Mich3554

This is DH’s favorite meal.

Northern Lights cruise has Norwegian cooking. There are 4 sea days, class offered 2 of them.

Just got on the Venus and the cooking classes were available under the excursions (they have changed the menu…..not for the better IMO. No need to go to guest services, I just reserved a spot on the TV.

We have 2 sea days when we leave Bergen. I’ll have to check out the TV to see when they show up.

I have yet to pay anything other than 6 months in advance on any cruise. Our first cruise, we took a trans Atlantic and booked it 3 months before sailing. We booked another on board, and since then have not paid any more than 6 months ahead.

I have found it faster to book these excursions on the TV instead of haunting guest services for when they drop. You can find them listed in EXCURSIONS on sea days. Never really noticed the restaurant lines, but we get on the Venus the day after tomorrow so will take note. It might be that we do not go anywhere near any restaurants when they open. Our sweet spot seems to be in the 7-7:30 range.

I called Viking with another question about the cruise about a week before we left. They told me we had been assigned a cabin then.

Yes, we docked there twice on the Neptune this past May/June.. There was construction going on though and we did not dock in the same location each time. I do know that one time there was one much larger cruise ship docked next to us.

I got a phone call yesterday letting me know that the WC dropped. Routing is the same as the past couple of years, I had hoped it would be different. We have a cabin tentatively booked. No decision yet.

We did a private excursion on an ATV. In Isafjordur when we went. The first time we did Viking’s excursion, and the guide was excellent. He took us to the top of the mountain, where there was supposed to be a spectacular view (or there was when he went up 2 hours earlier). In May, we hit rain, slept and snow on the way to the top, and it was totally socked in with fog. The private excursion, he took us waaay off the beaten track. Our 4 hour excursion was twice the time and half the cost, same guide. We had utterly spectacular weather.

We leave for Bergen tomorrow for this cruise. Hopefully we will be able to get out to the highway tomorrow morning to go to the airport. I have yet to be seasick, even on the trip out to the Great Barrier Reef last year when over half the ship was seasick. (I realized I just jinxed myself here!).

Berths are clearly marked at Galataport. Once you get to the port, there are signs directing you to Viking. It’s a huge facility, but very, very well marked.

Yes, I know. We had this app on the World Cruise, and I was talking to the chef about it. He was the one that told me it had a potato base. There is likely olive oil in it, and there is definitely garlic (which is why I wanted the recipe). IMO it was much better than other aiolis I have had, I wanted to take a bath in that stuff, it was so good. Now I’m kicking myself I didn’t get the recipe at the time!

Actually the garlic aioli (not sure if you can call it an aioli) is not oil based, but potato based. On the world cruise, I talked to the chef about it and he told me to come back and he’d give me the recipe. I forgot. But I do know it was posato based, not an oil emulsion. Soooo good.

Lobster risotto and the strip steak in Manfredi’s. Almond croissants in the Living Room. There was a scallop appetizer on the WC we had that I could have eaten the whole meal of it was so good. World Cafe makes a very good fried chicken, I normally don’t eat chicken fried, but I was all over this. They also do a good Mac and cheese.

I look at booking a cruise not unlike booking an airfare. Prices go up, prices go down. When I find a price I’m ok with, I book it and rarely look back. But I just did for the next few cruises we have booked. We leave in a week for Northern Lights. There is about a $200 difference between booking and now. After that, we leave from Bangkok to Vancouver. That cruise is now $8000 pp more than what we booked. Next year, the Australia circumnavigation is also $8000 pp than what we booked it.

You’d never know that there is a laundry room there if you didn’t see the sign for it. I’d stay in one of these rooms.

When we went in 2021 and in 2023, it was the same spot. I don’t remember the statue, sorry. The bus we were on just pointed out the shuttle drop off point. Since one trip we were on our way to Monserrat, another a seaside town, I didn’t pay too much attention to it. We had been to Barcelona pre covid in 2019, but there was a Catalan demonstration going on so no day in Barcelona. Viking docked there long enough to drop off passengers to take to the airport.

Barcelona, the shuttle drop off/pick up is at the statue at the top of Ramblas.

They still know where they are going after their current contract ends….at least the next 2 contracts.

People can only book beforehand how many reservations they are allowed. So someone in a PS cannot book Manfredi’s every night of a 14 night cruise, even if it was available. I do not get advanced reservations at any of the restaurants. We always eat where we want to eat, when we want to eat. Hell, I have a hard time planning dinner this week, I have no idea what I’ll want to eat 3 months from now! Usually, I’ll look at the menus in the morning and decide where i want to eat that day.

My only suggestion is to avoid the ATV excursion in Svelbard. It was a disappointment in that we took the road out of town a couple miles, turned around and came back. The ATV excursion we took in Isafjordur was much, much better. That one, he took us to the top of a mountain, and despite the fact it rained, sleeted and snowed all the way up, and the view was totally socked in by fog, it was much better.

If you are staying on board when others are getting off, you can pretty much do what you want. We usually use this time to do laundry, and go to breakfast later than usual to allow those that need to get off the time without us in the muck of things. We just try to stay out of the way. After others have departed, we then go out and do. In Bergen, we went out for a late lunch, to do some shopping and to find an ATM for local cash (most of the cruise was in Norway).

It needs to be complete, but that doesn’t mean that your number can’t change. I had to renew my passport before the WC. All the info was entered into my record. When I renewed my passport, I went in and changed the number.

We missed all the ports in Greenland due to ice in June. However, the weather in Iceland and Canada was spectacular. It was weird that we were there.while there was almost 24 hours of daylight, but despite losing several ports, it was a fantastic trip.