A Long Tiring Day

  We arrived in England early this morning. When we were checking in in Toronto, the kiosk would not print our boarding passes because “something was wrong”. This was the first time that have not been able to do this. Turns out that the problem was that the name on the reservation was not the same as on Judy's passport. The reservation was made with here middle name but her passport does not show it. We need to be sure of this in the future.

   The flight to England was under 7 hours which was about 6 hours to long. We were jammed in as usual but our seats backed on a bulkhead which meant we had about 1 inch of lay back room. The they did not come around with more wine! Flying is getting more uncomfortable all the time. We cleared immigration in an hour. We thought that we would never get out of that airport. The bus had to pick up passengers at 2 other terminals.

The transport from the airport to the ship took 2 hours. We were among the first to arrive and quickly checked it. Princess had an “Elite” lounge set up with drinks and fresh baked goods. The ship started boarding shortly before noon. Having been up all night we were tired but glad we had finally arrived.

   We lunched in the dining room with a couple from Australia and one from England. Both were well traveled cruisers. One had been to the fjords a couple of times and it was good to hear first hand from someone who had already been there. A walk around the sunny deck and a small nap before the life jacket drill followed in quick order. Luggage was in our room by the time we got back. Clothes were put away before the emergency drill. We fought the need to sleep all day! The sailaway party was a bit of a bust!

On Deck

   Our assigned dinner time is 8 pm. We arrived first and immediately asked for a new table. We requested a table of 10 and ended at one with 4. We saw the head waiter and changed to a table of 6. One couple is from Australia and the other is from England.

  There are 1400 British, 900 Americans and 300 Canadians. A good mix! We attended the welcome aboard show with a comedian. He did about 50 minutes and had some good lines. Judy remembers him from a previous cruise. Finally we can get some sleep. Tomorrow is a sea day followed by formal night. We should be able to get our energy back before our first port. A long tiring day comes to an end.

Midnight Sun and Summer Solstice

    Norway here we come. It has been almost a year since our last cruise. We just didn't find something we liked. In any case after the wonderful time in Florida this past winter, we are headed back to the Princess cruise line. The “Midnight Sun And Summer Solstice” cruise heads to Norway, a destination that has been on our list of places for a long time. We have been to Norway before but the ports have all been in the south. This time we are headed along the entire coast right up to the North Cape stopping in many fjords along the way. The writer of the cruise article in the local paper noted that Norway is like Alaska in beauty. We think it will be better because the ports requiring sailing into many fjords. There are 11 stops on the 14 day cruise.

The added bonus on this cruise is that we will be farther north than we have ever been as the map shows. At this time of year we will be getting extended hours of sunlight – hence the “Midnight Sun and summer solstice cruise title. Sunrise will be around 4 am and sunset around 11pm in the southern part of the cruise. As we get near the North Cape we should have 4 days of 24 hours of sunlight. It should be an interesting experience. The map with Greenland and Norway shows just how far north we will be!

    We are sailing on the Crown Princess which is similar to most of the big Princess ships. It will be our 4^th time on the Crown. We are on Aloha deck about mid ships  This is an "upgrade" - part of the package that we booked. The ship does have the International Cafe, the small food bar in the atrium which is where we like to go for daily tea and small meals .

    As the map shows, we sail and return from Southampton England.

Ship Schedule

North Of Iceland!

We have booked four ship tours. After doing the research on all the stops we have a good balance between exploring the ports on our own and the ship's offerings. We have booked hiking to the top of a fjord, going to North Cape at the top of Norway, driving through the Lofoten Islands; going through a fjord to a waterfall. We have also booked a bike tour in one port. The bike tour is only 7 kilometres each way but then we hike to a waterfall. I think we have a nice balance planned if the rain holds.
Being on the west coast next to mountains means that we can expect to use our wet weather gear often!

 We stayed in Toronto last night. We leave early Friday afternoon from Toronto arriving in London at 6:30 am. The overnight time change routine.
    We are ready to enjoy the perks of being “Elite” on Princess.  It means free laundry, on board credits and prepaid gratuities! Anyone that has cruised will appreciate the free laundry luxury. It means that you do not need to pack as many clothes. The mini bar, free internet (basically) and wine tasting are also nice.

        At the bottom of each post is a small icon that looks like an envelop. If you open it, you should be able to send us an email directly to my gmail address from the post. If you have a gmail account I think that you can leave a message on the blog. A simple email will also do it. The “free” internet means that we have time to look at emails. Because of where we are in Europe, we "should" have good internet service. It is always nice to read the comments of people interested in our travels.
    More Later!