Live from the Konigsdam - 14 day Northern Isles

Enjoying your review & pictures. Thank you for sharing your cruise with us.

Have really enjoyed your review. Will be in the Koningsdam in 2018. Are you thoroughly enjoying the ship? Any hidden gems on board we need to know about?

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Have really enjoyed your review. Will be in the Koningsdam in 2018. Are you thoroughly enjoying the ship? Any hidden gems on board we need to know about?

 

 

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I have a lot of pictures of the ship which I'll post on our at sea day tomorrow.

Gelato near the pool is really good small additional charge, and Christian who works there most of the time is fun and efficient.

Grand Dutch Cafe if you're having trouble with the coffee in the Lido. They make a nice latte, and both of the gentlemen who work there regularly are well travelled and have good advice on what to see.

We asked ahead of time to be assigned to a window table on our early seating, and were told that they would put in the request but couldn't guarantee anything. We arrived the first night and found that we were assigned to a beautiful table for two next to the window looking out the back of the ship and that has been really wonderful.

The crows nest is a nice place to find a quiet spot and read.

We did the obligatory tourist trap the Blue Lagoon yesterday. It's touristy and cheesy and we still had fun and enjoyed it. We left the pool a bit early to walk the path through the lava and outlet pools etc which was also neat.

When we got back from the Blue Lagoon (9:00 - 12:00) we went directly to the shuttle into town and walked up to see the church on the hill as well as do some shopping. We had coffee and sweets in a little cafe at an outdoor table. Everything was extremely expensive - the Kroner (sp?) is very strong right now, but hey it's vacation!

We also walked along the path at the waterfront to take a photo of the sculpture and enjoy the gorgeous weather. A quick shuttle back to the ship for sail away. Here are a few pics of Reykjavik.

Grand Dutch Cafe if you're having trouble with the coffee in the Lido. They make a nice latte, and both of the gentlemen who work there regularly are well travelled and have good advice on what to see.

The Grand Dutch Cafe has fantastic Dutch Apple pie and cream. Nearly became a daily afternoon requirement!

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I'm enjoying your review and pictures.

Thank you.

Looking forward to more.

I am enjoying your review and pictures.

Glad you were able to get a table for 2 by the windows.

Gelato near the pool is really good small additional charge, and Christian who works there most of the time is fun and efficient.

 

The crows nest is a nice place to find a quiet spot and read.

We also walked along the path at the waterfront to take a photo of the sculpture and enjoy the gorgeous weather. A quick shuttle back to the ship for sail away. Here are a few pics of Reykjavik.

 

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I can confirm the assessment of the gelato and the Crow's Nest. I had the most delicious chocolate gelato cone one day.

And, the Crow's Nest...my absolute favorite place on the ship. Later in the evening they turn down the lights and it's just a great place to unwind. At this time there are few people there as many people are busy with the shows, casino, etc. I took my book and went up there quite a few evenings.

I was reading your blog. So happy for you that you got to go into the church in Reykjavik. We were there on a Sunday and weren't allowed into the church proper as there was a service being conducted.

I am a day behind on my updates but we are at sea tomorrow so I'll catch up then.

At Isafjordur we took a tour of the Dynjandi waterfall as well as Sudureyri a small fishing village.

Isafjordur is also a tender location and things went much more smoothly here than they had in South Queensferry. They used only lifeboats to tender but it was calm water and a short trip.

The guide on our tour - Petur was fantastic. He was originally from the area, and although he is attending university in Reykjavik and only lives here in the summer now, he had all of the local information and history to make it a really excellent tour. Isafjordur is spectacularly beautiful and we enjoyed our bus ride through the mountains almost as much as the stops.

Here are a few photos from the ship, the bus, and the waterfall - Dynjandi.

The fishing village was interesting and beautiful in it's own right. I thought that the tour of the fish factory wasn't really a highlight, but it did help to understand the tiny town.

We really enjoyed the day and this area of Iceland, the landscape and the beauty are really indescribable.

I am really enjoying your review and pictures.

Super review and photos, thank you.

Very good to get the table by the window........enjoy.

Super review. Great fun to read and enjoy. Pictures are marvelous. Thanks for all the work putting it together.

Much appreciated.

Good gelato ... great to hear!

Is there included ice cream available anywhere?

Good gelato ... great to hear!

 

Is there included ice cream available anywhere?

I think that you can get ice cream in the Lido and it's on the dessert menu every night for dinner but honestly it pales in comparison the the Gelato.

We visited our last port in Iceland yesterday Akureyri. This is the 4th largest city in Iceland but they appear to have a fairly active shipping industry so they had a port large enough for us to dock. We took a tour to see the Botanical Gardens, Godafoss (a waterfall), and the Laufas a historical farm with turf houses and a beautiful church. As we found in the other Icelandic ports, the guides were local, very knowledgeable, and the tours were organized and well run. We enjoyed all aspects of this tour although the waterfall wasn't as impressive as the previous 2 that we visited, it was very pretty and you parked at the top so the less mobile folks on the tour were able to view it from the top which was nice.

We also got up close to an Icelandic horse at the farm which was nice since we had seen so many from the fields as we drive. Here are a few photos from our day.

Thank you for your update.

Thank you for sharing your cruise with us.

I am very curious to know, once you get there, if while cruising the fjords, does HAL provide any narration or interpretation of what you're sailing by? Thanks! looks wonderful!

Your pictures are wonderful! Looking forward to your pictures of the ship.

Jane

I am very curious to know' date=' once you get there, if while cruising the fjords, does HAL provide any narration or interpretation of what you're sailing by? Thanks! looks wonderful![/quote']

 

Yes there was narration on the outside decks and in the Explorations Cafe/Crows nest which turned out to be a great place to see the views. Unfortunately a thick fog rolled in shortly after we started our scenic cruising and they called off the narration because all you could see was fog.

Quick review on the Pinnacle - We were getting back late from our excursion in Alesund yesterday so we reserved at the Pinnacle. I had let my wine steward in the MDR know that I was doing so and he made sure that the wine I asked for was available in the Pinnacle. We were given a treat from the chef to start which was Escargot in a tiny espresso type of cup in a few spoonfuls of sauce/soup. I had the opportunity to try Escargot in Paris and didn't so I tried it here, and it was delicious, and the soup/sauce was like a fantastic chowder.

We then had the crab cakes and shrimp cocktail for appetizers, both of which were very good. The cocktail sauce with the shrimp cocktail was excellent and everything about the crabcakes was good.

We had a strip steak and a petite filet for dinner with baked potatoes and creamed spinach. The steaks were perfectly cooked to the temperature that we requested, they were very flavorful and really didn't need the accompanying sauces but they were very good so we tried them as well. Baked potatoes were served with all of the usual accompaniments and the creamed spinach was tasty but barely warm.

Dessert was Gelato (that's the ice cream at the Pinnacle) and the volcano cake, both of which were excellent.

The atmosphere was intimate, quiet, and very nice. We decided that it was well worth the up charge once per cruise to try a specialty restaurant and we enjoyed the Pinnacle very much.

Just got caught up on your review.

Wonderful reporting and the pictures are great.

Alesund Norway -

Our day in Alesund was a fairly gray and overcast day so the photos won't be great. We took the excursion to see the troll wall and the troll path.

First of all many of the crew told us that Alesund and Bergen Norway are nice cities to just walk around, and since we had already booked full day tours, we just didn't have time to do that.

Photo of Alesund from the ship-

In Alesund we took the full day troll path and troll wall tour. The scenery in Norway is beautiful. We saw so many waterfalls as we drive that were different and really interesting. Here are some photos of the fjords and countryside along the way -

We found the troll path to be really amazing. You climb up to it from the less steep side of the mountain in a slower climb so it's surprising when you get there how high you really are. When you get to the troll path there is a large parking lot and a gift shop and a cafe which had good coffee/latte etc... but we headed out on the path first.

You go our on a manmade walkway, paved in concrete, with viewing areas extended over the falls and mountain. It's easy to navigate and not steep. Anyone can walk out on it, and we even saw a few wheelchairs on the closest overlook. Looking down at the road that we would travel to get to the bottom in the bus was pretty cool.

This is a photo where you can see the walkway on the far right

And one looking down at the road we would soon drive down, from the top. Imagine getting a huge buss down this

We left the troll path down the hairpin turns to the bottom and then travelled on to the Troll Wall - an internationally known climbing location. It was very hard to understand the scale from the bottom, but it was interesting to see it, and right across the mountain that they call the Norwegian Matterhorn because of it's shape.

We returned to the ship by 6:30. It was a full day, and the tour was well run, but we wished that we had been able to spend a little time in town as well.

Bergen Norway -

We did another full day tour in Bergen - arriving in port by around 7:00 AM and heading off by 8:45.

Photo of Bergen from the ship -

This tour had very similar scenery as the tour in Alesund but it was a bright sunny day and the addition of the old wooden church from the 1700s and the ferry crossing of a fjord made it just different enough that it was still enjoyable.

We left the ship and headed out of Bergen through the town, which is a thriving university town with loads of cafes and stores and bars. It's also a very large center where people work day to day, and we would pass some of the areas where they love and commute from on the way out of town. Since it's on a fjord you either need to live a close distance away near the part of the fjord where Bergen is located or in a town where there is a railway that crosses the fjord instead of having to go around.

If you are up early enough it's interesting to see the large bridge that the ship crosses under on the way into the town.

We started off along Fusafjor and eventually got to a really cute little port where we waited for the ferry -

After crossing the fjord on a ferry that had restroom facilities, we almost immediately stopped again at a restroom in a gas station to accommodate additional people going to the rest room who chose not to use the one on the ferry. This would become a theme through the day. We had a rookie bus driver and a fairly new guide and they didn't really have the tour under control. We were running so late that when we finally got to the waterfall towards the end we had only a few minutes to spend there.

After about 30 minutes at the restroom stop be headed to a beautiful wooden church from the 1700s. Unique because many of these churches were destroyed. The woman speaking at the church knew a lot about the history of the church and was very interesting.

After the church we headed off to another bathroom stop. Our lunch stop was about an hour away but yet we spend almost 45 minutes at this stop waiting for the bus who arrived before us, and then our bus to use the 2 restrooms that were there.

We headed off along Hardangerfjord which was beautiful and large and had beautiful scenery all along the shores. We passed many little villages and orchards and other scenic areas. Many of these are vacation areas for the people of Bergen.

We arrived at a well developed resort town on the fjord and had lunch at a hotel. They had a good hot and cold buffet set out, they had everything very well organized and you could self service everything including beverages. We spent an hour at this stop. We could probably have made up some time here since almost the entire group was waiting by the bus for the last 10-15 minutes.

Here are some photos from that resort

We moved on from the fjord to get to the waterfall but by the time we got there we had 15 minutes to spend there and so most people didn't have time to make the climb up to walk behind the waterfall which was the unique thing about this waterfall. We ran up to the top and back down and then had to get back on the bus.

Here's a photo of the waterfall

We got back to the ship at 5:00, a half hour after the all aboard. It was formal night so for those who had the early seating 5:15, it was very tough to get dressed in formal wear and make it to dinner on time.

We did get to dinner and had lobster and filet which were both well cooked and flavorful. The desserts were also really good.

Thanks for your wonderful report and photos. Good to know you enjoyed your cruise and Koningsdam.

We will board her next week a 1 week Norway cruise.

In Alesund we have rented a car and will drive to Trollstigen ourselves in order to have as much stops or time as we want.

Looking forward to that.

Have a safe trip home.