mac_tlc

Our current position: I wandered up to the WJ to grab a coffee at 6:30, lots of folks milling around..

We have begun the long trip to Geiranger. I got up around 5:30 . A few pictures of the early portion.

So, here are our plans in port: Geiranger - no set plans. We pick up the pilot at 5am, with arrival about 10am. From our aft balcony we hopefully will get a great view, weather permitting. I will set my alarm for 4:45. Sunrise is about 3:38am, sunset 11:26pm !!!!! Honninsvag - We arrive 6/21 at 3pm, we have a tour booked with Blue Puffin to go to the North Cape. We toyed with doing the 9:30pm one, but by the time I was willing to change it, there was no room so we are doing it at 3:30pm Sun is up all day!! We overnight in Honninsvag and depart 6/22 at 4pm. June 22nd is my birthday and it is also my wife’s birthday. Nice to celebrate it at the top of the world, well almost! Alesund — We booked a tour with aviator to tour around the area. About 4 hours as I recall. Flam — Gotta do the railway! This is the only tour we booked through Royal. I booked it awhile ago, before the train tickets were available for purchase on your own. We decided to just keep what we had. Includes a snack and visit the hotel at the top of the fjord. Olden — We booked the Loen Skylift, with transfers, through norwayexcursions.com . We plan on having lunch at the Hoven restaurant at the top. Looks cool. My son and DIL will probably disappear down some hiking trail at some point before we head back down. Molde — nothing booked here, hopefully an opportunity to just wander. Our excursions are heavily influenced by the need to bring the folding wheelchair along. Most of the excursions offered are not compatible with that. Since the attractions in Norway are the fjords and scenery, we will use our aft balcony a lot! This is our current location: And this is the current view off the starboard side: The ships horn is blowing about every 5-10 minutes. Next up: Geiranger ! mac_tlc

We are on the Jewel of the Seas now. Boarded yesterday. We walked up to Chops and asked if we could use the second BOGO on another night and she said no problem. We went to Chops last night and signed the slips for both nights at the same time. No hesitation on their part when we asked. mac_tlc

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there! Remember that all your efforts really make a difference to the youngsters !!! So, where are we ? Here: The North Sea is calm, a little cloudy but not too cold. Don’t need the blankets on the balcony ….. yet! Last nights dinner was at Chops. All four of us are D+, so we do the BOGO. INFO ALERT: It was no problem being able to use our second BOGO on another night. We asked when we made the reservation at Chops, got Giovanni’s on night 4. Just had to process the payment last night so we signed both meal slips. Excellent. We because my wife and I are already lamenting that the French onion soup is not available all nights, and we did not want to miss it on night 2. Some things have a disproportionate impact on us 😂😂🤪. Later today I will post on our plans in the 6 Norway ports! Thanks for following! mac_tlc

I was surprised at the size of the balcony, it wraps around a bit. On the deck plan it doesn’t appear to wrap around. Nice surprise. And the room is plenty big enough with the bed placement by the balcony. mac_tlc

For those keeping track, such as @wolfcathorse and @DELTABLUE :

So we have two aft balcony cabins on deck 7. A few pictures: The cabin shows it’s age in the furniture, such as the nightstands, closet doors an dresser. Lots of scratches, nicks, etc. However, it will be great to have an aft balcony sailing into the fjords. mac_tlc

We just got on Jewel, 340+ points, got three bottles of water and a six pack of coke. mac_tlc

Thanks! We stayed at the Hotel Jakarta. It was a reasonable price as where others such as Movenpick and Doubletree Central Station were very expensive, 300-400 euros and even higher as the date got close. We would definitely stay there again if the price was right. It is a little bit of a walk to the City Center, but close to cruise port.

We just flew from Newark to Amsterdam using A2S. Originally we were on SAS through Stockholm, leaving on 6/14 for our 6/17 cruise. On 6/13, SAS cancelled the flight and did not immediately rebook anything. I spoke with A2S four times on 6/13, to see about rebooking options and new seat assignments. Ultimately SAS put us on a SWISS flight through Zurich. I felt like A2S did what they could, but being 30 hours before departure the airline seemed to take control of seats, etc. In the end, it worked out and we leave on the Jewel today! mac_tlc

I just got on the Jewel in Amsterdam today. Let’s see if it’s all of Europe 😜. mac_tlc

And so it has….. The hotel was an easy 10 minute walk so my son and I brought five of the bags over at about 10:30 and gave them to the porter. We then went back to the hotel to get the remaining bags and remaining people 😜, and the wheelchair. We made a stop at the hotel bakery, which is wonderful, for a snack, then made our way back to the terminal. Check in was very quick, and by about 12:30 we were on board. We went up to the Wild Wild West Windjammer and circled it a few times before we could find a seat. I not a fan of the Windjammer, as I find the crowds and usual lack of seats “un-relaxing”. We haven’t been on a Radiance class ship since 2018 when we did the Brilliance TA, also from Amsterdam. Our last cruise was on the Celebrity Beyond, so the difference is great. But this trip is about the itinerary and we find the size of the Radiance class more manageable than Oasis class, and so far it appears to have only a few kids. Excursion, room and dining up next….. mac_tlc

And she is not alone: Looks like another beautiful day! mac_tlc

Had a great day In Amsterdam today! After our start at Pancakes Amsterdam, we got on the hop-on hop-off canal boat which we picked up near Centraal Station. It’s a grest way to see the city. I was a bit concerned about our golfing wheelchair, but it was doable with it—- not easy but doable. The steps onto the boat are very steep and not too big. Lugging it up and down was a challenge. Here are a few pix: We got off at Vondelpark for a nice walk through the park. When we got off at the end, we wandered around the city center for a bit and ended up at Molly Malone’s for dinner and few beverages: Nothing like a beverage and a platter of snacks in an Irish pub in the Netherlands! Tomorrow is embarkation day ! Can’t wait to wake up and see the Jewel of the Seas from our balcony! I may snap a picture or two. mac_tlc

A couple shots of the hotel this morning as we make our way to Pancakes Amsterdam near Central station.

When you get settled on the plane, you are given the dinner menu and also asked to fill out the breakfast menu: Breakfast The flight went well, actually slept a few hours. Our arrival in Zurich was at 11:30 local time, 5:30 body time. We had a connection in Zurich to Amsterdam and were somewhat concerned in having only 55 minutes—- especially having to wait for our wheelchair to be brought up the jetway since we gate check it. After about a 10 minute wait, a SWISS employee calls my name and tells me she will escort our group of 4 to a shuttle to get from a terminal E to terminal B, and get us through passport control 🛂. She was assisted by another gentleman and they were life savers. It was a long distance, with multiple elevators, a shuttle ride, cutting through passport control, and finally to Gate B5. Bravo to SWISS! And then of course our flight to Amsterdam was delayed 15 minutes, then we boarded, then another 15, then another, and another…. Finally took off about 65 minutes late—- they had an issue with some cargo that was loaded on the wrong plane..🙄🙄. Anyway we arrived in Amsterdam an hour or do late, finally got all 8 pieces of checked luggage and made our way to the arrivals area. Our driver from VIP Travel Services had called me to say he was about 15 minutes away as he was in heavy traffic. We met up, made our way to the van and we’re on our way. Amsterdam traffic was really heavy, especially around the center of the city where they began an “experiment “ this week by blocking off several streets. Now everyone has to divert around it. Sounded like it would last 6 weeks. Those heading here in that time period should be warned that the travel time may be longer to/from AMS. Finally reached out hotel about 5;00pm. Our room for the next two nights: Im tired… but a big touring day tomorrow ! mac_tlc

Welcome to Amsterdam! Here is a picture of the cruise terminal from our balcony . Can’t wait until Saturday when Jewel of the Seas will be parked there! Our flight on SWISS was very good. Everything was on time. Here are a few pictures of the business class section. We departed at 9:50pm and they immediately started dinner. I felt obligated to partake.

Thanks! Sitting here in Newark Airport waiting to head to the business class lounge in a bit. We booked the RCL transfers so that we had something. It’s a bit of a challenge —- we have four people, eight checked bags, three backpacks and a folding wheelchair. And the real possibility of another bag heading home filled with trinkets of Norway!!!! Maneuvering all that stuff is an adventure. We may change our mind once we get there. mac_tlc

Thanks for following. Ask away! I’ll try to answer any questions. mac_tlc

Thanks to all that are following along and the well wishes! So, after a slightly hectic day, we did get our new seat assignments for our flights today. Having the original flight cancelled the day before departure makes it a bit more challenging. A2S was helpful every time I called although given it was so close to flight day, I had to wait until check-in to get the seat assignments on the most important leg —— Newark to Zurich. So at 23 hrs before departure I hopped on the Swiss web site and completed the checkin. Just to make things a bit easier, earlier in the day I downloaded yet another airline app🙄 , and created an online account. Took about 10 minutes to complete and get acceptable seats. Looks like business class had only three open seats left. . We checked in as soon as possible on-line and have printed boarding passes in hand —- for this trip I need to feel the paper!! Our home in Amsterdam will be the Hotel Jakarta. It is a tad father from the city center that we would have wanted but the prices were CRAZY everywhere. It’s not too far from the pier though, not quite as close as the Movenpick as @RobInMN stated. We previously stayed at the Doubletree Central Station which is a very good location —- near port and near city center. However, the price was more than 3X what we paid in 2018. For our transportation from the airport, we booked a car with VIP Travel Services. I had read a good experience from @Love2Crews. Although they were a bit more than others, we will have four people, 8 bags and a folding wheelchair. Anything I can do to hopefully make it a bit easier to traverse the airport, which is pretty big, is worth it. At the end of the trip we booked transfers with Royal. Our flight is not until 2:10pm so time should not be an issue🤞. More on our shore excursions later …… mac_tlc

As I had mentioned, this cruise was originally for June 2022, and was booked pre-Covid. We were able to snag JS 1100 and the aft balcony cabin next to it. However, when we cancelled and rebooked for this year, prices were noticeably higher and the JS was just too steep. However we were able to get two adjacent aft balcony cabins on deck 7. We are really looking forward to being able to enjoy the sail in and out of the fjords from our balcony and have a great 180 degree plus view! We had similar aft cabins many moons ago when we went to Alaska and it was great. mac_tlc

Here is our cruise itinerary: We have an overnight in Honninsvag, which is interesting for two reasons: First, it is overnight on 6/21 —- the day of most daylight, the sun will not set at all! Second, the 22nd is my birthday —— and my wife’s birthday! What are the chances? ( actually it’s 1 in 365, or so). Should be fun! In the “you never know what is going to happen” department, I received an email from SAS this morning around 8:25 that our flight from Newark to Stockholm has been cancelled. 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳. The email said they would send another one when they have us rebooked. I was not in the mood to wait so I called A2S immediately. They had not yet received the “new” flights and recommended calling back when I received the email from SAS. About 11:00, For the heck of it, I checked the SAS app and our new flights showed up—- Newark to Zurich, Zurich to Amsterdam. New flights leave a few hours later tomorrow, which is fine, and gets into Amsterdam a few hours later, which is also fine — now our hotel room should be available. I called A2S back to check on the seat assignments, they were able to modify the ZRH to AMS leg and are awaiting info on the EWR to ZRH leg. They have been very good all day, and there is zero wait before someone picks up. As is often said on CC, always leave a day of two before your cruise for s@&@ to happen. More later on hotel, Amsterdam transportation, show excursions, etc . mac_tlc

It’s almost time to embark on our 12 night Arctic Circle cruise on the Jewel of the Seas! Originally, we were booked on this cruise last year, but we cancelled and rescheduled for this year. Traveling will be me, my DW, my DS and my DDIL. As long as the internet cooperates, I will try to answer any questions people may have. Some details: Cruise leaves this Saturday, but we fly from Newark to Amsterdam tomorrow (Wednesday) and will stay n Amsterdam two nights pre-cruise. We are in central CT, will rent a minivan one-way to EWR today and drive down tomorrow. There are lots of different ways to get from CT to EWR, none of them particularly inviting. Final decision will be made tomorrow when I pull out of the driveway depending on what the traffic looks like. Flights were booked through Air2Sea in business class. At the time we booked them, prices were half of what the airlines were charging for a direct booking. Plus payment was not due until final cruise payment. We are flying SAS from Newark to Stockholm, then Stockholm to Amsterdam. Today is final packing day and picking up the minivan. More details to follow!! mac_tlc

Really enjoy following along. Pictures are amazing. We head out on the Jewel next Saturday to Geirnager, Honninsvag (overnight), Alesund, Flam, Olden, and Molde. I plan on doing a live-ish review that will probably start on Monday and will definitely report on the status of the Caesar salad!!! I hope the internet cooperates. mac_tlc