Norwegian Fjords July Sapphire Princess

I think I've finally worked out how to post pictures successfully so thought I would share some of our recent cruise.

We live in the north of England so spent two days travelling down to Southampton - I won't bore you with the details but we did stay the night before in Winchester which was considerably cheaper that Southampton and very convenient. We also spent the afternoon before the cruise at Marwell Zoo which I'd highly recommend if you had children to occupy in the area!

Saturday morning we drove the last 12 miles to Southampton, left the car with CPS parking at the terminal and checked in. It was our first time sailing from Southampton and it was very straightforward, the only difference to my other experiences (Dover, Barcelona and Copenhagen) was that security checks happened after you were called to board rather than as you entered the terminal which had been common previously.

about an hour after arrival boarding group 20 was called and we were heading through these doors and onto the ship

we'd been told not to go to the cabins on boarding but to wait for an announcement, and it was a little early for lunch so we wandered the ship

Eventually we grabbed some lunch and I had my first ice cream of the cruise!

we watched a little of the band playing for sailaway

At some point we unpacked (I have no photos of our inside cabin on deck 9 (Dolphin) but we were happy with the cabin, beds were very comfortable - our carpet hadn't been replaced which I think has happened in other cabins)

We attended muster in Club Fusion which took much longer than I have experienced on the other line we've sailed with, but when it did finally start it was thorough.

We then continued to explore the ship

and then ate dinner in the Savoy dining room

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We didn't fancy the magician that was on in the theatre so we had a couple of drinks after dinner and continued to explore

the first full day was a sea day, which was a good thing as unfortunately I was really quite unwell during the night - which meant we slept quite late (clocks went forward an hour too which didn't help!) and we had a lazy day doing nothing more than watching movies and eating!

we watched Dr Strange on MUTS in the afternoon and The Greatest Showman in the evening.

we both enjoyed the experience!

The pools were busy during the day and it was surprisingly warm

Although it was formal night we skipped dinner in the MDR ... I still wasn't feeling well, and just didn't want to make the effort.

It was cool seeing the set up and the people dressing up though ..

THANK YOU so much for posting these pictures. We are on the Sapphire in 54 days; can hardly wait!

THANK YOU so much for posting these pictures. We are on the Sapphire in 54 days; can hardly wait!

you're welcome :) there was so little in the way of up to date pictures when we sailed that was one of the reasons I thought I'd do the review.

I hope you enjoy your cruise, we did :)

our first port was Stavnager

We had no plans (this is often a reoccurring theme for us on a cruise!) and I knew we didn't want to hike pulpit rock! (sounded far too strenuous!). My cousin and his family used to live in Stavanger as he works for the oil industry and we ended up visiting the Petroleum museum which was really interesting and had some cool exhibits for adults and children. We also found a bakery so I could find the authentic version of schoolbread that they sell in the Norwegian pavilion at Walt Disney World's Epcot park. But when we got off the ship just before 9 it was still an hour till the shops and museums opened so we just wandered the town taking photos ...

we then grabbed a coffee in a lovely coffee shop - most people seemed to head for starbucks but this was so nice

The museum is near the dock

and you can get some good pictures of the ship from the other side

I also liked the art work around the town

and of course my schoolbread

very nice review, well broken up into readable posts

who goes to Starbucks??? - when you can go to a local coffee shop???

I took some pictures from the ship when we were back on board

we ate at the buffet again that evening and then thoroughly enjoyed the 80s Mixtape show in the theatre by the band Coyote

Following

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Great start !!

More please :)

Srpilo

Love it! I love the Sapphire. Looking forward to more.

Many thanks for your marvelous posting. It's a shame that you couldn't go to your cabin to dump your carry on baggage. I hope that this is not going to be the norm Princess, as we have to cart a lot of medical equipment on board and have previously always gone straight to our cabin to lose it and put our valuables in the safe. Yes sometimes the steward is still making up the room but that has never been a problem before. But hey ho, roll on Oct. for our cruise to the Canary islands.It will be our first time on the Saphire.

Thanks for posting, very informative. You managed to get onboard early then, what was your original boarding time? As I didn’t know whether it was okay to arrive early.

So the majority did dress up for formal nights then, did the gents wear dinner jackets?

Do you know if you can self disembark as we want to be off early as we are babysitting that day?

Thanks for any advice on above.

Thank you for taking the time to review! Looking forward to learning more about this cruise.

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Enjoyed your review. I was on the July 21 Norwegian Fjords Cruise.

Thanks for posting, very informative. You managed to get onboard early then, what was your original boarding time? As I didn’t know whether it was okay to arrive early. As a general rule...you can arrive at the dock anytime after 10. The email with suggested boarding times is a suggestion.

 

 

Do you know if you can self disembark as we want to be off early as we are babysitting that day? Yes. You have to be able to handle all of your luggage without any help. If you have too many suitcases for that, request the earliest time after self disembark.

 

Thanks for any advice on above.

See above.

Great start !!

 

 

More please :)

Srpilo

Thank you! nice to know people are reading and enjoying!

Many thanks for your marvelous posting. It's a shame that you couldn't go to your cabin to dump your carry on baggage. I hope that this is not going to be the norm Princess, as we have to cart a lot of medical equipment on board and have previously always gone straight to our cabin to lose it and put our valuables in the safe. Yes sometimes the steward is still making up the room but that has never been a problem before. But hey ho, roll on Oct. for our cruise to the Canary islands.It will be our first time on the Saphire.

when we checked in we received the following card

being completely honest with you it made little difference to me as I just had my handbag nothing else (although it was heavy-ish with ipad, kindle etc.

We never did hear the announcement that is referenced on the card and we wandered to the cabin and left our bags around 1pm

Thanks for posting, very informative. You managed to get onboard early then, what was your original boarding time? As I didn’t know whether it was okay to arrive early.

 

So the majority did dress up for formal nights then, did the gents wear dinner jackets?

 

Do you know if you can self disembark as we want to be off early as we are babysitting that day?

 

Thanks for any advice on above.

our boarding time was 1pm I think if I recall correctly. I wasn't sure how long the remaining drive would take me to the port and I can see from my photos we arrived at around 10.25am. I'd checked in and was going up the escalator to the waiting area at 10.34 and we were still sitting waiting at 11.30 but were on board by 12 noon.

Quite a lot of people did dress up for formal night but not all in dinner jackets. We ate at the buffet on the first formal night but on the second the man at the next table was wearing walking trousers and a fleece jacket so definitely NOT dressed up!

I don't know how early you want to be off. We did put our luggage outside the night before and had selected the 8.30-9am slot but there was an earlier independent slot of 7.30 if I recall. I was in my car driving out of the carpark by 8.55am

Thank you for taking the time to review! Looking forward to learning more about this cruise.

 

 

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thanks for letting me know you're reading, hope you enjoy the rest :)

Enjoyed your review. I was on the July 21 Norwegian Fjords Cruise.

that was the same cruise!! We really enjoyed it, hope you did too

The next day was Olden. We slept well, I often wake early but the combination of the inside cabin and the comfortable beds resulted in lots of sleep!!

We went upstairs to the buffet for breakfast and were greeted with this view

it was spectacular

Most people head to the Brikstal glacier when in Olden. We'd attended the destination guide talk in the Explorers Lounge the previous evening and they were at pains to stress that there was little to do in Olden itself.

We decided not to go to the glacier as we had seen the Loen Skylift advertised which looked really good. You could take a Princess excursion there but if I recall it was around 150 dollars each. We decided to do this ourselves. We could have booked online but didn't .. I would say if you knew you want to do this booking online will mean you don't need to queue at the port for tickets. As the weather had been forecast as rain we hadn't booked so waited in a queue for around 15 minutes to buy the tickets for the shuttle bus and sky lift. We paid 750 kroner each which was around £70 so around 90 dollars.

The bus picked up right at the quayside. It was clearly labelled for the skylift and picked up just behind the train you can see in this picture

it looked like this

it left every half hour to the skylift. The journey along the side of the fjord took around 10 minutes

we were dropped at a carpark next to this building on the left. It contained a shop, café and some toilets. Up the stairs you walked across the bridge to the lift itself

This was the view waiting for the skylft

just over 5 minutes later you're at the top!

If this works this is a time lapse video of the ascent