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Ocean Liner History and Stories from the Sea, Past and Present. With an In Depth focus on Holland America Line

Category: Staff & Crew (page 2 of 16)

2026 August 14; At sea off the coast of Norway.

August 15, 2026 / / 2 Comments

Today we had a sea day,  because as explained yesterday the distance is just too far to do it overnight and then put another port in. This morning, just after sunrise, I woke up to a familiar sound, the fog horn. Why did it even wake me up ? Even in retirement any changes to a ships environment when cruising still wakes me up. So a fog horn, change in rolling or pitching, the A.C stopping, abrupt course changes etc.etc. I wake up briefly.  Once I have identified the change in shipboard rhythm, I go happily back to sleep again as somebody else gets paid to sort it out. The captain used the foghorn in the Radar Mast which was really nice, as we are close to the funnel and that would have brought the sound directly into our cabin.

A section of the Indian Restaurant “Sindhu”. Intimate and very nice in its double function as Suite Cabin Breakfast lounge.

With a day at sea, there is an upswing in activities in the ship and that means a discussion of what we want to do. We had already decided to go to the Sindhu again for breakfast as today, the sailors were coming at 09.00 hrs. to paint the balcony.  So we enjoyed another nice and relaxed breakfast while contemplating today’s program.  Back in the cabin two sailors had arrived on the balcony. The housekeeping supervisor was there and started to apologise (again) for the inconvenience of the balcony and about  the butler service (again).  Now I was getting irritated as there is nothing wrong with the butler service, Mr Anoop is doing a great job. It just comes back to the fact that I was/am  trying to find out the exact job description of a P&O butler. Also I was the one who volunteered for the balcony painting so that at least one suite cabin was done this cruise, I did not complain, I offered the opportunity.  But I think the supervisor still does not get it and he can also not give me a list of what a Butler exactly is supposed to do according to P&O.

The painting was done in  3 hrs. but unfortunately it turned into a bit of a rush job as they just painted over the rust, without first applying primer. (I had expected that they would have asked if they could do it in 2 steps)  So the balcony is now mostly white again, except on the metal welds, which are still rusty, but what else can I do? I offered my help did my best but it is up to ships management to make the most of the opportunity given.

Painting in progress.

So after breakfast her ladyship and I split up. She went to listen to the captain’s interview with the Cruise Director and I continued on my photo round, to document all the lounges and the artwork.

Captain Karl Shepherd and Cruise Director James during the 45 minute Q&A. Lesley reported that it was one of the best ones she had ever heard. Very cleverly the Cruise Director (28 years with P&O) had collected through the years the best questions asked by the Guests and asked those first before opening the floor to direct guest questions. That gave the captain also the option to have well formulated, concise and clear answers ready. And that gave a very good result. I myself had some toe cringing interviews to deal with, with CD’s who did not prepare themselves. In a few cases I just went over to a 45 minute monologue that would also cover the questions. But Lesley was impressed and that is high praise indeed as she did them herself when Hostess.

So I went the cultural way. The ship has 3 main staircases and an Atrium (with the shops and pursers office) located directly before the 2nd staircase. I like to document this sort of minor (?) art work on all the ships, as hardly any guests look at it, and even company’s do not always retain documentation from it, when the ship is sold or scrapped. So each ship we sail on I walk all the staircases and take a photo of each piece of art on each landing.

Staircase one has paintings mainly by: https://portalpainters.co.uk/artist/lizzie-riches/

They are mainly made up of light and bright coloured paintings, with an emphasis on people and nature. This was an English Lady (passed away in 2008) who got her inspiration from nature and the people around her.

This painting is called “Motley is the only wear”, based on a quote from Shakespeare “As you Like it” Act 2, Scene 7, line 30.

Staircase two, which is the main staircase,  has paintings mainly by: https://www.nicholashelyhutchinson.com/

This painter is a gentleman living in Dorset who gets his direct inspiration from house scenes, nature and the environment around him. Although a different style of painting the lightness of the paintings are not much different to staircase one.

Bella Vista Hotel in Macau, to the left and Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

Staircase three has paintings mainly by: https://www.askart.com/bio/Jeanette_Lassen/11210017/Jeanette_Lassen

“Tea at the Ritz Carlton”, by Jeanette Lassen

Jeanette Lassen, also passed away in 2008, but used similar light colours in her paintings and similar subjects. So that gives 3 staircases with 3 different artists and topics but all executed with a similar result.

There are some more paintings from artists around the atrium, but the above are the big contributors.

Three champagne bottles in display cases are still there.

Another, small, public room that I have not mentioned very much is “Charlies” and open space outside “Andersons the cocktail lounge. At given times the Resident Pianist plays here and the music then wafts into the Anderson lounge, through the atrium and through the shops. It took me a moment to figure out what this place was originally meant for until I saw three large champagne bottles in three display cases  and a small bar/shelf display table.   It was most probably originally a Champagne Bar and obviously it did not work. Nothing to hold the ship responsible for, this is shore management not knowing their clientele and engaging in wishful thinking.

The same happened on Holland America when the S & R class got “The Mix” with a combined Champagne Bar, Cocktail Bar and Sports Bar. The last 2 worked very well, the first one did not. The guests were simply not interested or willing to pay the prices. So that bar turned very quickly into a shelf with advertisements for upcoming cocktail sessions, discount offers and sommelier lessons.  Not only HAL, the same goes for Cunard. We have now worked our way through all the Queens ships in all sort grades of cabins and we only saw the champagne bar (and they have very nice round ones) busy on a formal night / sea days. Even with Cunard having a slightly more well heeled clientele.

So “Charlies” is now a cocktail area and music location and that works very well as it is always full during cocktails. (But then all venues are always full during  cocktail hours)

Speaking about cocktails, with three main lounges and a cocktail lounge (Anderson) and Charlie’s, and The Pub and the Crowsnest, there are not enough bands and other players to go around. So they rotate to a certain extent. The Pub has a resident “busker” who is there each evening but the other lounges share. Either the piano player, the Trio (Kool Blue) or the house band (Pulse), they move from lounge to lounge. So last night the trio Kool Blue played in the Crowsnest, so we headed there, as we had not  heard them yet.   Nice music but as they are regular players and not an act as such, they just play music. No interaction with the public and no space for requests. Luckily as long as we have interaction with a cocktail and my beer glass, we do not care.

Another look at the most popular drinking venue (at least measured over the whole day) The on board pub Champions.

Dinner in the main dining room again and today it took 1 hr. and 15 minutes to get through the 3 courses and tea and coffee. So not as fast as the first day but still not exactly at a pace that you equate with fine dining. But the food is not bad, it just misses the “wow” factor, which is hard to achieve if you see the speed with which it comes out of the Galley.

The show this evening was a comedian and I am not a lover of these shows. Not that I do not like  a good laugh but often they go for audience participation and I hate that.  As it is not a late night show, I do not expect that the show was “dirty” or full of cussing but I simply do not enjoy it. So we called it an early night, with the hope that tomorrow in Trondheim it will be dry and we can walk ashore. It is not a thrilling port, more or less similar to the other ports, only a bit bigger. Main focus point is, when you dock, is the communal swimming pool “Pir Badett” opposite the dock.

Weather: Rain on arrival, rain on departure and hopefully dry weather in between. Temperatures around 13oC / 57oF again. So it is shaping up as not a great cruise, weather wise, but at least all 1800 of us are not in the sweltering heat at home.

 

 

 

 

2026, August 13, Leknes, Lofoten Norway.

August 14, 2026 / / 2 Comments

This morning the good ship ms Aurora arrived at 07.00 hrs. at the anchorage of the metropolis Leknes, the main town in the Lofoten.  With our cabin we are right above the tenders so we were woken up by the familiar sound of the tenders being lowered.  This ship has  “telescopic” davits, which means that the davits with the lifeboats and tenders hanging in them, are pushed out by hydraulic pressure, in a system connected to large storage cylinders above the lifeboats.

The pumped out Lifeboat davits after having lowered the tenders. Please do not blame the ship for the rust on top. It is impossible to keep the top of the davits clean. When in storage position, sea water constantly forms puddles here from sea spray or just salt in the air. So if you paint on Monday, the rust is back on Wednesday, and any salt getting under the paint makes it flake off again instantly.

There are in the industry three basic sort of ways of lowering lifeboats. Option one is gravity davits. You lift the brake on the davits and the davit arms roll down the tracks and the lifeboat swings out over the side of the ship.  Option two is what we have here, the davits are pushed out by hydraulic arms.  Then option three is where the davits are pushed out of their cradle by a hydraulic or pneumatic ram until it is past the gravity point. (Basically lifting the cradle up to the point where the lifeboat can fall down by its own weight / gravity).  But this ship has the telescopic version, which are great for boat drill (and emergencies) as they do not have additional wiring such as tracing pendants to bring the boat alongside the embarkation deck. With this system you lower the boat and then pull the telescopic davits back in again a little bit, until the boat is tight against the embarkation deck. The negative part is that the system is very maintenance intense and very hard to keep nice. (See the rust on top of the davit arms) So every sailor prefers the regular Gravity davits, they always work as long as there is gravity, as the maintenance is so much easier as you can get at everything. But Gravity davits require a slightly different build of the ship and that normally means losing public room space, and that is a battle the safety guru’s normally loose from the bean counters.

 

One of the Apartment of the Seas, showing the overhanging lifeboats.

With the very big “Apartments of the Seas” that whole problem is solved as the lifeboats are hanging permanently outside the ship and the boat crews only have to release the brake and the boat goes straight down. The Captain just has to be very careful in bad weather and has to slow the ship down in head seas so it does not pitch too much with the bow slamming into the waves and damaging the lifeboats. (Especially those most forward and most aft)

This ship has two Platforms (pontoons in P&O speak) and you walk straight onto them as the staircase from the embarkation deck is inside. As there is a staircase and then the step into the tender and then the step ashore, Carnival UK (Cunard and P&O) have you do the “tender step test”. When you walk down towards the tender there is a mat with a white marked square and you have step over that square. If you cannot do that, then you have to be assessed if you can still go ashore.

The tender pontoons with 2 tenders alongside. Very nice tenders with an upper level if needed.

That stops all strollers, rollators and wheelchairs going, and infirm people. A disability is not directly a problem, as long as you can enter the tender un-aided. Some people have wheel chairs and scooters because they cannot walk long distances and that is fine as well as long as you can still do the step and have somebody with you who can carry the wheel chair and or other contraption to be used ashore.  You can do this under British / European law but not in the USA under the ADA act. There the ship has to do everything possible to facilitate going ashore. Thus the ships have lifts to the platforms or can rig up a special wheel chair lift platform to go down the stairs. That can solve the ship side challenge, but of course not the shore side challenge.  Hence you often see crew on these ships “manhandling” wheel chair people in order to still try to comply with the ADA act. I love this Carnival UK system, as it prevents a lot of back problems with the ships crew who still try to help.

breakfast part I

Breakfast part II

We went for breakfast first to the Sindhu Indian restaurant. So far we had used our good butler Mr. Anoop for cabin breakfast but as we were going ashore anyway we got up somewhat earlier  and when to the Sindhu as they service breakfast for the suites only.

And that was a very pleasant experience. Gracious unhurried service with a nice menu and plenty of time to enjoy it.  There are 14 suites on board who have this perk, including the Duplex suite with its internal curved staircase and a grand piano. Everybody comes in at a different time, so the 2 ladies and 2 gents serving staff are never un-duly hurried. It is all over seen by a manager who has clocked up 31 years at sea but now plans to retire at the end of the year.  We will be back tomorrow as the balcony painters are coming early, so we will get up somewhat earlier again. I gave the Deck floor manager (Housekeeping supervisor) that option as with the suites being always full there is seldom the chance of getting them maintained; and at the same time the Suites normally complain the most and the loudest. Lesley and I have no problems with paint smell, we dealt with it for 40 years, so it is a nice way from one sailor to another to help to get at least one balcony done.

The scenery while driving towards Leknes. It looks like that the town (that is not the one in the background) is set in a wide estuary with low lands, swamps and small lakes, surrounded by mountain ridges of various heights.

Then it was time to explore the Metropolis of Leknes. Tender tickets were in full swing, but Suites have priority passes so we could just follow the flow to the tender platform. And I have never seen soo many officers and crew involved in the operation. I came to a total of 21 while outgoing.  It made for a very smooth operation, good service and a good flow but a HAL  Human Resources Director would have had a heart attack about the crew costs.  There were 4 tenders in operation as I yesterday predicted and that meant that also when coming back, there was not much of a waiting time. Ashore there were local shuttle busses to cover the 3.9 km. distance to town. Some guests walked, but you had to walk along the edge of the main road, and I do not know how gentle “Lofoten drivers are”, so not my idea of a safe walk. The shuttle bus stop was at the petrol station / local bus stop, and the bus driver announced : to the left is the main shopping street, to the right the shopping mall  and that’s it, please enjoy yourselves. It was good that he said so as we did not directly recognise these two centres  of commerce, the whole place is very laid back. so laid back, that the tourist map you can pick at the tender pier, lists the Car hire place “Rent -a-Wreck” as a place of local interest.

The main street of Leknes. With apartment buildings, small shops, bars and bakeries along the road. The large supermarkets and clothing shops are in the main shopping mall at the far end.

So like all guests, not on tour, we walked this main street from top to bottom and  then from the bottom to top again; nosed in the various shops and then inspected the shopping mall. (House hold articles are very expensive, as apart from Norwegian prices, there is the extra challenge to get it all here.

One site of this large shop with all you can dream of for knitting, crocheting, embroidering and other needle work. Walls and walls of cases with balls of wool (Clews in old English) all around the shop. At the other side of this lane was a large lay-out of the latest Sewing Machines models (Husquarna) for sale which now also have embraced the digital age with a push screen menu on the front.

Having been born in a small and densely populated country, and even now in England where large cities (Norwich) are not far away, I always wondered what people do on these islands when marooned here during the long polar winter and when blocked in by heaps of snow on the road.  Well the answer seems to be hobbies, at home and if possible during or skiing to the  Village Hall (a brand new one it looked like) which looked as having an awful of lot of activities going. I do not know what the men do for hobbies, but the Ladies must be big time in knitting and embroidery as we visited what was by far the largest shop for that stuff I have ever seen.

Norway is blessed with a 5G mobile system, everywhere you go (even in the smallest nooks of a fjord) and  Leknes is no different and that worked as I had to call Holland as I have an unusual thing going. A man, who I consider the most knowledgeable of all HAL historians that have ever walked the earth (even if museum people think otherwise)  has recently passed away at the age of 89. Mr. Laurens van der Laan worked for Holland America in Rotterdam and later in New York and after his retirement spend for 20 years most of his free time in the HAL archives. These are maintained by the City Archives of Rotterdam. He managed to re-locate lots of lost papers (put in the wrong folders) and was even involved in opening up the HAL archive of WWII but due to lack of museum funds that has not yet been completed. I considered him my mentor as he constantly guided me where to find things that were not clearly described in the catalogues or were not described at all.  I am indebted greatly to him, to get to the level of knowledge that I now have. That was not that well known, as he preferred to work in the background, but I credit him with correcting a lot of mistakes in the general HAL history. Mistakes that crept in over the years, when researchers and arm chair historians copied each others work without much verification.  He had not made real arrangements for his personal archive (2 bedrooms full of bookcases) and the family is on a time line as his rental apartment has to be returned to the Housing Cooperation by next week. While I am still here on board. So I am paying for a storage locker to put it all in until I have time to slowly go through it all, so nothing gets lost for future generations.  Then most of it can be donated to the right museum or research institute. A volunteer from the Holland America Retiree Society is keeping an eye on the proper transfer and then we can sort it out without time pressure and without the danger of losing something important for future generations. So I had to call to guarantee my financial support.

In the morning, the tender operations leader kept announcing how many people were already ashore. By the time we went, there were already over 1100 shore side out of the 1800 on board. Coming back there were no waiting lines, so were they still ashore or not? Because we came back on board, the “Champions” Pub was full and so was the Lido – Horizon Restaurant. Where did they all came from. Unless the remainder of those on board thought: “This is the moment that we can take over all the public rooms and did so”.

The main area of “The Glass House”. As it not a regular restaurant, but a Tapas place, it looks more like a homely sitting room.

For the evening dinner we had decided to go to “The Glass House” on deck 8. This is a speciality restaurant but without a cover charge. You pay for each course instead as it is based on the Tapas way of serving. So you pay as you go along with your choices.  Also you cannot prebook here. You go to the “Horizon” portal on the mobile phone (it is not an app that you keep open for the daily program) and go in the virtual queue to see if there is space. That queue opens when the restaurant manager opens his laptop/terminal just before opening time and as long as you then keep your portal open you remain in the queue and you then get a ping on the phone when there is an opening. Then you have to be there within the next15 minutes. So if you want to go the dinner later, you join “the queue” later on, if there is a queue of course.  We went early to make the 20.15 hrs. show.

The Tapas menu for starters or for nibbles only the whole evening. The name “Jose Tapas” comes from the Celebrity Chef who designed it, Jose Pizarro.  Olly Wine from Olly Smith a well known somellier and wine expert. The craft beer is also named after him.

The way it works, is after ordering drinks, you order individual things from the starter menu, then go to the main menu (so it still looks like a regular dinner) or just stay with more starters/ Tapas. This restaurant has an very elaborate wine menu, including my favourite White Wine, the Austrian Veltliner. However they also had a special Craft Beer, Jolly Olly, which is only served here as it is part of the dedicated menu. Veltliner I have at home so the Jolly Olly took precedence and it was a nice and smooth IPA which went very well with the Tapas.

So we had some Tapas and then tried the main menu where I as intrigued by a dish called “Sliders” consisting of 3 small hamburgers with three different meats. Her ladyship went the fish way and that was also very good. The set-up is a bit ambigious; it is not really a Tapas place and it is not really a normal restaurant but it works. Some guests treated it as a normal restaurant but some had figured it out already and were just having a drink with a nibble on the seats at the entrance.

The Cast show of this evening. The New Romantics. Which again included a large number of fast costume changes. They must have a really big costume storage space somewhere in the back there.

Then off to the show which was another performance of the cast company , The Headliners Theatre Company with tonight’s feature “New Romantics”.  Not being a music person, it took me a while to figure out what that title New Romantics stood for, but it turned out that it featured songs from the 1980’s if it included a description of being in love, loving somebody or being just out of love. Thus it included a performance by one of the Ladies belting out two Bonnie Tyler songs. And if you can “belt that out” well, then you are an accomplished artist. And so was the rest of the group. Again a fabulous show.

And then I had to run to get yesterday’s blog uploaded. It officially goes out at midnight GMT. but lately it goes earlier and I have not idea why.

Tomorrow we are at sea. Slowly sailing back south to our next port of call Trondheim. This is one of those situations that the distance is just too far to cover it one night  and really to close to loose a day at sea over it. But we are having a day at sea and I think most Guests prefer it that way. So we are going with a speed of about 10 knots or so. Tomorrow there will be overcast skies again and temperatures around 13oC / 55/57oF and fairly smooth seas.

 

 

2026 August 12, At Sea sailing towards Leknes, Lofoten.

August 13, 2026 / / 2 Comments

Today we had a quiet day at sea. The wind came down to a force 3 and the seas although still confused (swell and waves from various directions) also got less and less.  While the good ship ms Aurora sped almost due north with a warp speed of 13 knots. The captain made an announcement advising that the Medivac had taken longer as expected as at the last minute there was no suitable local boat available to transfer the patient and thus he had decided to go back to the dock and do the transfer over the gangway. He did not advise if the patient was doing well, or not, so we are all keeping our fingers crossed.

The whole ship is buzzing about the eclipse, we all got sunglasses last night in the cabin and today’s lectures were about planets, stars and related. We have found the old lectures on the TV in the mean time, it took a while for them to get posted but when flipping through all the programs on the TV we found them this morning. It is not advertised in the TV program for the cabin but later on we also found a note on the display outside the Show lounge, the Curzon theatre. That gave the chance to look at a lecture giving at the beginning of the cruise about the Vikings.  Their  voyages around Western Europe, to Iceland, Greenland, Nova Scotia and also their presence in what is now Russia. Tsar Ivan the Terrible was from Viking stock.

What I did not know that their influence even stretched into modern computer days.  What we now know as Blue Tooth, was taken from a Viking name. Harald BlueTooth. The symbol for a Blue tooth connection are the two first letters of his name in Rune, put together……………….. so that was my cultural contribution to the blog for this cruise.

The well known photo wall from days gone by. Now only in use for Stock photos (5 for £ 50,–) Ordering is done at the other side by means of 2 kiosk consoles (similar as in use at  MacDonalds

I have posted photos of most of the public rooms on board but there are a few more. The photo shop, which harks back to the old days with a wall of printed photos, although that is now only in use for stock photos. 2 digital displays have been installed and with typing in your cabin number your photos come up. There no medallion as with Princess that activates when you get close, so I assume that the photographer notes your cabin number when taking a picture so you can type in your cabin number. We are not completely sure as we have not seen any photographer since we came on board. The other night, there was one in the dining room, coming closer and closer towards our table, and then something went wrong with the camera and the photographer disappeared, never to be seen again.

The Art Gallery on Board. Located in a corridor so you cannot miss it.

Another concessionaire outlet on board is the Art Center. Here on board, same as with Cunard, we have Clarendon Fine Art.  Contrary to what is the norm on the American based ships who have Park West from Miami, Clarendon works less with an auction formula but much more in direct retailing. So the art on display has prices for direct purchase. And some very nice paintings and statues as well. Buy them and you can directly walk off the ship with them. How that works with customs, I do not know, as everything over £ 139,– needs to be declared as import. But guests were buying so it must work.

We are in the cabin

We are out of the cabin

A gadget I really like and apart from Cunard I have not seen any other company doing it, is magnetic door signs. One sign with 2 sides. The advantage is that it does not blow off the door handle when compared to the paper versions that most ships still  have. Especially if they are printed differently on each side. Pick one up from the deck and you do not know which side was on display. Here somebody has to forcefully peel the sing off and then turn the sign around. On Cunard I saw a few children doing  that but the ms Aurora is an adult only ship, so it does not have that problem. Taking about Adult Only cruises on P&O. They have two adult only ships, the Aurora and the Arcadia. However lately they have been designating some cruises as Adult Only and some not, so you have to be careful when booking otherwise you end up on a cruise you might not like.

The Golden Cockerel

With an explanation for the historically less inclined.

Another unusual thing on board is that the Aurora is the holder of the “Golden Cockerel”. This is the internal Blue Riband of P&O Lines and Cruises and dates back into the grey mists of time, when the company had regular liner services to the Far East and Down Under. Then the ships tried to stay on schedule and also tried to improve their schedule. I do not know how far this tradition goes back, but I know that the trophy was given to the ss Oriana of 1960, and then went to the ss Canberra.

 

As the Aurora has a service speed of 24 knots and has sailed with a maximum sustained speed of 25.4 knots she is the fastest ship in the Fleet. 25 knots is already quite high but on trials she reached 29 knots. Hence she got the Golden Cockerel which is now displayed in a corner of the  foyer/square near Guest Services.

One of  my loyal readers asked what, to me, is the difference is between sailing in Alaska and sailing in the Fjords. Let’s start with the similarities. Both areas have a lot of green trees and land, and grey rock mountains. Both areas you can only get into when under pilotage. Both areas have indignous peoples. Indian Tribes in Alaska, Viking descendants in the Fjords.  Both areas are not a great place to be in, in the winter with (horizontal) rain, snow and storms. Both areas have  good viewings of the Aurora Borealis. (The best one I ever saw was in Juneau with purple “wheels” flashing over Mount Roberts.

“Pulpit” Rock in Norway. You can park a ship almost at the bottom of the face (other side of the photo) and look straight up.

The difference is mostly in the height of the mountains and how close they come to the waters edge and very often they are still very steep.  In the Norwegian fjords, (Geirangerfjord, Sondefjord) you can sail within touching distance (*) of the fjord wall and still have 300 feet of water under the keel or more. In Alaska the mountains are more curved and they curve upwards further away from the water. Hence there are normally wide beaches with low foliage near the water line (Great for Bear watching). Even in Grenville Passage and Johnson Return channel which are the narrowest passages in B.C. Inside Passage the mountain faces are not rising straight out of the water. What comes closest is maybe Seymour Narrows, where you go through “the hole” at Maud Island. That is steep near the water line but not very high.

The 750 meter gap in Seymour Narrows. Not so high but still impressive as the gap is quite narrow.

As a result I do not have a real preference. You can get with the ship close to a glacier, in Alaska, to see calving and a lot of  wildlife, but in Norway you can sit under a rock wall and have to put your head in your neck to see the top.  For sailing there is not much difference as the pilots are required to do all the work. For the guests the good thing this, that all of the Norwegian fjords have  5 & 4G phone coverage everywhere, which in Alaska you have to be close to a town.

A Hurtigruten Cruise ship going through a tight opening. Where is the Broomstick ????

(*) A little anecdote told to me by a Norwegian pilot when I went into the Fjords with the Veendam in 2007. A lot of the pilots employed come from the coastal Mail boats, the Hurtigruten and they sailed almost without supervision through the fjords on their watches as it was daily routine. Not as we have on the cruise ships where either the Captain or the Staff Captain is on the bridge when sailing inside. So through the years (this goes back a long, long time) they devised a game  called “broom stick sailing”. Each ship  had a standard length broomstick on the bridge wing. When coming close to a cliff rock in a fjord, the flat bristle bit was pushed against the bridge wing rim so that the stick part was sticking out. Most likely 5 feet or so. The idea was that you then sailed that close that the broom stick-stick hit the cliff rock but not the ship. This pilot claimed that this went on for a long , long time, until AIS was fitted on the ships and the people in the office could see where the ships were at all times.  I did not directly believe it but the harbour master in Bergen confirmed that this was indeed happening and it did not always work well.

Guests on board have the chance to sign up for a visit behind the scenes, as you now can do on nearly every company. You have to pay for it but here with P&O the price is a reasonable £ 85,– for the whole tour; as there are company’s out there who now charge $ 179,–

 

The Classical Duo, the Meridians, Flute and Piano.

Lesley went to see an interview with the whole cast, on the stage in the show lounge, while I took the chance to take photos of the art in the 3 staircases. There is a pattern to the consistent style of paintings hanging on the wall and I will come back about that later. Then we re-united in The Playhouse to listen to the 2nd recital of this cruise by “The Meridian Duette” with Dream Like music by Debussy, Faure, Albeniz and De Falla. The set was called Moonlight & Fire to warm the guests up for the Solar Eclipse. And they were very good again. There was even a classical piece influenced by  Scott Joplin (The Entertainer) I never knew that there was “cross -contamination” also from the light arts to the serious stuff.  The Playhouse/Movie Theatre was packed again, and I expect that when the 3rd recital is coming it will be standing room only.

A very clever way of looking at the eclipse without  having to look into the sun. Just use a reverse pair of binoculars. (Photo courtesy Ruud van Deventer, son of old HAL captain H.L van Deventer)

That warmed us up for the Solar Eclipse, but there was n’t one, at least not on board the ms Aurora. Had it been perfect sunny weather where we were, we would have seen a 1/3 eclipse or so but it was completely overcast. People in middle Europe and Spain had a perfect and even good friends of mine in Holland, far north from the centre of the eclipse could observe at least a very good partial curve. But how hard the guests standing on the outside decks did wish for it, The skies remained overcast. Luckily there are plenty bars on board to get over the disappointment.

The stage setting for the show “Up all night” which center’s around people falling in love and getting engaged in a pub. I could not get a photo of the cast performing as there was that nasty announcement again of “no recording”.

It was 2nd formal night this evening, we have 3 this cruise, and we were able to combine cocktails again with a show in Carmen’s. This time a small Cast Show. It was the full cast complement but on a dance floor about half the floor size of the show lounge.  This was a show set in a Pub having the good English name of the “Cat and Fiddle”. It was very good, we are now becoming used to the very high standards on this ship where entertainment is concerned, but they could have named this the “musical chair show” as I have never see a cast moving soo many chairs, soo many times as part of the show routine.

Tomorrow we are in Leknes, capital of the Lofoten Islands. We are too big to dock in downtown so the ship has to anchor and use the ships tenders. With an official arrival time of 08.00 hrs. I expect that the ship will be at anchor around 07.00 hrs. to lower the 4 tenders and set up the platforms.  The distance from the anchorage to the shore is a 4 tender distance as we sailors call it (one ashore, one at the gangway and 2 sailing opposite) and that should give a smooth operation. As we are in a suite, we have priority tickets so we do not need to get a tender ticket in the lounge.  We are getting up somewhat earlier tomorrow as we want to try the Suite Breakfast in the Sindhu Restaurant. We have not done that yet, as it closes either at 0900 hrs. or 09.30 hrs. and then we are only just waking up. So we will make the effort; one has to experience everything, at least once in a lifetime………….. If it is good, we will do it again.

Weather tomorrow, looks mainly overcast, dry and with a chance of sun breaking through. Temperatures  around 13oC / 53oF and a gentle breeze blowing. England will be facing another blistering hot day, so it looks like that we choose the right period to go away.

 

2026; August 10, Olden, Norway.

August 11, 2026 / / 2 Comments

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.

 

 

 

 

2026; August 09, Haugesund, Norway.

August 10, 2026 / / 1 Comment

Today we are in Haugesund Norway (I have also seen spellings with two a’s and two s’, but I have taken this spelling of the Harbour masters office opposite our dock). It is a bit of a peculiar place as it is not that well known to the general outside world as it has always have been outside the focus point of most cruise ship company’s. That is now changing as the “Apartments of the Seas” are taken over all the prime berths in the well known cruise ports, so company’s with smaller ships have to look for new opportunities or just be lucky that a major port berth is free.

This was the view that greeted us this morning when we arrived at 0900 in the morning. Pouring down with rain and strong winds gusting. And it did not improve until 3 pm. in the afternoon, 90 minutes before sailing.

In the good old days, the company’s could simply book a berth in a port and that was it. But now with the so much larger ships, the amount of tourist tax that comes in, and the amount of ship’s tax (due to the size) that is coming in, has changed the whole picture.  Harbour Masters are now much more focused on returning a profit for their local port, then was the case years ago. And they will bump a smaller cruise ship if a late booking for a big one comes in. So  ports like Haugesund are now coming into prominence, even if there is less to do.

The grass at our apartment building since the hose-pipe-ban. Our garden director had marshalled “the troops” , all in their 80’s for watering the plants by hand, as that is still allowed under the hose pipe ban. We have invested about £ 10.000 in perennials and and we do not want to lose those. The two green spots are caused by the wind bowing over the fountain spray from the ponds. (Under a hose pipe ban, the ponds are also allowed to operate so the Fis-hies do not die)

And with good reason as the place has a lot to offer, but due to the horrible weather we decided to stay on board. All that rain here and all that drought in England, with hosepipe bans. I think it is time that Norway starts exporting water to the UK instead of gas. There is already a gas pipe running to the North of the UK from Norway so they only have to switch from gas to water.  When we walked the ship later in the day, a lot of guests had made the same decision to stay on board and the lounges were packed. The ship must have made a killing with bar sales, as the British do not sit in a lounge without  a drink in front of them.

This is what Haugesund looks like during a sunny day. The main town is located around a channel where in the old days the herring fishermen used to dock. Somewhere around there is the longest pedestrian / shopping street in Norway. (Photo courtesy, somebody on the internet)

Still there were a few hundred brave people, who packed in Anoraks and backpacks braved the weather and even sat on top of the open Hop-on-Hop-off  bus.  There is also a trolley service with pulled carriages which cost £75,– for 90 minutes and goes around the town with a few stops. The town also claims to have the longest pedestrian street in Norway, which no doubt would have been very exciting were it not that today is a Sunday so all the shops were closed.

Although the P&O shore excursions are very reasonable compared to some other company’s it is still expensive as Norway is a very expensive country.   £ 6.50 for a standard ice cream cone ashore, is my idea of being expensive.

This is the big thing on the tours. Leaning against St. Olav’s church is St Mary’s sewing needle. It is an old dolmen (from before the church was founded)  and it is only 7.5 cm away from the church wall. Legend has it, that if  the needle would touch the church, then Norway would fall apart. So the Authorities are very alert as nobody wants to go back to Sweden. (Photo courtesy, Visit Norway.com)

Haugesund with a population of 47,000 people, is where Norway, or Viking Land, really started. The nearby church dates back to 1250 AD, dedicated to St. Olav’s, once a local king, who got promoted to Saint for spreading Christianity in this area. For the Norwegians this is an important area as here King Harald Fairhair  is buried. He was the first local leader who united all the tribes and little kingdoms in the area of what is now modern Norway. There is a national monument nearby at Haraldshaugen, raised in 1872 commemorating the 872 battle of Hafrsfjord which brought this first unification. Then the Swedish invaded and it took the Norwegians until 1905 to become truly independent by fully separating from Sweden.

The “Playhouse” movie theatre, concert hall and congress center.

So we decided to give all this cultural excitement a miss and stayed on board. The Cruise Director seemed to have anticipated that and had laid on more activities, which were very well attended.  Morning stretch, Guided meditation, Creative Waves (= arts and crafts and today was skyline silhouette making), Short tennis, Morning trivia, Shuffleboard, Interactive gaming, Archery. etc.etc. and this was only what was going on until noon time. Very Good.

The Playhouse auditorium now taken now with a photo taken from the stage.

As mentioned the ship has a very nice array of public lounges. The Curzon Main show Theatre (bow), The Playhouse (midships) for movies and intimate concerts and Carmen’ (stern) for  band playing and dancing. Then there is another larger lounge with stage and bandstand  called, Masquerade, which mainly acts as a Disco but is also used for daily activities. So enough public areas, outside the regular lounges and bars,  to find a space for all 1800 guests to do something.

The stage of the “Masquerade Lounge”.

According to guests who consider them P&O experts, and we have already come across a lot of them, this lounge is also used by the Cast members giving solo- performances. so we will keep an eye out for that as they are often very talented but seldom get the chance to spread their wings.

So we worked our way up to Top Deck to see how the Lido Lunch would work in the Horizon Restaurant and we ended up first at the Crystal Pool. Every hotel, resort and cruise ship has the problem of people blocking sun loungers. They sit there and then go for a very long lunch or something else, but keep blocking the lounger for hours without returning. Germans and British are in general blamed for it but Italians and Spanish are very good at it as well. And no doubt the Dutch and the Belgians are not much better.  So P&O has the stretcher police. But of course done in a very nice way.

The “Stretcher police”.

The way it works is as follows: The policy is called the “Lonely Lounger routine”. There are signs that advise  that you are not allowed to reserve a sun lounger and if you do it will be cleared after 30 minutes. But because the “official duty” of the towel man is to provide hand towels and to replace them when needed, he is not considered a “nasty person” by the crowd present. So there is very little arguing when he does clear personal stuff away.  Our towel man said then he had only come across issues during short Caribbean cruises when the public tended to be different.  I think this is a wonderful policy and it seemed to work very smoothly as well. Compliments.

The Lido Grill, which was at least today, a complete let down. The glass cabinet holds desserts and then to the left is a ice cream parlour but you have to pay for the ice cream

By now it was lunch time and as there was no waiting line, we decided to visit the Hamburger Grill outside the (Lido) Horizon restaurant on Deck 12.  This turned out not to be an unmitigated success. The service was very fast, less than 5 minutes between ordering and having the Cheese Burger on the table, but we had to look very carefully to see a small veil (yes, as in see- through veil) of cheese on the top of the patty. And it was not even hot; how it could cool down so fast from being freshly cooked will remain a mystery forever. Then we found out, the waiter could not be bothered to explain, that you had to get the condiments yourself from the counter. Those condiments were limited to chips (french fries for the Americans) a slice of tomato, a bit of lettuce and a 1/4 of a cucumber. We were aware that P&O is not the greatest on food but this beat it all.

Then you have to buy your ice cream. There is no free ice cream in the Lido or anywhere else on board, except in the dining rooms. This Lido ice cream comes from Jude’s which is  a famous name in England; a company which produces very creamy ice creams.  But 3 scoops / balls on a coronet sets you back £ 4.20 and that goes against all my principles. For the amount of money I paid for this cruise, investing in one of the top suites, ice cream should be complimentary.

By 13.00 hrs. it was still raining and Haugesund still did not look very exciting.

Fearful about putting on weight, we decided on a deck walk. The ship still has a wrap around deck, where 3.2 times around is a mile. It is quite tight at the bow and at the stern but in the middle, under the lifeboats is is really wide and spacious. Something that we now see less and less. This Deck 6 has cabins and public rooms but the designers kept the open deck space while the newer ships have either no space to walk around (except for a track around the funnel) or it is very tight. This as the designers have decided to “optimize pubic room space” for an increase of “revenue opportunities”. The Aurora is from 2000 and in those days, the designers where not yet immersed in “synchronising internal brand opportunities”, so the ship has very nice open decks.

The starboard deck 6 open deck space under the Lifeboats. A throwback to the days of the five star premium market ships built before 2010.

Back to the cabin and time to write yesterdays blog and to decide which lounge will get our custom tonight for cocktails.  Also we had found out, that as repeat guests we get 5% discount on what we spend on board, but only after we have finished our On Board Credit. We were planning to buy some Gin before we went home, so instead of doing at the end of the cruise, we did it today, as that depletes our on board credit and then the rest of the cruise we get our 5% discount. Otherwise we might have  used all our On Board Credit first and then paid with our own money for the Duty Free. Since the UK left Europe, the free import rules of how much booze you are allowed to bring in have increased dramatically. It is so far the only positive / benefit I have found about “Brexit” . The shops (operated by a Concessionaire called Hardings of the UK)  had quite a few good things on offer. A high quality Gin (Gin Mare Capri retailing at home for £ 52,–)  for £ 45,–  a bottle but………… 4 for £ 100 which brought it down to £ 25,–  So if a Dutchman sees a way to save a lot of money, in this case 50%, he will jump. So her Ladyship has now been set up with a full liquor cabinet until New Year.  Strange thing was, that we have to go and collect the bottles ourselves on the last sea day, while with Sky Princess (4000 guests) they delivered. Maybe they cannot handle the volume of orders that have been placed, as they have assigned the whole Masquerade Club to line it all up, for when the Assembled Alcoholics come marching in, to pick it up on the last sea day.

The Anderson Lounge on Deck 7.

I fell in love with this lounge the moment I stepped on board. If I would have had a regular house, instead of an apartment, one reception room would have been changed in something like this, or an extension built, so that a poor and worn out gentleman can have a cocktail in proper surroundings at the end of long and dreary day.  So this lounge is a great alternative. There is no direct music but outside is an area called “Charlies” where there is a piano player and the music “wafts” nicely into the lounge from there.

Dinner was  good  but not outstanding and the service was extremely fast again. I clocked 1 hrs. and 10 minutes from stepping into the Dining room until we had, had our coffee and tea and could leave again. The fact that we are sitting close to the bar and the galley entrance might have something to do with it but I am getting more amazed by the day. Maybe I should try to get a 10 minute pause between each course but that might not be good for the waiters mental health, and/or we might get cold food. Although the ship says it is booked to capacity we still have a lot of half empty tables around us and we do not know  why. Partly it might be that guests prefer the Lido, partly maybe because First Sitting and Early Free dining (in the Medina dining room) seem to be very full.

The Ships Dance Company called “The Head Liners” with their Revue show called “Destination Dance”.

But it made us in time for the Show and in finding a good seat. Not so necessary this time as the Theatre was only half full. I think that a lot of the guests were worn out after a full day of rain and wind. (And tomorrow won’t be much better) This show was very good again, with song and dance routines from all over the world, a sort of world cruise in music, and I was amazed in how fast the Ladies managed to do their costume changes.  For the boys it is not so difficult, another pair of pants  and they are ready, but the Ladies have to get in and out of these difficult costumes with feathers, petticoats, change the colour of their underwear that goes with the new costume and that must take some time. But they flew off the stage in a cancan dress and flew back on the stage again in a country and western outfit.   Very Good, as was the previous  show.

We went from South America directly to Paris with a Can Can and then from there to prairie land with a song and dance routine from the musical Oklahoma. There were 4  Can Can dancers, but when I took this photo one just dived behind the screens to come out a few minutes later in a Cow Girl Costume. But she still threw her skirts in the air, so all was well in the world.

Tomorrow we are in Olden, a small town deep into the Norwegian Fjords. For those who have followed our escapades on the Sky Princess a month ago, (see under the right hand lable: My Cruises and Reviews) will remember that we went there as well. The highlight of the place is the souvenir shop across the dock, the large souvenir shop in Downtown and also the large supermarket in Downtown. Tomorrow is mainly for the tours.

How those tours will go, is anybodies guess, as the weather will be much the same as today. Rain and Wind and with low hanging clouds and could be a problem for the tours that go up the mountains. Temperatures around 13oC / 57oF with a bit of luck.

 

 

2026, August 08: At Sea.

August 9, 2026 / / 3 Comments

Today was a full day at sea while the good ship ms Aurora sped through the North Sea northwards to Norway. During the night we sailed through the English Channel and this morning we passed my home town on the Norfolk Coast but too far away to even see the coast.

The ship is under the command of Captain Karl Shephard who went to sea in 2000 as a cadet on coastal tankers. And that makes now feel really old as I made captain the year he became cadet. He then joined Carnival UK in 2003. Carnival UK is  part of Carnival Corporation of Miami and controls Cunard Line and P&O Cruises. This set up makes it possible to rotate officers between the two company’s, which in the beginning caused quite an upheavel as both company’s  have a very unique tradition and culture.  I remember that the Cunard crews had a collective heart attack when a P&O commodore (Bernie Warners) took command of the Queen Mary 2.  The Commodore title has since been retired and I think the only company that still has one is Princess Cruises.

Captain Karl Shepherd, Master of the ms Aurora.

So also Captain Shephard was assigned to the various ships within  the two company’s and this continued when he made Captain.  In the old days this would be unheard of but now the bridge & engine watch routines of all company’s under the Carnival Umbrella are standarised by continous training at the company’s simulators at Almere in the Netherlands . And so company routines and tradition do not matter that much anymore.  The product delivered on board is now categorized as a “Brand” and decided on market demands and is now less and less an organically grown “way of doing things”. Hence a captain is now less a “Master of the vessel” but more a Technician who provides a navigational and safety service to the product. There is still the legal side of course but also that is taken more and more over by the shore side as there is nowadays constant communication. So the function keeps changing and evolving in a ever changing world.

We started our day with breakfast in the cabin. The P&O cabin breakfast card is quite limited compared to some other company’s but sufficient if you do not have a big appetite and can live with a focus on Continental Breakfast. It was delivered by our Butler but it was not different than regular room service. Butler service normally means setting the table but that did not happen, although we have a round full size table and table cloth in the cupboards. I hope to find out in the coming days what the exact brief of the Butler is as there is no listing available of what exactly the Butlers duties are.  That is so far also the hardest thing here on board; the cabin is full of little cards and I will post a table full of them at the end of the cruise, with do’s, don’ts and advise but very little about the EXACT perks that come with a suite.

Same for the TV.  The On Board TV system is not as advanced as on other ships. There is no in house movie library, only a dedicated channel with movies)  and there was also no listing of the TV programs. or which channel the news is on etc.  When mentioning this to the Butler, he said but we have a weekly TV program and I can get one “if you want to”. So he brought one but it begs the question why was it not standard in the cabin on arrival ?

There is a cabin directory  but the information about the Peninsular Club (*) loyalty program  is not the same as what is delivered. Same goes for information on the P&O website.  It does not detract from enjoying the cruise but little details do reflect on the care a company shows to the guest / customer.

(* What is irritating and somewhat nasty, is that depending on the Club level, you get 5%, 10% or 15% off on all on board purchases. BUT that only kicks in when you have spent your On Board Credit. So if your Travel Agent has secured a good deal for you with P&O, with on board credit included, then you as a loyal customer are penalised by not getting your discount you are entitled to after investing a lot of money in previous cruises)

The Inside Pages of “Horizon”, the daily program of the ms Aurora.

We continued our day with exploring the ship and so far really like it as has a lot of features which makes laid back cruising and enjoying cocktails in the evening very nice. P&O still has a dress code and announces that it enforces it, which means dining rooms and certain public rooms are only accessible when you are in formal. If you do not want to dress up, some other venues are still available including the Self Service Restaurant. So before going on our round we scrutinised the Full Colour daily program and together with the one from the Sky Princess, it is one of the most extensive programs I have come across. Compliments.

The Port Talk or Destinations Ashore. Not done with the Shore Excursion manager standing behind a Podium but having an informal chat sitting down with the Cruise Director.

Lesley wanted to see “Let’s Talk destination” as being a Shore Excursion Expert after 40 years escorting Tours on  the ships.  This was an overview by the Shore Excursion Manager assisted by the Cruise Director. She wanted to see it, as A to find out something about Haagesund where we are tomorrow and B. to see what they exactly talked about.  Lesley was very impressed. Instead of being a pure sales -spiel for the ships tours, this was a genuine Destinations Briefing. All the important details in the port, including walking options, local buses, local tours, shops, were included. It was really about supporting the Guests to have the best cruise experience possible.  I wished that more company’s would focus more on the guests, than on the revenue. The Shore Excursion Manager, from Brazil and ably assisted by the C.D. did a very good job. Compliments.

The Ships library. With a very good selection of books. There are four lines like this one with bookcases.

While Lesley was enjoying the Port Talk, I went around the ship for photos and to see how the ship passenger flow worked. It was a sunny day  and the ship has a lot of area’s protected by wind/glass screens, so every deck stretcher was taken. As if ……… we did not have enough in England sun in the last few weeks…………   Behind the “Crowsnest” (it is really called the Crowsnest, same as on the HAL ships) there is a library with a nice selection of books. No librarian present so it is all “on your honour” for borrowing. Looking at the pocket book exchange there are a lot of readers on board.  There are 4 cosy seats in the window for readers and in good Library Custom, three were full of guests sleeping and the 4th. one occupied by a musician reviewing his charts for an upcoming performance on board.

One corner of the “Uganda Room”.

On the other side is the “Uganda Room”. The ms Uganda is a legendary name in British Maritime history. She was built as a  troopship and regular passenger carrier for the  British India (B.I) Line,  a company which became a subsidiary of P&O. Then she became a Summer Holiday ship for children and then went as a Hospital ship to the Falklands during the 1981/82 war.  When back, there was a concerted effort to save her as a museum /hotel (Same as the ss Rotterdam V in Rotterdam) but it did not work out, so she went for scrap. But it is nice that the ship is remembered by means of a lounge on board the ms Aurora. This space is now being used for informal gatherings (Bill W lives here) and church services.

A full size model of the ss Uganda. With the B.I Lines funnel colours.

Behind this, is the Upper level of the Crystal Pool area with a magrodome. When HAL was bought by Carnival in 1989, the trademark/copyright which Holland America held after it had bought the Home Line ships, went to Carnival Corporation and all new company ships since that time now have a magrodome. Today, with the sunny weather it was open. Tomorrow it will be probably be closed as rainy weather is coming.

Part of the “Crystal Pool” with the Magrodome on top.

This deck doubles up as Sports deck, with 3 pens for golf club swinging, shuffleboard, paddle tennis / pickle ball etc.etc. and several staircases connects between Deck 12 (with the Bars) and Deck 13 for the Sports. With so many people using the area, P&O has stratigically stationed several bars here, with the Crowsnest Bar inside, Crystal Bar at the pool, The Riviera Bar  midships and the Pennant Bar at the stern, and all within easy reach by walking one Deck.

Three Golf practising Pens in a row. I have never seen so many on a ship.

To make it easier to find these Bars and all the other venues, each daily program has an small insert that gives all the opening times of the Restaurants, Bars, shops and other Onboard services, so you can put it in your pocket as a quick reference. Very handy. For those who drink beer, nearly every bar on board has at least one Draft beer and the brand of what is on Tap varies from bar to bar. So you can set up a personal Pub Crawl if you want to try them all.

The center of the Anderson Lounge. So far the pinnacle  (at least in my taste) of what a cocktail lounge should look like.

The center staircase has a small Atrium  that goes 3 decks high and some of the public rooms are located around it. On  Deck 5 there is the Pursers Desk and Future Cruise sales, Deck 6, has some shops. Deck 7 and 8 have all the main Public Rooms. Around The Atrium on Deck 7 are some more shops and then behind it is an open area called “Charlies” with behind it the main cocktail lounge called “Anderson” (after one of the founding father of P&O). This lounge with a large bar could have been pulled straight out of a London Gentlemen’s Club. With bookcases (fake), chesterfields, cosy chairs and nice sitting areas. Good for book reading in the morning and drinks and good conversation in the evening. Background music by the piano player comes wafting in from Charlie’s sitting area outside.

At the corners of this lounge there are fake”bookcases, and some clever clog decided to use them to store a fire hose reel and a fire extinguisher in it. Not exactly the standard fire locker you expect but I am all for it. I am a great safety promoter but looking at a fire extinguisher during cocktails is a bit much. So this is a perfect solution.

This music arrangement also makes it possible that one Deck up, The Raffles Bar and Cake place can be used in the evening for cocktails and drinks as well. And believe me, on a British ship, you do need it, as 90% of the guests will come out for a drink before dinner. (and then have a drink during dinner as well)

One of the two large laundry rooms on board. Not visible in the photos are the six ironing  boards. And the very good news is, they are free of charge.

Before I could park myself here and have a nice drink, I was called to order and had to proceed to the Self Service Laundry to de-wrinkle various pieces of garments as tonight was formal night. I have always been good in packing but since we are full time cruising I have reached new heights in my efforts. My wife’s formal night dresses are now being sandwiched between layers of bubble wrap and thus arrive wrinkle free on board. So do my formal jackets but regular shirts and Ladies Tops are more difficult and hence we had to go and iron.  The Aurora is enhanced by several large self service laundries with a lot of machines and 6 or 8 ironing boards. For us there is one located on deck 9 and one on Deck 11. We are on deck 10 so nicely in between.  While there is still the idea out there that most of the laundry is done by women, I find more men in the laundry rooms than women. Either we are more emancipated then the world gives us men credit for, or the men are sent out with a mission, while her ladyship goes for a cocktail.

One side of “Carmen’s Lounge” located at the stern of the ship.

We had received an invite for a Captains cocktail party this morning but it did not say why and also not all cabins on our deck had one. But if there are free drinks involved, a Dutchman has to go and so we duly showed up at 19.45 hrs. at Carmen’s lounge. This is a smaller show lounge with a large dance floor (hence the name Carmen as it has a Flamenco theme) but is also used for all sorts of other activities.  When we entered there were loads of  officers lined up but not in a very organized way, so the “Meet and Greet” was a bit erratic. We came in on the Starboard side and I saw the staff captain hanging around but he was more interested talking to a lady (ships nurse ??) then to take his function as second in command seriously.

The lounge during day time, in use for dance classes as it has such a large dance floor. In the evening they have ballroom dancing here and that event was well attended when I passed by the first night of the cruise.

It turned out this was the “Welcome on Board” party  for a group of about 300 people. I never found out if there was a First sitting party as well, or anything else, as we have about 1800+ guests on board. (There is a sign at the Pursers Office saying “the ship is booked to capacity so no changes possible” so we must have that number of guests on board).

The captain turned out to be a very personable man with excellent microphone and communication skills and he  gave a nice chat of where we are, where we were going and the expected weather (rain and swell for the next two days). He did not introduce any officers. although they were scattered around the lounge but did not socialise very much.  I introduced myself as there is nothing worse for a captain to find out that there is “another one” on board as crew love to gossip. I am already being addressed as “captain” by the cabin staff and waiters in the ship and I am a retired person.  So letting the captain know on forehand is always a good thing to do and I think he appreciated that.

Then it was time for dinner and as I expected it was less hectic then the first night. It was still fast but now I clocked  1 hr. and 15 minutes instead of the one hour last night (including the waiting time). The waiter even had time introduce himself and his name is Mohammad Ali.

So I had to tell him a story of when I was captain and had a dining room steward of the same name. That steward was not very good so in the end Muhammad Ali was fired.  To our utter amazement he showed up again about 3 months later. He had moved to another ship but so had I. The security officer was ordered to investigate and then found out that this gentleman had gone home, gotten himself a new passport but now in the name of Ali Muhammad. Had applied again, got a new company I.D number and arrived back on a Holland America Line ship.  Very creative but not a wise thing to do when there is a captain around who is good in remembering faces. So Ali M. was removed from the ship and was then duly arrested by the American CBP for having used a falsified name  / passport.

The “Triptonics” in action, they will be back for another show 2 days from now.

So after talking to a real “Ali M” it was time to go to the show. Tonight it was a male group called “Triptonic”.  Three British  male vocalists which sang a variation of Pop songs and some Musicals but is different forms of harmony. Different than expected, but very, very good. All three had quite a track record outside this group, with appearances in the West End and other well known venue’s. That took us until 23.00 hrs. and then it was time to turn in.

Tomorrow we are in the port of Haagesund, one of the larger and one of the oldest towns in Norway. The captain advised there would be a chance of rain and wind and I looked at the 500 millibar weather chart, looking at the progress of the bad weather system coming over, it will rain for sure. Temperatures 14oC / 57oF with wind and rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2026 Aug. 06; Southampton, England.

August 8, 2026 / / 4 Comments

So we are on the way for our next adventure. 12 Days Norway with the ms Aurora of P&O cruises. She was the last P&O ship on our list that we had not sailed with before, and suddenly the opportunity popped up. Lesley managed a very good price so we are in one of the suites, called the Sunda Suite.  As is normal, we drove yesterday from Cromer down to Southampton, with the roads being unusually calm. Even the M25, the ring road around Greater London, had less mayhem than normal. Her Ladyship is moaning about the petrol prices which have gone up 30 pence since Trump started meddling in the Middle East, and with each hiccup announced around the Strait of Hormuz the petrol price goes up much faster than  it comes down.  But it will not stop us from cruising though.  This time no Cricket matches in the planning so all was quiet around the Hilton Hotel. It was irritating that a large Mercedes Maybach had blocked 3 car park spaces, while  with the Golf Club nearby parking spaces are always at a premium.  But as somebody left, I could slip in.

Today, we arrived at the time advised to us at one of the smaller cruise terminals in Southampton port. After lining up outside for about 15 minutes, we were let into the terminal for check in. P&O operates a priority system for their “Penininsula Club Members”,  which does not applies to us as we are in the lowest tier, but as we have a cabin in the one-but top cabin category it does applies to us again. So the flow through was very quick. Because you get your cabin -key-ID cards only at your cabin we had to go through 5 Boarding pass checks to get to the gangway.  Cabins were not available until 13.30 hrs., this also applied to the top cabin category, so  we had to wait in the public lounges or go for lunch. This is always irritating as everybody leaves their hand held luggage / trolleys all over the place. and in the walking paths. With some company’s you can go to the cabin to drop of your hand luggage and then go for lunch. Not with P&O, they had closed all the Fire screen doors in the cabin corridors. But we could do boat drill as its the same as with other company’s.  You go to your Assembly station, ours is in the Movie Theatre and then get checked off. Then watch the safety video in the cabin later and all is well in the world. So we had a little walk around and a drink in the Raffles Bar.

Note: For the rest of  the cruise you will come across a lot of names which are related to the history of P&O, either names of old company ships or lounge names after the founding fathers of P&O back in the 1830’s.   Raffles of course refers to Singapore, either to Mr. Raffles, the founder of Singapore or the Raffles Hotel which rose to fame in the days of the Raj.

The ms Aurora of P&O Cruises.  To appeal to the British market the bow sports the British Flag since 2014, but the rising sun logo on the is still there at the very pointy end. That rising sun logo is repeated  on the blue funnel. (Photo courtesy P&O)

The ms Aurora is a cruise ship that came into service in April 2000 and has a size of 76,152 Brt. and a guest capacity of   1878 in 939  cabins. This gives a space ratio of 40, which makes it comparable to the Vista Class of Holland America. She is one of the faster cruise ships still out there, with a service speed of 24 knots and a top speed of 29 knots. I do not think that the cruises nowadays are designed with that speed but to get to Norway from Southampton she will have to make 21 knots.  The ship being from 2000 makes her the oldest unit in the P&O fleet, and the reason that we wanted to get on board as I expect that she might be sold  in the future as P&O is concentrating on much larger ships. Her near sister Oriana, (of which the Aurora is an improved version) was sold of in 2019 to China (it is now called Piano Land) when the bigger ships came on line. At the moment her cruises are planned into 2028, so she might be here for a while.

Sitting area of our suite.

We have cabin B226 on Deck 10 this cruise which consists of a double cabin size, with a sitting area, dining area , bedroom area and then a bathroom with bath, separate shower and two wash basins. Very well laid out and with plenty of storage space and a walk-in wardrobe. Which is large enough for a long cruise but with not enough coat hangers, so we had to ask for more and were given extra metal laundry hangers as there were no more extra wooden hangers on board. Not something that really goes with a request from a top suite.  Apart from a cabin number, it cabin also has a name “Sunda” named after an old P&O ship which in turn was named after an island in the Indonesian Archipelago.

Then the deck has a number but also a name (we are Britannia Deck), so altogether is can be a sure recipe for a lot of confusion. The cabin numbers on Deck 11, also start with letters and are then in the 100 series.   So if you go somewhere, you have to give the letter and the cabin number otherwise they do not know if you are on Deck 11 ( with the letter A) or on Deck 10 (with the letter B)

Dining area of our cabin.

By the time we made it to the cabin, our luggage was waiting and shortly after the butler (Mr. Anoob) and the cabin stewardess (Miss Rachel) popped up, for introduction and explanation.  It is going to be interesting to see what the Butler function exactly entails as the P&O information is not very pertinent, but big on “could” or “might” instead of “should”.  Apart from a large cabin, there are not that many extra perks that go with a suite.  There is no Concierge Lounge but Breakfast can be taken in the Sindhu restaurant if you like,  and that other Room service menus are included, while for the other cabin categories you have to pay for it.  Toiletries in the Bathroom are by the White Company but you are warned not to the take the bottles/ left over contents home at the end of the cruise. You do get a hair conditioner and body lotion as a gift to take home though.

Our section of the dining room. The ship has 2 of them, the Medina and the Alexandria and we are in the latter. Apart from that there is the Lido (called the Horizon Restaurant) and the speciality restaurants, Sindhu (Indian), The Glass House (a sort of English Tapas lounge) and the Beach House, which is really part of the Lido, but has a separate menu with a cover charge.

The Medina Restaurant is the “As you wish” restaurant, and you get a beeper, or follow your line in the queue on “The App”. The  Alexandria has fixed sittings, with first sitting at 18.15 hrs. and the 2nd sitting at 20.15 hrs.  We had asked for a table for 2 or a table for 6 in the dining room. As, expected we got a table for 2 as it is more or less connected to having a suite. Tables for 6 can also be nice as you can meet a lot of interesting people. We saw during the first dinner, that the tables for 6 were not more than half full, so a table for 2 worked out better. So either the ship is not full or guests decided to go somewhere else, We will find out tomorrow night, which is formal night and the British tend to go regular dining then.

With the cabin came a welcome bottle of champagne, the real stuff and not chateau “Plonk” so with the canape’s it was time to have cocktails in the cabin. The Aurora departed from Southampton at 16.00 hrs. as it is a tight schedule to get to Norway on time. It was just too chilly to sit on the balcony (double size) but the full size windows still showed Southampton waters in full view, while having a glass of bubbly.

The ship has 3 lounges for shows, and the two main dining rooms. Then there is a plethora of bars and drinking area’s.  So we decided to go to the Crowsnest, overseeing the bow and thus similar to Holland America or Cunard.

The middle part of the Crows nest with the Bar at the back. The Lady in the center was busy laying out Arts and Crafts materials.

This Bar & Lounge is  very well laid out and comes with a small bandstand in the middle and a bar at the far end. To our utter amazement it was very quiet, maybe because it was a first night, but very unusual for a British Ship. But they had Craft beer on Tap, so I was a happy camper. So was her Ladyship as there was a large range of Gin brands to choose from.

The Crowsnest Bar. I have not yet figured out if the bar has a name but this is a “Half Model of the P&O passenger ship, the  ss Straithard, one of the three sister ships, which  maintained a regular intermediate service to Australia from Tilbury / London.

We have fixed sitting dinner this cruise, starting at 20.15 hrs. as this time makes it almost certain we will make the 2nd show at 22.15 hrs.  As not un-expected on a first night, First Sitting had run late and there was a long queue meandering through the Sports Bar, Casino and into the corridor. But once the doors opened, it went very fast. And so was the service. I hope that the waiters slow down a little bit in the coming days because this was not dining, it was just “Lunch break” eating. Three courses and Coffee/Tea and it was all over in  1 hrs. including the waiting time outside. The food came piping hot out of the kitchen, so there they must also there been working at a frantic space.

But it gave us time to back to the cabin to brush our teeth and then walk to the “Curzon” theatre in the bow of the ship. I estimate that it can take about 700 guests and was almost full when the show started. A very good revue show with a cast of 8 dancers and four dancers/singers.  The Cruise Director popped up to advise us that there was an hour forward and a sea-day tomorrow. We already knew that from the Daily Program and the card in the cabin but he confirmed it. With these sorts of announcements I understand that some company’s do not have the Cruise Director putting on & taking off the shows as it does not add anything to the evening.

So tomorrow we are at sea, heading full speed to Norway. Haagesund is going to be the first port and there is a chance that we have to tender. Weather looks very nice. Smooth seas, sunny and temperatures around 16oC / 61oF.

 

2026; July 15, Olden, Norway.

July 16, 2026 / / 2 Comments

The ms Sky Princess at the Olden cruise ship dock. Somehow it does not seem  right to have a towering white apartment building dominating the Fjordenland skyline. But easy for guests returning to the ship, you can not get lost.

This morning just before 8 am., we arrived in Olden, which is a large city compared to Skjolden as it has double the number of inhabitants. 500 against the 250 yesterday,. Also Olden is a much older cruise port, ships already used to go here in the 1920’s long before there was a cruise terminal, and even longer since they rebuilt / constructed the new dock here, which is nearly identical to the one in Skjolden and in a whole slew of other small places.  Because they have been in the cruise business for so much longer, the locals have built quite an infrastructure with more tours, hop on -hop off busses and the small “Tsjoek-tjsoek sightseeing trains. And instead of one souvenir shop, it has 5 in a row, straight across the dock, including one with more “posh”souvenir shop in the form of wood carvings, high quality paintings. soaps and fragrances. Bike rental was omni present and a bit further out, the local garage was also renting out quad bikes for the more adventurous.

The commercial centre of Olden:  A Supermarket and a large souvenir shop. The small town itself is just behind it.

The town itself is a 15 minute walk and the local authorities have created a dedicated path all the way to the town and in good planning it also leads past another large souvenir shop and the local super market. (same chain as yesterday). Normally you see in every port crew running ashore to the nearest supermarket to stock up on whatever they ran out of, but not in Norway. All are waiting for Southampton as the Sky Princess docks right opposite downtown Southampton and it is only a 10-15 minute walk to get there.  The prices are simply too high in Norway, England is not cheap for shopping but Norway is 3x dearer on some items.

Olden is much higher on the “tourist trap” ladder then Skjolden, and thus, yes, there was the Big red bus

We did our tourist duty and marched to “downtown” which consists out of a few shops, a small white church and a very large school which serves the entire district. And then we marched back again,  sort of in a formation, with a 1000 others. Olden is one of the best ports for tours in Norway and the coaches were rolling in and out in a very high tempo. The tours on Princess are quite expensive which is not much different to other cruise companies, all with a 100 to 150% mark-up. Right at the gangway (similar to what you see in Ketchikan and Juneau. Alaska) you can get it all much cheaper on the dock side, but you have to keep in the back of your mind to add extra time to your plans to ensure you get back the ship on time. The captain will wait for ships tours to return but not for individual escapades.  Like most companies, Princess sets up a refreshment stand near the gangway but this is the most elaborate one I have so far seen on all our cruises. It even  had the option for Bouillon. Favour of the day seemed to be chicken soup.  Two gangways out as usual made for a speedy return on board.

The Refreshment stand on the shore side. Cucumber Water, Citrus Water, Clear Ice Water, Hot Chocolate, Bouillon and Non ice water. Very impressed.

Back on board it was time to investigate the top decks of the ship where we had not been yet. Deck 16, called the Lido, has the self service restaurant with 2 pools, a hamburger bar and the ice cream stand but then there is also deck 17 and 18 as well. Below the radar mast is another pool, for adults only, and in front of that pool is “The Sanctuary”, which is  a separate area’s where you can rent cabana’s ($100 a day and deck stretchers at $ 25– a day). It comes with a concierge and a waiter. Because you have to pay for it, it is a tranquil area where you can roast in the sun without any noise from the rest of the ship. I think it is also a very nice place to sit during sightseeing in the fjords, Panama Canal and going to Kotor.

The Sanctuary on Deck 18 , nice and peaceful and under a Dome so also with inclement weather you can sit / lay outside.

Around the funnel uptake there is a very large fitness area with all the modern machines you can think of, a large class area and also an area for personal training lessons. Funny thing is that with this large area dedicated to health, when stepping outside you can inhale directly the cigarette fumes of the smoking section directly below. Good planning………………. Then a deck higher there is a basket ball court and what intrigued me very much, was a small golf putting green under the TV domes.

This is the small golf putting area under the two Domes. Great use of an otherwise neglected area.

This is the first ship that I see where the area under the Domes, which is really a wasted space, was put to good use by installing a small putting green. Here we also have the jogging track, as the ship has no wrap around deck under or behind the lifeboats. Older Princess ships still have them, but here the space between the bulkhead and the lifeboats is down to about 3 feet. That is enough for embarkation out of the lounges behind the bulkheads but not safe for regular walking. In front and behind the lifeboats the decks are nice and wide again, for sun loungers, but they do not wrap around. So walking around the funnel is the only option.

The Fitness area is quite large, but as the average age seems to be around 50, there are a lot of guests who want to work out. After a few days on board, I think that everybody would NEED to work out, but that is a different story.

Looking at all that torture equipment made us hungry, so a quick stop in the Concierge Lounge was needed for a few nibbles, and then we had another challenge on our hands. According to our Princess Premier package we were entitled to 2 special desserts. But it did not say what.  But our concierge Lady Dorothy, knew the answer, it was 2 special ice creams from the Gelato Bar.  Let me correct myself, here on board you are not allowed to call “Gelato’s” an ice cream. A Gelato is a Gelato and not an ice cream. Same as a Taco, is a taco and not an Mexican Gyro, even when you buy it in Greece. It turned out that this Gelato was  a “Coupe Grande” of about 12 inches high, which normally costs $17,– a piece. Listing to the magical names of “The Da Vinci”,  “The Godfather” and “The Michelangelo” etc. Small Gelato’s cost between $ 3,– and $ 6,–  Even with the cost price, there was a great demand for “real ice cream”, sorry “Gelato’s” instead of the free soft ice from deck 16. So we had our Gelato, and were instantly happy that we had not gone for a full lunch as it was very good, and extremely filling.

These are not ice creams, they are Gelato’s. The Godfather to the left, and the Leaning tower to the right. They should have been even more impressive with fruit and sticks on the top, but the “Gelato” lady was cutting corners a little bit as she tried to keep the pace up with serving.

Next adventure on the list was to visit the “Captains Circle Lounge”.  According to Princess PR speech “this is an Exclusive venue for Elite and Platinum Circle guests to meet your ships officers and fellow guests with drink offers, delectable delights and live entertainment.”

The guitar player and singer in the daily “Repeater party”.. We think it is very nice of Princess to pay so much attention to their loyal customers with offering a daily get-together. The official “Captain;s Circle party is on departure from Stavanger tomorrow during formal night.

Although is is our first cruise with Princess, we were somehow catapulted into the “Captains Circle”  Platinum one from the top due to our sailing dates with P&O, of which we have done about 10 since the 1990’s. When P&O/Princess split into P&O and Princess, two independent Brands, guests kept the same status in both company’s. Hence we are here repeat guests here as well. So it turned out that Princess opens up the Vista Lounge at the stern each afternoon at 1700 hrs. to their repeat guests. On seven day cruises / in port is was quiet, but on longer cruises / sea days, it is quite busy. Today there were about 50 people there, mainly interested in the nibbles (cheese and salad) and their phones. Drinks are not free, but most had a Drinks Package anyway. The singer from the Crown Bar provided background music. Meeting the officers consisted of the “Chief Financial Officer” being present and the Assistant Human Resources Officer. The latter made a direct beeline for us, as he recognised that the two of us  did not look like the normal crowd.  Ship people recognise each other everywhere. He was from Serbia, and had just flown in from the Diamond Princess in Japan, to fill a gap here. There must have been some planning panic in HR as Japan to Norway is a long flight and he was going home in 4 weeks time anyway. But having been in the business it all made sense to us.

Today it was not very well attended, and most of them present were more interested in their phones than meeting other Princess “Veterans” but they said that on sea days it was often a full house.

Time to change, and then we tried the Crown Bar for a second time. Last time we were hindered by the show in the Vista Lounge which ended during cocktail hours and about 500 people came marching out, but now this smaller show lounge was readied for the football game England against Argentina ( the show in the main theatre was brought forward to 17:30 and 19:30 to have that lounge available as well) so there was not much traffic.  Our favourite waitress Judith popped up again, and with the pianist playing all was well in the world.  With our Princess Premium package we were entitled to several speciality restaurants, and Lesley had pushed the button for “The Catch by Rudi” twice and as the time of 19.30 worked out for us, we went a second time. The ship had been advertising the venue on the App,  but when we got there it was still half empty. No way Rudi could compete with the football game.

Shrimp on the Rocks in stunning glass bowl.

So now we could try something else and I was intrigued by the starter “shrimp on the rocks”. It is devlishly difficult to do something with fresh shrimp and on nearly all the ships you see the same shrimp with similar red cocktail sauce. Also Rudi Sodamin could not come up with something better, but had compensated for this with an extraordinary glass cup filled with crushed ice.

The shrimp hanging from a steel hook above the plate.

Main Course again an intriguing inscription: Three S’s. platter, which was Shrimp, Salmon and Scallops.  I large shrimp, one filet of Norwegian Shrimp and 2 scallops, with Parmesan Fries. Nothing special in the food but again it was the presentation. We had again chosen / wriggled a table near the window, to be away from the Piazza side, which was a good thing, as they had a dance competition going and the crowd roared as loud as during a football match. And all the marble does not help. We were both wondering why Rudi’s outlet was in the atrium as Sabatini’s, the Italian was more forward away from the atrium and opposite the shops. It would have made more sense to have Rudi’s there was well and have had the shops in the Atrium as most of the other (Jewellery) shops were already there. The Sky Princess is a very nice ship but here and there one wonders about the new build planning.

After dinner we poked our nose into the Vista Lounge where the game had just started. Two pop-up drink outlets had been created at both entrances and a British Pub atmosphere started to develop in the lounge, as all was still well in the world with 0-0. While writing this, the next morning, we now know that England is out, and Argentina will go against Spain in the finals. The whole of England will be mourning today, with or without a hangover, but many business will be happy as the Government was planning to declare a National Holiday if England would win the World Cup. There is still a collective memory in the good about the Good Old Days of the 1966 world cup and now the hopes were dashed for another   4 years.

In case you are wondering if there is a Casino? Yes there is and it is a big one. We have not been there in the evening as we do not gamble and. we do not smoke.

We went to the liquor shop as Lesley as contemplating on buying more Gin, but the “tax free” prices are not really tax free, just a bit cheaper than ashore, and cannot compete with the prices on the Ferry to Holland. So we let it be. Although the shops are large, most of the stuff sold is the same as on the other ships. We are now in Norway, so there are trolls and Norwegian clothing (did not sell as we have the heatwave) and Russian lacquer work, including baboeska’s. I think the shop logic is, we are very close to Russia, so it will sell. We did not see much interest, and I think that most guests are waiting until Russia opens up again. We have a lot of Ukrainians on board, including Anna our head concierge, and they all say that the country is getting war-weary, but will not give up especially as the Ukraine seems to be turning the tables on Putin.  The Tourist people in Leningrad must be really hurting with all the ships now going to  Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Princess is even starting with home porting in Helsinki, so it can do more ports in 7 days, instead of losing a sea day going from Copenhagen to the Baltic Sea.

Photo shop on board on Deck 6 port side Atrium, everything is digital now but during day hours there is plenty of crew around to help out.

Tomorrow we are in Stavanger and we have a tour in the afternoon. The ship is to be docked by 10 am.  I did not see any other cruise ships scheduled, she will dock in the old port. That might be on the East side (so easy access to the Petroleum Museum) or on the west side with easy access to the old town. If it is the latter, I want to run ashore quickly to see if there are any new shipping books at the Maritime Museum which should be located opposite the stern of the ship.

Weather for tomorrow, Partly Cloudy with temperatures around 20oC / 70oF and a gentle breeze.  The weather people are all confused about what happened to their predicted heatwave.

 

2026 July 14; Skjolden, Norway.

July 15, 2026 / / 1 Comment

The ms Sky Princess towering over the small dock of Skjolden.

After sailing in for about 5 hours, to the end of Sognefjord, the Sky Princess docked at Skjolden.  A new pier was constructed here a few years ago and since then the big ships have started to call as well. When going ashore, we saw several First Call plaques in the Security Gate souvenir office. The ms Prinsendam from 2011 (when I was on leave), and then the Delfts Blue plates from the Koningsdam, Nieuw Statendam and Rotterdam (VII). The dock has been constructed just wide enough for any length cruise ship to be able to put two gangways ashore. Bow and Stern are sticking out and long mooring ropes go to bollards at the edge of the Fjord.   The town is about a 15 minute walk from the ship, which has about 250 or so inhabitants. Downtown is made up of a small Supermarket, the Skjolden Hotel and the Skjolden community center which is made up of a tourist shop, the tourist office,  a small museum,  a community hall and an indoor swimming pool. The latter being used by only 2 people when we were there.

The metropolis of Skjolden with most of the 250 peoples houses in the photo. The first row at the water, just above the curve in the road are Air bnb’s mainly occupied by the Dutch and the Belgians.

Skjolden calls itself “The Gateway to the Norwegian National Parks”, so this is primarily a shore excursion stop for the ship. With full day tours but also a 1 hour shuttle service to the nearest glacier. But a very large majority of the guests opted to march into town and in the case of our Japanese Groups on board, who once again were leading the invasion, to march straight through it as they did not realise that there was not really a downtown.  But the seemed to be impressed by the local bus top, as several took photos when having a seat inside. The route from the ship to the town, led along a number of holiday homes, which were occupied/rented by the Dutch and the Belgians, followed by the option to row in a real Viking boat, do some real Viking Axe throwing or go on a RIB speed boat adventure along the fjord. For the latter one everybody suited up in Survival Suits which for today was a bit over the top as the water was as flat as a mirror.

This is downtown Skjolden with the prominent hotel and visitor center to the left. Not visible but of equal importance the local Co-op shop.

Skjolden is famous for its Cinnamon buns. Sold in the port office and also along the walking road in the two restaurants. The man in the port office said that he baked each day, when there was a big ship in, 540 of them and he normally sold them all. Where the precise number of 540 came from, remained unclear, but maybe that was the maximum capacity of his oven. Interesting to see was also that the souvenir shops were manned by first time immigrants as the lady in port office shop did not look at all like a tall Norwegian Hilde but much more like a seductive Shehezarade.

Norwegians from around Skjolden,from around the turn of the century leaning against their home. Only  one looks like a Viking, the rest could have been from anywhere.

While in the little museum, looking at a wall of old photos which showed farmers living in small wooden farms, I suddenly realised that our (movie) perception of tall blonde Vikings was not exactly correct. Most of the farmers in the photos where not towering Vikings with blond hair and blue eyes, but of small and slender size and had black hair and brown eyes. Even the local family who operated the Co-op store in “downtown” were black haired.  Maybe the Viking imported a lot of Dark haired maidens from their raiding adventures down south, than they are given credit for. No doubt one day a scientist will do a large scale DNA test in the fjords and then find out that the Romans made it up to Skjolden as well.

The local Viking Boat, where against payment, you could row yourself (with 12 others) around the fjord.

So we marched to town and marched back again. We could not get lost as 2000+ of our guests were strung out along the same path as well. The bike rental man did a roaring trade. When we went towards town there were about a 100 bikes waiting, when we came back 1 hour later, they were all gone. He even rented out the option of having a baby box on wheels to be towed behind the bike. This is a safe area to bike as you only come across a few coaches on the road and some locals and tourists, so even if you bike on the wrong side of the road, the other road users are expecting it.

Back on board, we had to face the challenge of where to have lunch as we had not eaten for at least 3 hours and that is a dangerous situation for a cruise ship guest.

Pizza Alfredo. According to the Internet experts, Princess has the best pizza’s on the high seas. I am not an expert but they were very good and very fresh.

Flash back to yesterday. Yesterday with the whole ship ashore we went to Alfredo’s which is a  pizzeria on Deck 7 in the Atrium. Capacity is about a 100 guests but there were only 6 of us, the rest was ashore in Bergen. So good service and with the pizza’s freshly made and not on the conveyor belt system that is needed to keep up with a full house. Even the pizza chef was Italian (or at least he said so) so what else can you ask for ? With our on Board Princess Premium package drinks we can have included drinks up to $ 20,– a glass (with a maximum of 15 drinks a day) so we settled on a Merillo California Pinot Noir, or almost a Pinot Noir as it was slightly blended. It had to stand in for the Bet Gloss a real Pinot Noir, which was out of stock. Some Italian pizzeria’s are embarrassed to serve Hawaiian Pizza but not here, so I was a happy camper to  be able to order a Pizza Hawaiian. And it was excellent. Back to today.

So now today we decided to get some nibbles from our Concierge Lounge as we were not in the mood for a full sit down lunch. But the amount of nibbles and salads available is more then enough to consider it a full lunch. According to our lovely waitress Irma who had the lunch shift, there were never many people there on short cruises and in port, but during a crossing the Lounge was very well frequented.

The buffet in the Concierge Lounge with waitress Irma.

The problem with a buffet like this, even when small, but without anybody else milling around you end up going back a few times, so you still end up with a full meal. Especially if the breaded chicken sandwiches are so very good.  Plus free drinks and impeccable service one can easily while away the hours.

Her Ladyship taking full advantage of what was on offer.

What was missing on the buffet, a nice piece of cake (there were small chocolate cupcakes but not the bigger stuff) So an expedition to the “International Cafe” had to be made. Where they serve Pound Cake in three different versions.  Coffee is $ 5,— but included in our package.

The “International Cafe” on Deck 5.  This is a very quiet moment with only 3 customers inline for coffee. On a sea day I counted 5 waiters serving coffee and 4 bakers serving and re-supplying the sandwiches, cakes and buns.

Today the ship was much busier as the non-tour guests completed their visit to the metropolis of Skjolden in the same time frame as we did and then ran back to secure a stretcher in the sun.  The “World Fresh Market Place” (Lido) was busy and so was the “Salty Dog Grill”. This is the Hamburger Bar. We have not tried it yet but the portions looked very large. But we managed to get an soft ice cream as the crowd with “little Johnny’s” had mainly been replaced with a queue of old “Johnny’s but still eating soft ice.

Then it was back to investigate the ship.

…….to investigate the photo shop if our formal photos were in. You can check them all on the App and then download them, but Lesley has now made it a habit of checking them on the big screen, deleting the bad ones (the photographers post all of what they took) and then later download the good ones. On the big screen you can also mark those you really like and order hard copy’s. We are entitled to 3 hard copy’s with our package and we will make a selection on the one by last day. Unfortunately, for me, the ships photos are not included.

As we were curious, whether the Concierge Lounge was used in the evening for cocktails, we decided to go in at 17.30 hrs. when the free drinks started. and indeed about 10 people where there and a piano player, using the piano in the Wedding chapel, with the doors open towards the lounge.  Then we had a reservation for the general (one of 3) restaurant Cielo at 18.50 hrs. This one is located at the stern of the ship on deck 6. Making a reservation is necessary because of the vast numbers of guests on board. Even with reservations a line had built up.  Following the flow during dinner, it is better to go around 1930 hrs, when it became quieter. But then there is the chance you are late for the Show, which starts at 21.30 hrs. and the theatre doors close promptly.

The aft part of the Cielo Restaurant near the stern of the ship. We had the table for two on the left. For the rest we were surrounded by single ladies.

This was the first main dining room dinner that we did and it was sort of indifferent. The food was good but not special, the service was ok, but not very personable. Again due to time constraints as the staff is friendly enough. But in this case it served us well as we made it to the Theatre just after 9 pm. when the doors opened. And thus we could pick at seat that was up to satisfaction of my Lord & Master.

5 skies show, with the damsel in distress projected in the middle.

Tonight’s show was 5-skies. Something totally different than we have ever seen before. It was basically a computer program based show. The hero gamer had to complete five levels of the 5-skies game, to save a damsel in distress (A digital damsel). So the stage was  very futuristic in setup but the show was extremely good again. We got the show with an un-expected cameo by the captain, as he announced that the ship was gearing up for a medical evacuation. With the order for everybody to stay away from the balconies and no flash camera’s.  Normally  you do not have to announce this in the show theatre but there is always the chance that an important officer or team member is in the show and this is the best way to get them out. The ships crew has either walkie – talkies or beeper but have not progressed yet to beeper phones as I saw the hotel manager, during the day, constantly hunting for a phone each time his beeper went off.  I was impressed that when the captain made the announcement the whole  show stopped and then continued again as if nothing had happened. All music and lights just came back, the cast continued their routine without a glitch. I wonder if that was a built-in routine or the stage crew had been rehearsing it. When the all clear was given after the show by captain again, the same happened in the Atrium, Stop – announcement – Start and no hiccup. Very impressed.

During the medivac the ship was still in the outer reaches of the Sogne Fjord so it did not have to deviate to meet an helicopter somewhere. There would have been an helicopter station nearby as the pilots use helicopters all the time during inclement weather.

Tomorrow we are in Olden, which is located at the edge of the Fajeidtfjorden, which is a branch of the Innvikfjorden which is an inner arm of the Nordfjord system. That means another early morning for the captain for a sail in unless he delegates to the Staff Captain which under BRM navigation rules is nowadays allowed. Weather tomorrow, another sunny day with temperatures in the low 20oC / 68oC. The predicted 29oC/80oF heatwave is petering out quickly so we are having the most perfect cruise weather you can think of.

 

2026 July 13; Bergen, Norway.

July 14, 2026 / / 2 Comments

We did make it to the pilot station at 10.00, and saw the pilot boarding at 09.57. Always nice if you have a cabin in the midships and you recognize the sound of the pilot boat engine. I suppose that will stop when they go electric, but I do not know how good electric engines are versus diesel in bad weather. And they have a lot of that here in the dark winter. Many guests were on the balconies as it was a sunny day with no real wind and 16 knots of relative – ship generated wind- is not something that blows you from your balcony. And it is a scenic ride into town with all the posh houses on the fjords sides interspersed with some industrial activity.  Most of it linked to the North Sea oil exploration. Norway itself derives most of it power needs from White Water but it has large oil deposits and thus sells to the whole world. By 10 am. we were docked with the tranquility of the arrival being broken by announcements of the Cruise Director trying to keep everybody away from the gangway and out of the staircases. In all my years of sailing, I have never been able to figure out what is better: no announcements (so guests are not alerted to the option of going and line up at the gangway) or to make announcements and hope that the guests will listen (mostly they do not).  In port with us was my old ship the ms Maasdam now sailing for Ambassador Cruises as the ms Renaissance and serving the French Market. Later on the Hurtigruten ferry/ cruise ship the Vesteraalens came in. She is officially a mail boat and coastal ferry but a lot of the (few) cabins on board are snapped up by tourists. Especially the Germans as they are heavily focused on it.  Our ship was docked at the Jetkeviken dock, which is a container cargo dock but the regular cruise terminals are too small for a 330 meter long ship. It also means that the walk into downtown Bergen is about 10 minutes longer.

The ms Sky Princess approaching the dock. The terminal facing the sea is the one in use by the local ferries.

As expected, at least 3500 guests marched ashore, so that gave us ample opportunity to inspect and enjoy the ship.  We decided not to go ashore as after a 100+ visits or so, there is not much new to see.  On board we could see a lot more as now there was nobody milling in the way of all the public areas, even if some of them were closed. We even managed to get a free soft ice cream today. There is a complimentary stand on Deck 16 (There is also a Gelato ice cream bar on deck 7, but they charge a considerable amount for artisan Gelato) Yesterday we could not even get near, as there was a enormous pile up of little children in front of it, who were in deep focus on a triple soft ice fix.  (The way that works is, that little Johnny gets a soft ice, rejoins the line, moves through the line while eating the ice cream and is ready for the next one, when arriving at the counter again.)

The Internet Cafe on Deck 7 midships. It is somewhat hidden behind “Collections” which is the chocolate shop. the pocket book exchange is in the back. The two center computer stations have no chairs as they are meant for wheelchair users.

The next discovery was, hidden yesterday by a gaggle of guests who did not know where to go, was the Internet cafe. Complete with printer, so if you have to print out your airline tickets, you do not have to go to the front desk. Here we also found the pocket-book exchange. The ship does not have a library, according to face book, Princess cruises expects everybody to embrace the digital future. But for those who only reluctantly follow modern times, they open up one of the dining rooms for undisturbed reading. In the same way that “The Catch” by Rudi’s restaurant has a section where you can play games. It was only a small pocket book exchange, especially with having 4000 people on board but many might not have found it yet. The only other one I have discovered so far is the one our Concierge lounge but that is not accessible to most guests.

The “Celebration” candy and chocolate store. Although in port the shops were closed, 3 weary shop staff were busy refilling the shelves. Looking at the empty boxes coming out, this shop must be in high demand.

A thing that is more and more coming is the increase of candy and chocolate sales on board. Where a small candy stand was once part of the General Drugstore on board, now a small drugstore section is part of a much larger candy store. If you look at the photo, you see at the top left a read sign hanging from the ceiling: “Spend your on board credit here”. And yes this shop is ideal to get rid of any dollars still left on the account, amounts when not enough left to buy something bigger.

The “Take Five” Jazz Club lounge open everyday from 17,30 onwards.

Another quiet lounge in port is the “Take Five” jazz lounge on the port side, which has a resident Jazz band which plays every evening from 17.30 hrs. onwards. It does not suffer from the “marching crowds” on their way from one show lounge to the other, as it is wedged between  the ships theatre and the photo shop. Main reason is that less people come out of the Show lounge on the lower level and those that do seem to favour flowing / marching through the Casino, which is on the Starboard side. We have not visited  this lounge yet, as we only like old fashioned melodious jazz and are not fans of a Dizzy Gillespy “Glissando’s” going through the sound barrier.

A lonely table in the Piazza, but no goofy’s.

Then we wanted to see what the Cruise Staff did on port days so at noon time we moved to the Piazza for “Goofy Golf” only to find a lonely table but no “goofy’s'” around at all.   There was a cruise staff lady present but she was much more interested n chatting up the Sound Guy then assembling a gaggle of goofy’s to play golf.

But as there was hardly anybody there, I saw for the first time, the center piece sculpture in the lower sitting area.

A double headed bronze sculpture. Located in the lower level sitting area of the Atrium.

I can not tell what it is supposed to be as there was no name plate nearby. And that is a pity, there is a lot of art hanging around the ship but while the framed artwork in the staircases and the corridors all have name plates ( as have the photos in the cabins) the more elaborate art does not.

The art in cabin R604. A photo by a certain Greg S. depicting as shot of the house of Parliament in Budapest and an unknown painting without a description.

I am always very interested in art on board the ships, so I would love to know what this painting is called, who made it, and what it is supposed to mean. Here I can also say that Housekeeping is certainly not into art, as this painting is almost falling out of its frame as the glue around the edges has dried out. But checking that does not seem to be of “perfect cabin set-up” that most ships have.  (Princess has one, as I saw a new cabin steward checking his manual of where the toilet brush should stand. (Left of the toilet when looking in)

We decided to have cocktails on the balcony as it was a very pleasant temperature outside and if you pay for a balcony then you should use it when possible. Our cabin is entitled to canape’s before dinner and what I like is that you have to pre-order them the day before with a sort of Room-Service menu so you can choose out of 5 or  so options. It certainly saves wastage in case people are not in the cabin to eat them, or do not like them.

Then it was time for dinner and as part of our package we had “The Catch” by Rudi included.  We know Rudi Sodamin for a long time. My wife sailed with him in the 1980’s when he was sous chef on the Vistafjord and then for years he was involved with Holland America. That eventually led him to get married to a very rich Dutch Lady that he met during a ms Rotterdam world cruise and with whom he is now living in Monte Carlo. Now he has the “Sel de Mer” restaurants on the Holland America Line ships, “Rudi’s Sea Grill” on the Carnival Ships and “The Catch by Rudi” on the Princess ships.

The menu of “The Catch by Rudi’s” restaurant. The restaurant lay-out is nothing special and I could not get a photo of it, without anybody in it, as nowadays it is so difficult to take photos, especially if there are children in it.

The food was very good, with large portions (The jumbo shrimp looked like the size of a small lobster) and a nice wine list. Service was good, friendly but not very focused, as with the continuous resetting of the tables, it is just a restaurant like the others albeit, with a dedicated menu. Sel de Mer on Holland America started out as a real speciality restaurant with high quality waiters and then it was slowly but steadily was watered down with not so highly trained stewards and having too many guests at the same time for the waiters to serve properly. Here there was no shortage of waiters but they had to keep the pace going to keep it all under control. According  to repeat guests, Princess has been squeezing here  on the product with one full main course removed and the champagne served at the start “watered” down as it used to be in bigger glasses with fruit in the champagne.

This got us through to 22.00 hrs. so we had to skip the show which started at 21.30 hrs. This evening it was an acrobat duo, and her Ladyship prefers shows, so all was well in the world.  When coming back to the cabin, we had another surprise, the TV popped on and showed both our Mugshots on the screen as welcome back. I assume again due to his medallion sending out a signal ahead of our approach.

People who are vain, must love this product as one’s face keeps popping up everywhere.

Tomorrow we are in Skjolden in Sognefjord. And that is a new port for us. It used to be frequented by smaller cruise ships but in 2018 they put in a dock and now the big boys are calling as well. I am looking forward to see how a small town can be engulfed by 4000 invading tourists.

Weather for tomorrow:  Clear Skies, wind still (we are in fjord with steep cliffs on either side) and temperatures with a max. of 27oC / 80oF. so it should be very pleasant to walk to “downtown”.

 

 

 

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