs. The portion of crab was about ¼#. I did not order another. We did order a bottle of Chardonnay and finished it. Robin and Darcy stayed a bit longer, as did we. Sleep for both Leslie and I was way better, finally. We are still medicating.
7/27 It’s Thursday, and we wake up at 5:45 am to face the new day. We are nearing our destination, Akureyri, Iceland. Breakfast comes and goes as usual. We go across and down to the showroom to get our bus “buttons” before getting off the ship.
Our tour is Akureyri Falls and Farmland. It is 4 hours and starts at 9 am. We go to the falls first. These are the “Falls of the Gods”, or Godafoss. Seems, long long ago, the “main government guy” had to decide on a formal religion, as pushed by outsiders, or continuing their wooden God idols. He decided on the formal religion, so all the wooden idols were dumped into the falls, so the name. Our tour guide was new at her job. Many things she said defied logic, but some things seemed to ring true. She said Akureyri’s population is about 18,000. Iceland’s population is 330,000. There are 90,000 horses. WWII brought Iceland to economic life, as the US and Britain built roads and infrastructure that they never had. There are now 2 cars per family. Tourism is #1. Fish are their #1 export. Sheep run loose in Akureyri, but once a year there is a community round up and the sheep are returned to their owners (ear notches) to be sheared. Our second stop on the tour is Laufas. Laufas was the residence of a chieftain. It is located on the estuary of the River Fnjoska. The residence is a 12 room, turf-clad building. We tour the building and its furnishings. The floor is dirt (they had rug runners), the hall transition to the rooms is often 5’ or so in height. The building was occupied until 1932. The property has a small church next door (for tax benefits). The turf farmhouse became part of the National Museum’s Historic Buildings Collection in 1948.Our last stop is the Arctic Botanical Gardens and teahouse. The gardens are an hour plus stop, if you have an interest. It is walkable from the ship for those fit. The Akureyri Church is Lutheran and sits above the city on a hill. The main city center is about 1 K from the ship. Free WIFI is available in the port gift shop and docks. Other items to see include: Akureyri Museum; Akureyri Art Museum; Nonni Museum and the Motorcycle Museum. Currency is the Icelandic Krona. The city has an airport. River fishing is very popular with rich tourists that come. Tourism in Iceland is nearly 1 MM per year, or three times the population.
We return to the ship and head to the Lido for a bite of late lunch. I order a burger from the Dive-In to split with Leslie. The Dive-in is out by the pool, and it is very cold standing there waiting for our order. Leslie stays inside and finds us a table and ice tea (oh, and potato chips too). It takes about 10-12 minutes to get our burger. After lunch, we head back to the room. We catch up with the stock market, read the paper and do some write-up. The weather continues to be excellent (versus how bad it could be).We head off to dinner. Shortly, the Captain starts our voyage back out of the Fjord that led us to Akureyri. Lots of late diners are on deck watching for whales that ply these waters. A couple of whales are sighted and that creates some movement in the dining room. Leslie has some lasagna (she did not like it much) and I have short ribs. Looks like Robin and Darcy have “won” the center table. Lots of chatter at dinner tonight.Budi and I continue our towel animal adaptations, back and forth. Leslie and I do a bit of planning for tomorrow and call it a night.
7/28 It’s Friday and soon we will be anchoring at Isafjordur, Iceland. They put the tenders in the water, and the transport begins. This is a walkable port, in fact one of the early tours is a 2-hour walking one. We have a tour @ 12:30 pm, but we will tender in earlier to do a walkabout. We will review the paperwork shortly to see what we would like to accomplish. Breakfast came and went as usual.
PERILS OF ICELAND: Once in a while a volcano erupts. They have “tourist” eruptions that are modest from various secondary openings, as well as, more meaningful eruptions like that one not too long ago that shutdown air traffic to Europe. Iceland also has lots of earthquakes. No skyscrapers here! A more serious peril is the avalanches that occur, often causing lots of loss to property and life. Historically, indoor fires for heat took their toll on those breathing inside. Poor air quality often rears its ugly head from eruptions as well. In Akureyri, they occasionally have a polar bear show up. This fairly rare event, is normally dealt with by shooting the bear. Remember these communities came out of fishing and farming, both dangerous ventures. The sheep and cattle are unprotected, so they keep bears away. I imagine the Artic Fox get the same greeting, for the same reason. Ice on the highway takes its toll each year as well.Here in Isafjordur, they have an Arctic Fox Center Museum in the village of Sudavik. We will be going there on our tour. We will also be having coffee and refreshments there. We will visit a local church, and hear a traditional music program. Our final stop will be the avalanche memorial.The crew is having a trouble with one of the tenders and it is smashing against the ship (outside our balcony). We were concerned that this might have a delay in tendering (one less boat), so we decide to make our way down to be tendered ashore. Homes are located right next to the port landing area. We walk about, and Leslie takes pictures. The construction is so different from town to town, and country to country. We came back to load on the bus near departure time, but no one else was there. As we thought, the tendering of those on tour was falling behind. We sat on the bus over 15 minutes until anyone showed up. The town of Sudavik is only 130 people. The Arctic Fox program is quite minor. They have 2 orphaned dark-haired foxes in a fenced area of about 20’ square. The indoor museum has a few stuffed foxes of 4 different colors, as well as, a few fetuses in jars. The church we visit was/is a Lutheran church. Church does not play a big role in life here, but the church building is a versatile community asset. They do not hold Sunday services. There is, I am told, little interest, in religion in these small towns. The do hold marriages, baptisms and social events in the building. It’s a hard life (see “PERILS” above) and the population is not growing. Lots of the buildings get repurposed for the summer. In very recent times, the number of ships calling on Isafjordur has increased 4-fold to about 130 per year. There are 3 ships in port today (2 our size and 1 smaller). The towns people are overwhelmed. The homes, in the town, are a mix of very old and quite newer. It is summer, and a lot of maintenance is occurring. We did not get to the main area of town on our walk, nor will we on our formal tour. It is only two additional blocks from where we walked. There are several “aquafarming pens” in the area. Historically, these have been used for cod, but more are being added for trout.
The tender ride is about 20 minutes, and is bumpy and wet. The ocean is getting a bit bumpy from the winds (perhaps another peril?). We get back about 4 pm and head to our room to change for dinner. Budi and I are still at it with our animals. I put the head of last night’s towel animal on top of my latte cup and added a straw from a sippy cup. While at dinner he, made an ape, with a phony cigarette in its mouth. I cut down the length of the cigarette (burned down) and added a cut out banana.Tomorrow we have a Pavlus (our travel agency) tour of 8.5 hours in Reykjavik. We are docked there overnight, so there is no risk of taking a non-ship tour. We will be docked at Skarfabakki Pier. This pier is for the larger ships (in Iceland, we are one of those). It is located 4 K from the City. A shuttle service is offered by the Icewear store at the pier, in town. The charge $10 (19RT), 9 euro or 7 GBP. Any change is in Icelandic Krona. We did not take this service, but we still started getting e-mail from them when we got home (HAL sold our name?!). Dinner is same-o. We order a new wine package, this time we get the upgraded 5 pack. We head back to the room after dinner to prepare for tomorrows activities. Sleep is much better. These early nights seem to be paying off. We did a little whale watching (hunting) without success. We are on the way to our third Icelandic stop, Reykjavik. We expect to dock by 8 am.
7/29 It is Saturday and we rise at 5:15 am. Breakfast is scheduled between 6-6:30 am. When it shows, I am in trouble because I failed to order Leslie’s English muffin! Yanto mentions it (good for him). Yanto also volunteers to go get one for her…a life saver! He returns in about 10 minutes with the missing item. We get a nice scenic ride into Reykjavik, passing small developments along the way. The hills are greener (growth) and blacker (lava) with less snow. The flat areas are much larger.
By the time we dock (8am), Leslie and I are down on 5 to exit once we are cleared. We are 3rd and 4th off. Our tour is the Golden Circle with Reykjavik Excursions (RE), booked with Pavlus Travels. Our directions are to clear customs (walk thru a shed) and go to the parking lot in front of the Information office. The Information office is immediate out of the gate. The parking lot seems to offer a few choices. The first area, directly in front is where the ship’s tour buses are waiting. To the left some small buses are parked. Way off to the right (just short of the water) seems to be where Islandic Adventures buses park. About a block away are some other buses, but no activity. People come and go, but no bus shows from our company! 8:15 am, our pick-up time, comes and goes. About 8:40 am a tiny bus/van shows and parks 75 yards away. This is our bus, but not for the tour, but to collect us to take us 15 minutes away to a depot. The bus does not have enough seats for the 8-10 people he has on his manifest! So, they know they cannot take all those booked with RE! The drive offers the unseated couple a chance to stand, bent over (low ceiling). No one would do that! Arrangements are made for another vehicle to come and pick them up. We are taken to the RE terminal and told to board our respective buses from those out back. There a several, all with lines, and different tour title from what we are looking for. Finally, we locate the bus we are scheduled to be on. It is a brand new double decker, almost full already (we are late). When we get on, the upstairs is inaccessible for me, and we find only 1 seat left at the window. Leslie sits there and I sit next to her. The crying infant is with its mother, awaiting the bus driver to install an infant seat. Between the driver, the young lady, her infant, her young boy, the car seat and several backpacks, they are taking 8 seats and two tables. The infant does not stop crying for almost 45 minutes! The baby then cries on and off for the 8 hours of the tour. Once the car seat gets put in, the girl and her baby and baggage get put in a 4-seat group. The couple that did not get picked up with us comes and has no window seat except across from the crying infant. We found out later that RE offers free tours to anyone under 13! Oh, did I mention, this tour is mainly for German speaking people. There are a few English-speaking people on the bus, so the guide gives everything twice. Oh, and some Icelandic words thrown in, for lack of translation. One German lady, is talking on her phone for the first 30 minutes (why is she paying for a tour?). The German couple behind her are getting upset. I catch her eye, and gesture her to poke the seat a few times. When she does this the lady get off the phone. After the first stop, our guide talked to several people upstairs, and forced them to join the person they were traveling with downstairs. This allowed several people traveling together to sit together and have a window seat to share for pictures. 4 pairs were taking up 8 windows! We are sorry we took this tour with RE, thru Pavlus, instead of the ships tour.Our first stop is a hothouse, tomato farm. This tourist (?) stop might take off here, tomatoes and bloody Mary’s, fresh from the farm! They also have tomato bisque, tomato soups, tomato ice cream, tomato pie, juice, etc. Their main attraction is 3 bathrooms, for which, there are 3 long lines! The owner gives us a talk on growing tomatoes, shows us the bees that they use, and tries to sell us tomatoes to take home as gifts. They have lots of chairs and tables to eat at. Outside they have a barn and stall where they keep 4 horses, an added attraction. The drive is thru the lava fields for over an hour to get here. There is one other tour bus.Our second stop is the Geysirs (geysers). Here we have 20 or more buses. Also at the parking lot is a huge dining area and gift shop (Geysir Shops ehf). Toi’s are available in the building. The dining area has prepared food to select from. This includes cheeseburgers, fish and chips (Fiskur dags ins EIN), chicken wings and others that I did not get to figuring out. They also have a wall of drinks to choose from. It is set up like a cafeteria. I select fish and chips, chicken wings and coke zero. The charges are 1.29, 890 and 395. Due to the nature of the prepared food, the line moves very fast. CC’s are accepted. There is a lot of seating as well. There are thousands of people sifting thru this stop.The Geysir’s are located across the street. Access to them seems to be free. There are a couple dependable sites, the main one is Strokkur waterspout. It shoots up every 5-6 minutes, with usually 2 or 3 spouts. It lasts less than 2 seconds. Picture taking is tricky. 150 people or so waiting, 4 or 5 cycles to get a good picture. The walk is paved and only a long block from the street. The area around the spout is dirt, and you can choose to get “misted” or not. The field offers a few other spouts, but they are much more erratic. Lots of off pavement walking is available. Viewing from well up the hill is also quite popular. The water is not that hot, and getting sprayed seems to be a rite of passage for some visitors. There are a few benched along the way if one wants to sit (you will not be able to see any spouting from there). Access by wheelchair is easy on the paved walkways. Our 3rd stop is Gullfoss Falls. This again, is a heavily traveled site. What was a fairly mild day, now is frigid. The Falls are sourced from a glacier and the heavy winds are really kicking up. The walk to the Falls are not worth it for me, so I wave to Leslie “goodbye” and find a place to sit out of the wind. There is a dining area in the building, but the seating should be used by the diners (customers), so I am content on a bench outside. She goes, along with most of the other people on our tour, out to the Falls. It is about 400 yards to the Falls, down now, which means up, on the way back. Our final stop is Thingvellir, a UNESCO National Park containing the Teutonic plates “separating” the continents. We are dropped off at the bottom of the long uphill walk/trek to another parking lot where we will be picked up. Some people do not exit the bus, and miss this “opportunity” to trek up a sharp hill in the cold and dust. Some other buses did this the other way. Perhaps their driver was a bit smarter? The trek is not wheelchair accessible. There is a bit of a longer walk, that includes a visit to a church, but we are told not to take it because of time constraints. Lucky us. The foundation for understanding what we are seeing is not provided, and it seem like a waste of energy to climb. This guide needs a guide to help explain what the features of terrain mean and how they relate. The value was mainly a hard walk/exercise.It is about an hour back to town on the bus.
The RE tour includes transportation back to the ship or your hotel. Fortunately, the ship was our first stop. Most of the people, when asked the hotel they were staying, were not staying at one. They were at a parking lot/campground.Returning to the ship on time meant the tour was cut short to make up for being so late in starting. For us, it meant hurrying to get changed and to dinner. We are organized, and make it just in time for the dining room to open. Janet and Hugh were there, but Robin and Darcy did not come. We offered to move over one, but Hugh beat us to it. No use talking across an empty table, and eventually thru another couple. Leslie had fettucine and sausage, and I had baked chicken. Janet and Hugh told us they are getting off in Scotland. This is a day and a half before the end of the cruise. They get no credit back for that! It works out for them as they are attending The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo (http://www.edinburghfestivalcity.com/festivals/royal-edinburgh-military-tattoo which is held each year in Scotland. I give you a link, as we were unaware of this event, and perhaps you are as well. This 3-day program is part of why they took this cruise. It would be a mess to continue on the cruise to the end, and make it back for the event. I am really surprised that they did not get any discount for leaving early, not even for all the meals they did not eat. We finish our wine and head back to the cabin. We are beat, but feeling better. Tonight, we get a penguin towel figure. I get out the scissors and cut out some marine animals, and put the whole bunch into the bathtub, for “our guys” in the morning. This include a large fish that I hung from the clothes drying line above the tub.
7/30 It is Sunday. We decide not to go into town (still in Reykjavik). We have breakfast a bit later this morning. I work on my write-up, Leslie goes to take some pictures on the ship (for you), while the ship is not so full. Our “guys” don’t come until nearly 10 am to do our room. Before that, about 9:30 am, the crew does the windows and deck above us, flooding our balcony. At 10:45 am someone comes to clean up the mess that work did along a row of cabins on our floor. The newspaper is delivered at 10 am, but I am still working on the write-up. At 11 am, I switch over, and read the paper, start the crossword puzzle and then we go for a bit of lunch. Maybe a hot dog? After that I plan to get a computer run of our ship charges, and perhaps a latte? I will clear out the bath tub, now that it has been see by our room stewards, so it can return to its more normal use. As a note, there is free Wi-Fi at the information building, just off the ship. The crew is keen on those opportunities, if they can get some time to leave the ship.When we get back to our room, a lady from Guest Services is there, our door is open and someone is again doing caulking on the flooring of our balcony. We want to do showers. He has 30 minutes more work!? I go ahead and shower. He leaves just before I am thru in the bathroom complex. Leslie takes her shower. Guest Services calls and wants to take pictures of the work done on our balcony. We just cannot get use of our balcony, our room, etc. We paid for a really upscale suite and have had nothing but hassle. OH, well, it is off to dinner. Leslie has spicy shrimp and I have roast beef. We are told to mover our clocks up one hour tonight. We adjust our breakfast to 7:30-8 am.
Tomorrow we are invited to the Mariner Reception in the showroom at 11 am. This is usually an award ceremony and recipients come along with the 4 and 5-star members to applaud. A drink is usually provided (emphasis on the a). The event is followed by the Mariner Luncheon, where a souvenir tile is usually handed out. We are scheduled to receive a bronze medal (100 cruise nights); however, we call and inform the desk that we received this medallion a few cruises ago. We will likely go and applaud the new recipients, but will pass on the luncheon. We just cannot eat a full lunch and dinner.
We get a call from guest services asking when a convenient time for someone to come and clean the paint chips from our chairs (cruise is near the end!) on the balcony. We set up 9 am tomorrow. Juli comes in with two shower towels. The laundry is late. Seems that ship has run out/low to laundry water! The seas are really seas tonight. Attendance at dinner seems down. Perhaps more eating in the specialty restaurant, the Lido, sick in their room, not hungry from the fancy lunch or? We move the clocks forward one hour tonight. That is the first of the two we much give back.
7/31 It is Monday, a day at sea. I had to shim the door to the toi, as it is a slider, and was really rattling and rolling. The door to the shower and sink slammed once and that took care of that one. We get up about 6:15 am. Footing is getting more interesting as the wave action has definitely picked up. Breakfast shows up at 7:45 am (it must be hard for them to carry the trays with all the “sways”. We are careful with the mimosa glasses. After the tray got picked up, our guys came by to let us know that we are next to have our room done. Three people show up, and work on cleaning up our balcony (finally). OH, no they have sand paper! I intervene, and tell the supervisor, they need a brush and a vacuum. All three have tools, but one does have a brush that is useful. The supervisor leaves, and the 2 workers leave for break in 10 minutes, for what is over an hour! The paint on the chairs is dry flakes. The chairs are wicker. The flakes are distributed throughout the chairs and ottomans.
They are fiddling with this and that, so we go off to the Mariner Reception. There are 59 bronze medallions to be given out! Also 11 silver, 7 gold and 2 platinum. We sit, have our drink and applaud the recipients.The ocean is 3 ½ to 4 meters, but the captain expects them to drop in half by tomorrow. A couple of pressure zones, wind, etc is causing the rocking and rolling. We have been in MUCH worse. Budi tells us that a number of guest are with “seasickness”. The Mariner Luncheon is open to all previous passengers with HAL. It followed directly the reception. We opt not to attend the luncheon.
Lobster tonight, so we are not filling up at lunch.When we return to our room, the workers are gone. We had stopped and picked up the crossword puzzle and the paper. I worked on the write-up. We have a lazy sea day planned. It is freezing in our room. I checked the heater and it is oozing out warm. I touched the slider and it is very cold. There are some major leaks around the sliding doors. I closed the drapes, to help, but the sliders were opened and closed so many time today by the workers that the inside of our room was the same as out on the balcony. After 2 hours with the heater set full (30 C), we were still shivering. I told Budi. He said someone could check the heater w/a gauge. The flow from the heater is not enough to keep up with the flow from the seams of the slider. Guest Services calls to inquire about the chair cleaning. I told her, I did not know, as it is too cold and wet to go out. I also told her our room is very cold, even with the heater on full. Someone came and measured at the heater. It is 76 F on the heater vent, but no flow. Near the door got to nearly 50 when she pulled the gauge away. When we went to dinner we left Budi a note about the cold.Tonight, is our last Gala Night, so I haul out my tie and long sleeve dress shirt. Attendance seems low. Leslie and I both have shrimp cocktail, then 2 lobster tails (4-5 ounce) each. It is offered as surf and turf. We ordered double lobster tail and no steak. We also down a bottle of Washington State Chardonnay. We, three couple, trade pictures, email, etc.
8/1 It is Tuesday, and we are at sea again. Our room is finally comfortable. We have breakfast in the room and pack 3 bags of laundry. This laundry will be headed for the suitcase when it comes back. I have a shirt that the sleeves are too short, and give it to the employees’ welfare fund. I go down to the desk and get another financial run. Everything is accounted for and we have a $6 credit. A can of coke, out of the honor bar, is $2.98 (1.49 with our discount). The $6 will be easy to use up. The seas, as predicted, have dramatically settled down. The winds have settled as well. The ship has slowed too. All these things in combination, seem to be reducing the inflow of cold air from outside. Our balcony is soaking wet from last night and this morning. It is not drying up very fast, so it is too wet, even at 10:30 am. No lunch again today. We do break out the mixed nuts we brought from Costco, and splurged on a diet coke. The Guest Services office calls to see how the chair cleaning went. I had called them 2 hours ago to let them know it was done. She offers us a lunch in the Pinnacle for all our troubles (poor sense of humor), I decline. This is a major reimbursement issue, we have felt that way once before, and only ended up with $250 cruise credit. (It has been two months since the cruise ended and we still have not heard back from our comments on the cruise questionnaire)It is about 4 pm. It has been a quiet day. Only the cabin staff and breakfast people have visited us, so far. I was out to get the update, and Leslie went out later to get the paper and puzzles. The TV (news and stock market) have had their signal lost. Tomorrow’s schedule is much more complicated. We need to clear customs in person. That means passports. Our letter from the ship, put us in Priority Group 1. This is the last night for dinner with Hugh and Janet, as they are getting off in the morning for good. They will be visiting Scotland for a few days. It would be a fluke if we saw them in the morning, as we are schedule for an early morning tour.
8/2 It is Wednesday and we have an early breakfast. We wait for the docking to allow the immigration from Scotland to come aboard. We wait for an announcement as to when we are to go to the showroom for check, but none comes, and we decide to venture down, as we are in Group 1. WOW, what a line. The time for our ticket it 8:15 am. We go down at 7:55 am. Seems that, they are not checking groups, so many have come and “jumped the line”. The process is very fast. We get a souvenir stamp in our passports and are on our way.
We are docked at Rosyth (Edinburgh) Scotland. We are on the bus and departing just before 9 am.It is 40 minutes into town. Once there, the traffic is horrible. The streets, in both the new and old city, are narrow. Hundreds of buses are touring the streets. Our tour, Edinburgh Highlights and Castle is 4 1/2hours. The walk from the bus to the Castle took over 30 minutes. Lots of stairs and uneven walkways and inclines. We have a lady with a cane. She fell and banged her head. It was 10:30 am when we got thru the “gates” to the top of the castle. We delayed about 10 minutes while our guide got help for our fallen comrade. We were told to meet at the gate or at the bus by 11:30 am. Our guide returned to tend to our fallen, while we tried to do 4 hours of tourism in 40 minutes, and go to the bath room as well. The wait to see the jewels was 30-45 minutes (no photos allowed). The wait to visit the 18-seat church was also too long for us to visit. The toi, took an 8-minute turnaround. I sent Leslie to view the “birthing room”, and met her afterwards. We both went into the swords and armor room. It was time to return to the bus, passing by all the shops along the way without a visit. Half of the castle was taken up by the impending Tattoo. The tiny public area serves 12,000 guests/day in the summer. More for this special event. The whole courtyard is set up with massive bleachers. We start back to the bus about 11:10 am. No one is waiting at the entry gates, so we head on down the stairs to the street below where our bus “parked”. At the foot of the stairs, we made a right to find our bus, only to see it driving toward us down the street the other way. We stop and watch the driver park the bus a ½ block down, left of the stairs. Eventually, we find all but 2 of our passengers. They told someone that they would make their own way back to the ship. The bus ride back mostly retraces our prior route. The traffic is very heavy. We make one more stop, a photo opportunity which requires shooting between the bars of a fence, as entry is not included.
When we return to the ship, we make the mistake of having lunch (it’s 1:30 pm). This proved especially bad, a few hours later when we eat dinner. The dining room was light on diners. For those that stayed in town, the weather got foggy about 4 pm. It was pouring rain at 5 pm. We ate lite, but that left us too early to return to our room. We went across and got lattes and sat for a while. Eventually, a violinist and pianist started playing. It was a bit after 7 pm, so Budi and Juli should be done with our room. We had left them another bag of laundry!We get our documents tonight for our debarkation and our tour ending at the airport. We will have an early exit. It looks like we will not have to claim our luggage. It will be automatically be loaded on the bus (same # and color code) …this proved not to be true. Time to do eye drops and head off to bed.
8/3 It is Thursday, our last day at sea. The seas are up modestly. We get our breakfast in our room as usual. We watch a bit of TV, and catch up a bit on the news. The guys come and clean our room. Our laundry is returned. We skip lunch and take showers. Next, we pack one of our two bags. Packing to return home is easier as things no longer need to be “packed to use”. We just need to set our clothes for tomorrow and Saturday. We head off to dinner. Iggy, the controller of the table assignments, has to contend with the first person (a lady that is often first) who gives 3 room numbers for her group, but never seems to get them all right. He just waives us on, as she mumbles. We are again having trouble picking something that we would really like to have for dinner. We had less breakfast and no lunch, hoping for an inspiring group of choices. Robyn and Darcy show up, so at least we have some good company. We share our experiences in Edinburgh. It is our last night with Z and A, and Jaya in the dining room. Hugh and Janet have stayed in Scotland, so a new pair show up for their table a bit before we leave. At 7:10 pm, we are back in our room. Our guys had finished doing our room. We had unfolded the remaining “animals” and tossed all the stuff I had made. We knew that we were still close to “no more room” in the luggage. We abandon taking our ship slippers, ship logo bag and managed to get Leslie’s large heavy coat in the luggage so she would not have to carry it. Putting it in a plastic bag, sitting on it to expunge the air, really made it effectively smaller for packing. The ship is rocking and rolling.
8/4 It is Friday morning. Leslie did not sleep well, but I did okay. Breakfast delivery is set for 6-6:30 am. We are down to an English muffin and an orange juice each. We should be docked about 7 am. We decided to pack our “leftovers” in the ship logo bag last night before we put our luggage out in the hall. We went and waited in the lounge on 7, just above the gangway on 6. About 7:15 am, we went down to check things out. Surprisingly only a modest line existed, and it was moving well. As 4 stars, we can exit when we wish, so we joined in the line. Customs goes quickly. We get another souvenir stamp in our passport and move on. It is quite a walk. We go one flight down the stairs, and are told our bus is not there yet (it is), and our luggage is still in transit to the docks. I told the lady that we would wait, out of the way, until the luggage arrived. We got a bit of an early start, as my transports (legs) are a bit slow. After about 7 minutes, the bus driver, waiting at the door, put the yellow #3 on his bus (our bus) window. The ship lady offers us a seat on the bus. I see the luggage being unloaded. The port lady asked us about our luggage (2 large brown roller bags, with yellow tape on all sides to easily spot them). In a couple of minutes, our bags were being loaded on the bus (a first) for us. Our tour is scheduled to end at the airport around noon. ALL passengers (on our bus) get off at the airport. A few tried to get the bus driver to drop them off at various hotels (not what this tour includes). The tour guide makes it quite clear, the tour ends at the airport, period, nicely. Our first stop on the tour is the City of Edam, population 8,000. Yes, this is the cheese town. Today most of that cheese is made elsewhere in the country. We walk through town, taking about 30 minutes. We have a few people who were barely fit for this walk. Brick streets, uneven surfaces, and some areas of incline. We passed two churches (no time for entry). One had changed it denomination 5 times in its history. We walked up on the dike/bridge over the E river. Several people passed on this 7-foot “climb”. The hotel is Dam, as are several other businesses. There are no available restrooms on our route in town! Our next stop is 30 minutes away, Zaanstad (https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-b...netherlands/7/). Here, in the Village of Zaanse Schans, we can finally use the restroom (0.50 euro). I gave the lady a dollar, and she put it in her pocket, and released the turnstile for me. She had no way to make change, and normally the turnstile releases when the money is put in the slot. The group, from our bus, continued walking, leaving behind several of us who made the toi stop. The place we are visiting is a large tourist “town” grown up from the windmills. We all meet up at the door to Catharina Hoeve cheese farm, where we given a few minutes presentation on making cheese, after a 12-minute wait outside for our turn. After the demonstration, we are released into this retail store, for 15 minutes (that took over 30 minutes). They had a few samples, but did not keep up with the depletion caused by the hundreds of people passing thru the store. Our guide made several attempts at getting everyone out of the store, but finally she gave up, and took 22 of us on to the windmill. This is the last commercially operating windmill house in the world. There is a modest fee for this visit, but it is included in our fare. About 5 people venture up the very steep stairs to see the 2nd floor. https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-things-zaanstad-netherlands/3/The village also has room to run, benches to sit on and people watch, several museums, a harbor, the river, and lots of shops. The shops are often specialty craft stores. Lots of places to get a coffee, souvenirs, fudge, cotton candy, and more substantial food. Leslie walks about taking pictures, while I amble back toward the entrance.
Entrance is free, however there are modest fees for the windmill and some of the other attractions. The place is packed with tourists from many countries. There is a revolving group of 15 or more buses. About 30% of the visitors, at this time, are Japanese. I find an empty bench and await the rest of our tour groups return. We are due back at the bus at 11 am, and it is about 10:40 am now. We leave for the airport at 11:10 am and arrive about 11:30 am (visiting the village is quite close to the airport). It takes little time for the driver to unload the luggage from the bus.
We take our luggage, enter the airport and head down a level to find the walking route to our hotel, the Hilton. We found an information desk, and received enough direction to find our way. The Hilton is NOT close. It is accessible via an indoor walkway leading out to parking lots and closer hotels. Some sections of the walkway are “moving belts”. The is an incline belt that first must be mastered. It is a very steep belt, and is difficult pulling 40#’s of wheeled luggage and a backpack each. The walk to the hotel took about 35 minutes. We tried to check in early (about noon). I had sent a letter to the manager (which usually works requesting a high floor, quiet room and early check-in). the desk clerk suggested there was not a problem in early check-in, but there would be a fee of 40 euros! That is way too much to pay for a 2-hour early check-in. So much for Hilton Honors at this hotel (or was it the clerk at the desk). We decided to wait and check in later. We sat down, read the newspaper and finished the nuts that we had carried with us from home 3 weeks ago. At 1 pm, the lady at the desk left, and a couple others came on duty. I popped up and tried to check in again. No problem this time, our room is ready and no charge for early check-in. She also thanked us for our membership in the Hilton Honors program. Our room is 404. It’s a mid-low floor, but is an outside view room (road construction view) versus the atrium rooms which are standard. So, a modest upgrade. It was as far from the elevator as possible, and therefore had little foot traffic. Our room was quiet. The room is quite modest, but fine for a one-night stay. We are given a choice of HH gifts. We chose 1 drink each at the bar. The alternative was 4 items from the mini bar. Beer and candy bars mostly. There is a king bed, 2 night stands, chair and desk, chair and ottoman in the room. The mini bar is hidden in the wall. There is a safe in the closet. There is a small table and floor lamp. The remaining walking area is narrow. The bathroom is very large with plenty of space around the sink and below. Your luggage just has to be pushed out of the way.The room service menu is on the TV screen. It took about 10 minutes for me to master the remote and screen choices. We decided that the options in the AP would be better than what we saw. We decide to make a dry run, back to the airport to check food choices out. It is well before dinner, but we are getting hungry, as we had no lunch. The walk took us about 30 minutes, without luggage, but we went much further to check out where our check in would be in the morning for our UA flight. The check in is at Departure 3, totally the furthest it could be from our hotel. The airport is in a horseshoe shape, we at one terminus, and UA at the other. Fortunately, we are in business, so our line should be short in the morning. We have been told to expect horrible lines at security in the morning. This is the start of the European holiday season. Our check-in is #26. It opens at 8:10 am. We do not have a breakfast package at the Hilton, so we will likely be in the AP earlier to potentially grab a bite. UA made us pre-check for TSA on the way, hopefully we will also be on the way home. We head back toward our hotel and room, but decided to stop along the way for food (the round-trip commute to dinner from our room would be nearly an hour). Leslie has a choice of fish at a “nice Place” and Burger King. She chooses the latter. Two whooper meals. The lines are not too bad, and Leslie goes to the central table area to get us a seat. After “dinner” we head back to the hotel. Before going up too our room, we stop at the lobby bar and order our glasses of wine comped by the HH program. We spend a leisurely time having our wine and relaxing. Once back to the room we make it an early night.
8/5 It is Saturday morning. We check our e-mail to see if we have anything from UA. We are all clear and ready to go. We figure it will take us 45 minutes, with luggage, to get to check in. Checking out of the hotel is smooth. We were required to pay an additional tax, as we were before when we stayed on arrival. The tax is not disclosed, but seems to be universal (be aware). Once in the lobby of the AP we check the flight status board to insure we are still headed to #26.
SURPRISE our flight has been cancelled. We are seniors, in Amsterdam, no phone and checked out of our hotel. UA has very little presence at this AP. This does not seem good. We go to the information office to get help. They tell us to go to the area across from #22, and look for “Rogue” on a sign. The people there will help us get some other arrangements. We went there but, no one knew what we were talking about “Rogue”. We walked down further where several people were milling. They were speaking German, but sure enough there was a UA sign. No, attendant, but a UA sign. There people were rebooking with Lufthansa on their cell phones. I had Leslie wait in the unformed line area, while I went to #26 to see what I could find out. Fortunately, we were in business. I was next and the lady, knew all about the cancellation. She took us up to the counter and 25 minutes later we had a new flight (our agent was handling phone calls, as well as us). The UA agent had me get Leslie first and bring her back. The UA agent is able to book us for a flight that leaves about 1 hour later than the one we had, but gets into SAN an hour earlier. The flight goes to IAD first, versus Houston. It is a code share with Lufthansa. Flight 21. We even get to keep our business class seats (we have lost out on our seats in the past, in order to move on). Our domestic leg is in economy, and she upgrades us to Economy plus, about a $90 upgrade. We never were told why the flight was cancelled, and still do not know. Really doesn’t matter once rebooked. (UA has since given us some points for our trouble, without any action on our part! This is a first).Next, we went through security check. It was fast, as we again had pre-check.
The Aspire #41 Lounge is near gate E8. Our flight leaves out of E14. It is free to UA business/first passengers. It is also free to dozens of other airlines AND for certain AMEX customers AND for the general public at a fee. The lounge is a bit complicated in location, but is well signed along the way. The lounge offers a modified continental breakfast. Juice, booze, croissants, sweet rolls and remade omelets, cereal, gruel (that is what it looked like), some whole fruit and some cheeses and meats. Seating is at a premium. Leslie manages to get us two chairs against a wall and no table. The place is packed. Interestingly, about 30% of the room is roped off and empty, except for one attendant. That area is reserved for Singapore Airlines passengers. People on our side are standing, and that whole area is empty?! The attendant was busy shooing people away. A bit later, passengers from Singapore started pouring in. Now there is not enough seating for anyone. Doesn’t matter if you paid, or not…standing room only. Fortunately, our side had a fair amount of turnover. Eventually, we were able to “upgrade” our seats to some comfortable seats and a table (the chairs we were in, were spares against the wall). Later the Singapore passengers all left. I went over and asked if I could see what food they offered. The young lady allowed me to do so. There was nothing special about what they offered from what the Aspire Lounge offered. Shortly, she put everything away, and took down the ropes. She left, and our room occupants expanded into that area. We waited until about 25 minutes before boarding.
UA was ready about 10 minutes after we got to the gate to let us on. The seats, food and service on this flight was good. We had “dinner” within an hour of takeoff. We are in 2 K&L. The seat controls do not seem to perform as indicated, but we get by. The temperature in the plane is cold and remains that way the whole flight. Once we arrive at IAD, we must go through customs and then claim our luggage, before rechecking it. Next, we go to immigration. This is a slow process. Three flights get in just before us. Two other flights followed ours. We had filled out the customs card, but were never asked for it. Once processed, we go to the first UA Lounge we see. As we are now in the US, and coming from Business/First to Economy, we are not sure we qualify for free UA Lounge. We do have 2 lounge passes, if we don’t. We usually save these and give them away on FlyerTalk.com. The lady at the desk is most helpful. She processes us into the system, so we will not have to go thru all the checking again, and tells us of a lounge closer to our gate. She suggests we go there in D. Great advice. We walk about 10 minutes plus to the next club. I had a list of the clubs, and locations, but that was when we were going to be transiting thru Houston! The club here is huge. We do not have to use our UA passes. It is 2-story. We enter on 1, but go to 2 (why?). It is now mid-day in Washington. We have a long wait before our next flight. The “food” is more like a series of snacks, mostly sweet. In another area there is a bar. Some drinks are free, while others come with a charge. About 20 minutes before boarding, we go to the gate. Lots of people sitting in more than one chair (luggage, packages, etc), children sleeping in 2 chairs and there are no available seats. We know we are back in the USA. Even the handicap chairs are occupied by young people. We go stand in line. We are first in the priority group 1 line, other lines have many people. It is 10 minutes before scheduled boarding, and an hour before we actually board. The cleaning crew (on our plane) declared the bathroom a bio-hazardous area. Someone spilled some cleaning liquid on the floor. It takes about 35 minutes for the (bio) clean-up crew to show (guess this would be in hazmat suits). That’s about an hour from the time of the spill! Is UA ready for a terrorist attack??? The flight is 100% full, plus. There is a minimum of 8, under 8 year old’s, and 3 lap babies. One is screaming while we wait. Mom is frantic, dad doesn’t give a s___, as he continues his texting or video game. The flight leaves 1 hour plus late, but somehow makes up most of that in the air and on the ground in SAN. The pilot must have landed at the gate, as we hardly taxied any! As we end up in SAN about an hour earlier than with our original flight, we are in good shape. Our baggage comes off in the first 10 bags. We have booked Super Shuttle, exclusive van, for our ride back to Escondido. They manage to come up with a van for us in not much more than 10 minutes.
Last edited by ranles; May 30, 2018 at 3:34 pm
Reason: Paragraphing