Day 08 – Bergen for two more days
- We’ve never seen a cruise stay in one place for two days, especially on an embarkation, but Bergen is the home to Viking, so I guess they take advantage. It was great, though.
- Our morning was chill. It was partly sunny and 10ºC/50ºF. We virtually checked out of our hotel and found really good breakfast at a 7-11 of all places. I got a bagel sandwich and he had hot wings and a flaky pastry.
- We walked to our dock and boat. We were greeted with champagne and then went to the 3-minute safety talk at our Muster station.
- At lunch, we met my new best friend, Bossa. She was quick to refill my wine and told us to ask for her a dinner. Next, we walked around to get a feel for the layout. We met a couple from Pennsylvania who will be going to New Zealand later this year.
- By this point, we noticed that we are among the youngest on this cruise….by a fair piece. I don’t mind that except for one thing: the music. Every song these cruises play is pre-1970. It’s like they got stuck in the 60s and never figured out how to move forward with time. I get that we are the “young” ones, but we’re talking about people who were still literal children for some of this music. The average demographic here still listened to 80s music in college and as young adults. He pointed out that it’s probably more about the licensing. But we also heard Disney and Titanic music, so I don’t think that’s the reason.
- Back at our room, we met Gede and Sai, our room attendants. Gede is a massive extrovert and Sai is so introverted he’s practically invisible. They are a good match….and a bit like us.
- Next we waited for one last bag to arrive, got unpacked, and took naps. Apparently, the “ro ro ro” celebrating and embarkation had taken it out of us.
- Our dinner was amazing, per usual on a cruise, and Bossa was a bright star of our experience. We also popped by guest services to get on the wait list (already?) for a bridge tour and on the list for a galley tour.
- We went for drinks and then headed to the show: a Norwegian violinist named Jaran Apold. He makes absolutely beautiful music. But we had to duck out after a few songs that were lulling us to sleep much too early.
- We then had a mini-repositioning. Our boat was a model for the newest boat in the fleet and she was coming in for her maiden voyage. So, we gave her the “easy” dock location. Captain spun us around to the other side of our same dock.
- We tried the club, but we felt the band made weak song choices, so we didn’t stay long. I swear by the time boats get around to playing anything past 1969, I’ll be too old to dance on a moving vessel.
- It was a long day and we crashed hard.
Day 09 – our official tour of Bergen
- We went to the Restaurant for breakfast and found it mostly quieter. It’s a bit fancy for breakfast. And why are morning people so loud, anyway?
- On the way back to our cabin, we ran into our room steward and got a little bit trapped in conversation. We did some “work,” some chores, and took a nap. Boat life really takes it out of you. We grabbed lunch at the cafe before our tour.
- We didn’t take our tickets on our (free) walking tour. It just didn’t cross our mind. They figured us out, but lesson learned. The tour was a full repeat of things we had already done. We were also disappointed that we looked at the King’s tower and hall, but didn’t go inside. We also repeated the medieval district, and walked by “our” hot dog place, Thai place, wine bar, hotel, the fish market, and even the plaza where we ro ro ro ‘d with hundreds of Norway fotball fans after beating Brasil. At least we know we’re good at it.
- Back at our boat, we went to an upper deck to watch shove off and to set sail. The boat had to make a 180 “spin” to get pointed out the correct way, so that was different.
- We spent the early evening just watching, watching, and watching the coast roll by. Everything is so beautiful.
- For dinner, we had a seating at Chef’s Table. They have a rotating prefix menu with wine pairings and we were there for the Mexican-themed set. When I saw the menu, I was quite disappointed: cilantro, mole, tomatillo, and other things I didn’t like. I was happy to be proven wrong; it was ultra good. He tried octopus! We had a shaved ice palette cleanser that had (the evil) cilantro that we both liked. The mole wasn’t as aggressive as it is in the US and our short ribs were as tender as a pot roast. The tomatillo sauce on our chicken tamales had a wonderful flavor and a nice kick.
- Despite an amazing meal, we headed to the restaurant for a tiny “second dinner” in Bossa’s section. I had prawns (that’s shrimp in American English) and he ordered cheesecake. The scenery floating by was amazing. We also saw a wind farm. Good on Norway for harvesting their winds.
- The evening entertainment was the “Captain’s Show”. It was mostly lots of intros. Oddly, the music team is male dominated; that’s not something we usually see. We also made a friend, Larissa. After the show, we all went to the lounge for drinks.
Day 10 – New city day: Geiranger
- By the time we woke up, the ship was fully docked. We hurried to breakfast, and enjoyed the gorgeous view and watched the funny little electric cars.
- For some reason, we had a long wait for the tender. They didn’t seem to have a place to put us all, so we were crammed into the elevators vestibule.
- Gerianger is a tiny tourist town of 250 people that sees 7000,000 visitors a year. And they have five public toilets. There was a line, so people were holding the doors for one another so no one would have to pay after waiting in the long line. Maybe we should have all paid so they could afford to add more.
- We bumped into our new friend and met her parents.
- The bus took us up one winding road to a viewpoint with a waterfall, back down, and then up the other (much longer) road to another viewpoint, and back down. Three hours of sitting on a stop-and-go/constantly-turning bus with 3 20-minute breaks is really tiring. But we learned cool stuff: Norway has really cheap electricity because it’s powered by Hydro from inside the mountains. Strawberries are sweeter because they get so many hours of light. It’s also required to give cows three weeks of vacation every year, and the ones in Norway are a smaller breed. They can grow grass, but can not dry it to make hay, so their cows eat a fermented grass called silage. It’s no wonder they are so happy; they are drunk all day.
- Back on the ship, we had a late lunch at the pool cafe.
- The push off and sailing out through the fjord was breathtaking. It was also a lot more chilly than it had been. The main pool room gets very hot during the day, but for this evening’s sail, they had opened the side windows. We saw amazing waterfalls, including the seven sisters that we slept through at 6am. It still felt like a dream and not like anything real.
- Someone accidentally gave our cabin number at dinner. Cruises take their data very seriously, so the host had to send a server to go find out what cabin they were really in. Sadly, we had to eat dinner without Bossa. She had a massive party of 42 people (celebrating a birthday). My dish had a pea puree that was amazing. I’m going to make that for us at home. For dessert, I had a lovely cake with strawberry filling.
- We tried to go to the Explorers’ Lounge, but they were about to have the evil trivia, so we headed down down down to the Viking Bar where we found our same bartender from the night before….and y’all, he remembered our names! Then, after trivia was over, we went back for the great windows and good views. There, we met Susan from Georgia and her husband Tucker who played on the the first lacrosse team for Denver.
- When they shut down, we went to the club, Torshaven, broke a glass, hated the music, and headed back to our cabin. This boat was different, that’s for sure.
- Back in our cabin, he crashed, but I noticed a decent amount of sea surge. This was the first time the boat felt like we were on the water.
