TrumpyNor

Dear newfound friend! And at difficult and troubled incidents like that , after taken care of the problem, it is important to again turn your focus to the amazing memories you have been making over the last few weeks. And scroll through all these amazing photos and only remeber the good times! 🩷 I am already looking forward to hopefully meeting you again on a cruise in a not too distant future!

Hi. I hope you can get off the ship soon, as this extremely slow gangway situation is totally ridiculous.... We are currently sitting on the pooldeck watching live on our mobiles a world championship womens soccer match between Norway and Japan, so didn't plan on going ashore until that match is finished anyway. Wishing you a nice day ashore and look forward to meeting you in person tomorrow! PS: I have been looking for your "Tromsø review" from yesterday, but couldn't find it....

Thankfully we have not come across very many awful waiters, but whenever we did, we have on occations asked the Matre D' to please change the waiter, especially if the constant bad service has occured in one of the speciality restaurants.

@YVRteacher Welcome to Tromsø!!! Yes, I did what I could about the weather and managed to improve it quite a bit from the originally overcast and rainy weather forecast. 🤩

They are a "subspecie" of the regular reindeer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_reindeer

@YVRteacher Did you notice that the Svalbard reindeers looked very different from the reindeers you saw in Honningsvåg? They are more "adapted to their climate" in Svalbard, with shorter legs and thicker fur...

I eat meat, but one of my favorites at Moderno is actually the grilled pineapple with cinnamon - it is simply delicious (plus it is warm....).

Just make a reservation for 8 persons, they have several high chairs for toddlers that can be added to your table, no need to ask for that until you are on the ship. Just be aware that when booking restaurants in advance, the booking system at NCL doesn't allow you to book the same restaurant twice in advance (when on board you can book the same venue as many times as you like, as long as there are tables available). So in case you want to dine at the same speciality restaurant more than once, have someone else book the second night for the whole group.

@YVRteacher There is a supermarket chain in Tromsø called Eurospar where they sell slices of that particular cake (small plastic containers with two or three slices), with the name "Verdens Beste" written on the label. They do have one store in the city centre.

And this is how to make it yourself..... 😉 https://outside-oslo.com/kvaefjordkake/

The "giraffe can" contains brewer's yeast and the product in the middle on the left is cane sugar. 😊

@YVRteacher Your live review is actually one of the best I have read, as it contains of so much detailed information plus fantastic photos from the various ports! Looking forward to getting on board for the next leg in Tromsø, but must admit that I am now a little worried about the food on board. Luckily we have a total of 6 speciality restaurants on our 11 days cruise, so I am guessing that the other 5 evenings we will just have dinner in the Asian complimentary restaurant or O'Sheehans - so definitely trying to stay away for the MDRs..... We have done two previous cruises with the Star (12 days and 14 days), and they were both fantastic and the food was perfectly fine everywhere on board, and the service great. But that was back in 2015 and 2019 - so something must have happened since then.... 🤔

@YVRteacher Just wanted to wish you a great cruise from Reykjavik to Tromsø, and sincerely hope that you will be feeling better very soon! Looking forward to meeting you in person in a couple of weeks!

THANK YOU!!!! Just tried it and that worked perfectly from Norway, both on my phone and on my pc.

Yes, we always pack white clothing for the glow party (it used to be called White Hot Party "back in the day".... )

I haven't done it myself, but I simply can not see why you could not fill (and pay for) two bags on the day of the laundry special offer. You may however have to ask your room steward for an extra bag, as there often is only one laundry bag in the cabin (usually on the top shelf in the closet). But if you are rolling your clothing tight before carefully placing it inside the laundry bag, it is actually amazing how much clohting that can fit in to that bag. Plus, if your cruise is longer than 7 days then it is very likely that the laundry special will be offered twice....

Aa you actually said JULY 15th in your post, I assumed that you were talking about next year....

My quote was regarding the Isafjordur pier for July/August 2023! So the extension of the pier will definitely be ready for cruises summer 2024....

The below quote is part of an e-mail a friend of mine received from the Isafjordur port authorities in June 2023, regarding the Star and if we would be docked or anchored on our cruise next month: Quote: Subject: RE: Dock V Tender Greetings from Isafjordur We had Norwegian Star here yesterday and then they used tenders. There is, however, an ongoing project right now to make the pier accessible (deap enough) for larger ships. We hope that this will be completed now in July, so there is a chance that your ship could be able to dock. End of quote.

Another thing to consider: There were NCL cruises that were supposed to have Greenland on their itinerary for the summer of 2023, where the Greenland ports were removed from the itinerary without any explanation other than an e-mail a few months ago (but before final payment date) that just said "Due to newly imposed vessel restrictions in Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland, the itinerary has been revised as follows" - and then instead of 4 ports in Iceland and 2 ports in Greenland listed on the itinerary, we now have a total of 6 ports in Iceland. We chose to not cancel the cruise as we also appreciate to truely explore Iceland through all of those six ports.

It is the port authorities in each port who decides if a ship can dock or need to anchor with tender, and sometimes this information is released to the cruise lines rather late (it all depends on size of the pier, size of the ship, how many ships the same day, etc). I am booked on a cruise from Southampton to Iceland on the Star next month, and we have a total of 5 tender ports on our itinerary and Lerwick in the Shetland is actually one of them. The other 4 are very small ports in Iceland where (allthough only confirmed as tender ports 3 weeks before sailing) in my opinion it should have been expected that a large cruise ship would not be able to dock in those specific ports.

For doing the online check-in you need headshot photos in colour with a "calm back-ground", no glasses on, plus passport information, credit card for onboard expenses and name/tel. for emergency contacts. The benefit of checking in early is that you normally have to choose an arrival time at the pier, and the later you wait to do the online check-in the later will the arrival times to choose from be.

I believe that it is among the "Latitude Welcome Back pack" that Latitude Gold members get, similar to Platinum and above getting a "free laundry" coupon amongst the other coupons in their "Welcome Back pack".

PLUS many of the "light, modern fabric" fashion clothing would not "survive" in a tumble dryer, not even on a "mild cycle".

It is strange that you only get gty cabins available in those two categories. I just tried to do a mock booking through an American cruise website (as I am in Europe I can not access the US version of ncl.com), and for balcony cabins it showed in addition to ONE GTY cabin PLUS 14 balcony cabins available in category BA (4 cabins on deck 9 and 11 on deck 10). Yes, the rates are veeeery high - could be because the ship is close to fully booked already. When it comes to Club balcony cabins, the same webpage shows 39 category MA available on deck 11 and 1 category MB on deck 11. So not GTY categories.... But yes - also very expensive (actually price for a regular balcony is almost the same as for a club balcony). I have booked a similar cruise on the Dawn for August 2024, but have only booked an inside cabin because of the high rates for balcony cabins. Plan on bidding on a balcony cabin when the "upgrade advantage program" opens closer to sailing date, but I am fine with staying where I am as well.