Today we are in Olden, a small town deep inside the Norwegians fjords. We are in port from 09.00 hrs. to 18.30 hrs. This is one of the towns that came to more prominence when the Norwegian Government put -cruise- docks in, in the smaller ports to boost the local economy. In the past Olden was only visited by smaller cruise ships who had to anchor. Now every large vessel can dock here and unload thousands of cruise guests. The town has not grown with the dock and the place is still mainly a stop for taking tours. It was raining today with a low cloud cover so we decided to stay on board. Readers might remember that we were here a few weeks ago with the ms Sky Princess. Then we had glorious weather and did a walk around.

This is the link if you want to read up on it. https://www.captainalbert.com/2026-july-15-olden-norway/

Main reason for the stop are the tours to Briksdal Glacier located about 20 minutes away from the ship and then there are also a number of other tours you can take. like renting a canoe or RIB boat and going to the Loen Skylift which is one of the steepest cable cars in Europe.  Lesley and I went to Briksdal glacier about 15 years ago, when she was working for Page & Moy of the UK and I was travelling with her as a spouse (much to the shock of the Greek Captain of the Ocean Majesty) and was summarly appointed  tour leader of coach nbr 1. (Navigators do not get lost………) Then the Glacier face was just behind the Visitor center but now it has retreated so far that it takes a 45 minute walk to get there from where the coach drops you at the visitor center.  Global warming is even hitting cold Norway very hard and the end is not in sight.

With the Sky Princess we were docked starboard side alongside, so we saw the fjord, Today the captain docked port side alongside and we had a good view of the Souvenir shop from our balcony.

But as you can see from the photo it does not affect the local tourist trade, yet, with all the regular options still available. The tour buses had just left, when I took this photo, and they parked right in front of the ship, where the apron is empty and now the Trolley train is standing. Not on the photo but on the far right is a white marquee where they rent out bikes and a bit further down the road there are also quad bikes for hire.  As was expected a lot of guests marched directly across the street to visit what must be one of the largest souvenir shops in Norway.  The one near downtown is also big  but it is combined with a regular clothing shop.

One thing have not mentioned yet, is that apart from Safety announcements, there are NO announcements in the cabin, it is all nicely kept in the hallways and public rooms. Thank you P&O; finally a British company that respects guests who want to sleep in. With Saga and Fred Olsen every announcement comes into the cabin and at the most un-appropriate times.  Here we have the staff captain making the arrival announcement. It is a P&O tradition that the arrival announcement is done by the bridge and not by the Cruise Director (Entertainment Manager here) and the departure announcement is done by the Captain. In between there might be an Entertainment Manager daily update or a Shore Excursion announcement , but nothing in the cabin, very civilised.

So we had breakfast in the cabin and continued exploring the ship. The ship is blessed with a large number of public rooms and nooks and crannies for sitting down, so it takes a while to get everywhere. Compared to similar ships, such as the Vista Class of HAL and the QV and QE of Cunard, this ship has a very good design for offering the guests on board a large number of locations to while away the day. Especially good for longer cruises.

Our first stop was the Gymnasium and Fitness Room. This is part of the Ocean Spa as I call it (Official name Oasis Spa and Health Club) and has an entrance on Deck 12 where the treatment rooms are located but the Gym is located a deck below and can be reached via a Spiral Staircase. But it has also its own entrance on Deck 11 and  I had not seen that yet. It turned out that it was a bit hidden between the cabin corridors near the main staircase.

The fitness area on Deck 11.

The fitness area is compact but has all the torture machines you normally would expect on a ship. The only thing that made me laugh is that the dumb bell rack is above cabins located on Deck 10. So if you are having an afternoon nap, and somebody drops a dumbbell, then there is not much of your nap left.

Anecdote: Why it made me laugh is that with my own company the captains on the Vista Class suffered from this problem as the Fitness area there is located above the bridge and captains cabin. The dumbbell impact became such of a problem, that the area had to blocked off in the afternoon when the captain had his down time. That of course impacted the service to the guests, so after much deep thought by people in the office,  the Chief Engineers were consulted whether they slept in the afternoon. The chief engineers, being tough guys, all said no we work all day, so the dumbbells were moved to the other side, above the chief engineers cabin.

Next stop Casino. They have one here, not very big and not as well attended as on the ships with predominantly Americans. But it has everything a Casino needs and on this ship it is sort of combined with Champions, the on board pub.

The Casino on board.

Champions is  a lounge that has a Pub / Sports Bar like atmosphere  and there are daily football games broadcast live. Weather permitting of course, so today there was no TV at all, let alone games, as the antenna’s are just under the rim of the blocking mountains.  This place is full all day, with the first punters arriving for a pint around 11 am. and then it continues until “Late” and I expect that might be not “late” but “early the next morning”.

The Champions Bar. The sitting area on the other side, carries along with little booths well along the ships corridor. If you look at the TV screen at the end of the Bar, there is only the test screen as there is no signal coming in, due to the mountains.

Noon time called us to the Medina Restaurant for open seating lunch and we decided on a shared table. We like those  as we always meet interesting people. The only thing I ask the Dining Room host is to make sure that those at the table already have not started eating yet. But they had it well organised, the waiter (although clearly restless) waited until the table was full. It turned out that the 2 ladies at the table had cruise experience, with one lady making 4 or 5 cruises a year. The other two, a very nice couple, where on their very first cruise and quite upset with their travel agent, as the travel agent had advised them that P&O was casual so no Formal and also no Gentle mans jacket needed. Guest services had tried to help them with a jacket but they were out of the size needed. Which suggested that more couples on board suffered from the same mishap. The gentleman was a very small man, otherwise I would have loaned him one of my jackets as I have 5 different ones with me. We suggested that upon returning home they bitterly complained to their Travel agent, as they now missed out on 3 formal nights. Food was extremely fast as usual and seems to work as a conveyor belt in the galley to make this possible. I asked for two scoops of vanilla but I got what was on the menu (one scoop vanilla / one scoop chocolate)  For the cook who does the scooping, it does not take more time to do one or the other, so it has to be with the waiter service. When I wanted to point it out, the waiter was gone already, so I left it.

The pub is named Champions and on the port side of the pub there are two boards listing “champions” in various disciplines. Varying from Lester Piggott (horse racing) to Mark Spitz (swimming) to George Foreman (boxing) to Johan Cruiff (football)

Back at the cabin, the Butler popped up, as somehow he had heard that I had been blogging about the table set-up in the cabin. We had a long and convoluted conversation but in the end it became clear that P&O has no set rules for Butler service. You just ask them what you want and they follow up.  So if we wanted a table cloth he would do that, but the routine was no table cloth if it was cold food and a table cloth (to protect the table) when it was hot food. So now we knew, no table cloth, as on the Breakfast menu there is no hot food, it is more of a continental breakfast thing.

A hot breakfast is served for the Suite Guests in the Sindhu Indian Restaurant in the morning but that closes at 09.30 on sea days and 09.00 on port days and then we are just out of bed. Getting hot breakfast in the cabin is also possible as he just gets it from the Sindhu on a serving tray, but it is not standard to have that Hot food breakfast -but there is no Sindhu-breakfast menu in the cabin, so ordering is complicated again.

But we are happy with what the regular cabin breakfast menu offers.  One has to try to keeps one’s weight down. Our Butler (without being asked)  gets us better fruit instead of the regular offering from the dining room, so we are very appreciative. We do get the dinner menu from the Alexandria Restaurant in the cabin and now we learned that we can have dinner in the cabin if we place the order on time.

So  it was arranged that we would keep everything as is, as we a not demanding people and certainly do not want to put pressure on crew members who are busy already. We have been crew members ourselves for 40+ years. This Butler duty thing is something for shore side management to follow up with, as it is them who keep sending out vague information and Mr. Anoup should not be suffering because of that.  He is doing a good job for what we ask him to do. But I think he got confused by it all as well, because when we came back from dinner, a table cloth had appeared on the table.

An un-expected surprise, a Craft Beer in the Crowsnest.

Dress code for tonight, and every port night, is Evening Casual. And everybody on board seems to understand that this means not to wear T shirts and shorts in the ship after 18.00 hrs. And it works. Gentlemen in jackets are still far and few in between and you can see that those who do wear one, also wear one at home in the evening when going out.

We went to the Crowsnest and it was full of happy drinkers again. This evening the Roving Pianist had been scheduled from 19.15 to 20.00 hrs. so it was very nice to listen to that. Apart from me loving this lounge, it has also something special: Neck-oil IPA Craft beer. A light IPA with a mild citrus taste. It is made by a brewery called Beavertown and I was gobsmacked to see it on board. P&O  are scoring BIG brownie points here. I had found this IPA for the first time last year, when entertaining Australian Friends during a visit to the Norfolk Broads (Lake area near where I live) and then never saw it again. As they also have a fair selection of Gin &Tonic available, her Ladyship had no problems with me carting her up to the promised land for a good pint.

The music stopped at 8 pm. right on time as we had a booking for “The Beach House” which is a speciality restaurant tucked away behind the Horizon Lido Restaurant on deck 12. It has a cover charge of £ 11.50  and we were advised that it was very good. So we booked.  Nice table in the window as the First sitting generated rush was already over.

The Beach House, Speciality Restaurant, aft on Lido Deck, deck 12.

Because it is attached to the very informal Lido Restaurant it is a very informal place, but it suits the menu, which has some quite unusual perks to it. Giving it a sort of Beachy Atmosphere. See below, the dpi of the upload is high enough that if you want to copy & paste it out to your laptop you can easily read the entries.

The menu of the Beach House. It is not a large card but enough for 2 visits and with some very nice dishes.

As an example, I had as a starter:  Sea Salt Pork crackling with 3 dips.  Crackling is something very English that is normally served during the Sunday Roast Lunch at home.  A bit comparable with Pork Belly but then without the fat. I have never seen this twist on something that simple but it was very nice.  Main course: Sizzler plate made up with Chicken Tinga  & Tiger prawns with Stir Fried Rice and vegetables and with flour tortillas and guacamole dip. So here we had a fusion between an Asian stir fried dish and Mexican sides. Again never seen before but again extremely good.  And the rest of the menu is similar. Known foods but re-created in a very unusual way. We thought that the cover charge was more than worth it. And when asking for plain vanilla, 3 scoops, I got that well.  So less conveyor belt and more personal service. Hence we have booked for another night. The only strange thing is they do not serve coffee or tea at the end of the dinner, but maybe the menu designer could not come up with an unusual twist for a cup of green tea.

The main show tonight was the 2nd performance of the Harmony group “Tiptronic”. Again less people in the audience than last night. I think that the cold weather is taking its toll. But those who were there enjoyed again a very good show. This time with songs from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Evergreen’s we all know, but revamped in  an harmony singing package that I have never come across.  So another good  show tonight.

A shot with my small smart phone of the show.

Tomorrow we are in Alesund. Which is basically on the other side of the mountain but as there is not a ship tunnel or a canal, the captain has to go out of the fjord, and then a bit further up go back in again. Still it is only a short distance, so the good ship Aurora trundled the 90 miles back to sea with a speed of 12 knots. On occasion the rain lifted somewhat so the guests could see some of the very beautiful scenery.  Temperatures won’t be much higher than  today, so around 13o C / 56o F  but there is a chance that the weather system has moved away far enough so that we will get some dry hours during the day. We will be together with the Aida Nova of the German / Italian (but also owned by Carnival Corporation) company Aida Cruises. 180,000 tons and a max. capacity of 6600 guests. So Alesand will be invaded tomorrow by around 7500 cruise guests not counting the crews. I hope they are ready for it.

This is a diagram from the “From the Navigator” T.V channel. Although it has no information one can see that it is a long sailing out to open sea.