Live from the Konigsdam - 14 day Northern Isles

[kenevenpar]

Thank you for sharing! We have not yet had the pleasure of sailing her; am enjoying learning. I forgot that I had read she has the wrap around promenade, very nice!

 

Ken

[erewhon]

Thank you for your update.

[Alaskafitzway]

Thanks for posting! We will be in 6148 in October. If you meet your neighbors in there, maybe they will let you see it? It's an accessible room, and you never see pics of them. Be our first time on HAL...we usually cruise Celebrity. Enjoy!

 

Jane

 

Jane - I hope that you have a wonderful time. 6148 is on the other side of the ship. even on one side odd on the other.

[Alaskafitzway]

Yesterday was our first day in Edinburgh. We tendered into South Queens Ferry early before our Edinburgh highlights and Castle Tour.

 

We really enjoyed the quaint little town of South Queens Ferry. We stopped into a little coffee and sweets shop called Once Upon a Time and had coffee and scones and toffee cake. The owner and the customers couldn't have been nicer and they told us about their little town and asked us lots of questions as well. They did take credit cards over a certain minimum which we met with our little snack. We walked the little town a bit and then headed off for our tour.

 

The "highlights" part of the Edinburgh tour consisted of sitting in traffic mostly in different parts of town with the tour guide talking. Since it was very warm by Scotland standards, the bus was very very warm and stuffy to the point where they couldn't cool it off so we were happy to leave it finally at the castle. The castle was interesting, the views from the castle were spectacular. It's high above the city of Edinburgh and you have views in most directions. Take a camera.

 

We walked down into town after the castle and found that many of the little cafes along the area where the buses pick up either were too slow for us to grab a quick bite or did not take credit cards/Euro/US Dollars so you had to have local currency. We did find a little place called The Hub which was quick and gladly accepted credit cards.

 

The bus ride back was much the same as the ride there, through different parts of town but mostly spent sitting in traffic.

 

When we got back to the ship it was 6:00 and they had already given away our table from early seating (starts at 5:30). We asked to sit at least in the same section as our crew but that was also full. The dining room was almost empty though so we were seated in a different area and Yanto was our waiter. He recognized the city where we are from and immediately started talking football with my husband. It was a nice dinner, Prime Rib, and actually better than dinner from Formal Night.

 

Off to the Troussachs today.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thanks for the updates.

That is strange that the Lido had lobster but not the dining room.

[Lady Jane]

Jane - I hope that you have a wonderful time. 6148 is on the other side of the ship. even on one side odd on the other.[/quote

 

 

 

 

Of course! Well, if you see the door open, peek in! LOL

[Alaskafitzway]

I'd love to post some photos here of the Journey but the sizes are so restrictive and I don't want to waste time using internet minutes sizing them differently for different things so here's another update from today. If you'd like to see pictures of our journey we are posting a blog at www.smallworld.photos

 

We went on the Troussachs Panoramic yesterday. Our opinion was the this particular excursion is not worth the time. We drove from South Queensferry north to Stirling Castle where we literally drove through the parking lot. We then took pictures from a vantage point below the castle for a few minutes. We then drove on the Aberfoyle, stopping once along the way at a scenic overlook and then spent 50 minutes in Aberfoyle having a rushed cafeteria style lunch. There were several little bars and cafes in town but there really wasn't time to go to them. The bus was once again uncomfortably hot and they couldn't seem to cool it off so it was an uncomfortable ride for most of the way.

 

One other thing of note - when we went to dinner we heard from the tables nearby that they had returned from the Military Tattoo the night before and had waited an hour for a tender on shore because there were only 2 running. There are still some kinks to work out with the tenders at South Queensferry.

 

We''re off to Invergordon and hopefully I'll figure out how to size my photos so that I can post some here. South Queensferry was really lovely and the bridges were also very pretty.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for the report.

I hope you told the excursion people on board about your not so great trip.

[Reagan0712]

Thanks for the info.

 

Now I don't feel so bad missing out on the panoramic tour last year. It was full when I tried to book.

South Queensferry is indeed a quaint little town.

 

If you, or anyone else, ever gets the chance take in the Tattoo. It was part of our package last year and although I wasn't thrilled about going I ended up enjoying it.

[Lovely other]

Yesterday was our first day in Edinburgh. We tendered into South Queens Ferry early before our Edinburgh highlights and Castle Tour.

 

We really enjoyed the quaint little town of South Queens Ferry. We stopped into a little coffee and sweets shop called Once Upon a Time and had coffee and scones and toffee cake. The owner and the customers couldn't have been nicer and they told us about their little town and asked us lots of questions as well. They did take credit cards over a certain minimum which we met with our little snack. We walked the little town a bit and then headed off for our tour.

 

The "highlights" part of the Edinburgh tour consisted of sitting in traffic mostly in different parts of town with the tour guide talking. Since it was very warm by Scotland standards, the bus was very very warm and stuffy to the point where they couldn't cool it off so we were happy to leave it finally at the castle. The castle was interesting, the views from the castle were spectacular. It's high above the city of Edinburgh and you have views in most directions. Take a camera.

 

We walked down into town after the castle and found that many of the little cafes along the area where the buses pick up either were too slow for us to grab a quick bite or did not take credit cards/Euro/US Dollars so you had to have local currency. We did find a little place called The Hub which was quick and gladly accepted credit cards.

 

The bus ride back was much the same as the ride there, through different parts of town but mostly spent sitting in traffic.

 

When we got back to the ship it was 6:00 and they had already given away our table from early seating (starts at 5:30). We asked to sit at least in the same section as our crew but that was also full. The dining room was almost empty though so we were seated in a different area and Yanto was our waiter. He recognized the city where we are from and immediately started talking football with my husband. It was a nice dinner, Prime Rib, and actually better than dinner from Formal Night.

 

Off to the Troussachs today.

 

Why on earth would you expect places to take anything but local currency ... ????

[erewhon]

 

 

When we got back to the ship it was 6:00 and they had already given away our table from early seating (starts at 5:30). We asked to sit at least in the same section as our crew but that was also full. The dining room was almost empty though so we were seated in a different area and Yanto was our waiter. He recognized the city where we are from and immediately started talking football with my husband. It was a nice dinner, Prime Rib, and actually better than dinner from Formal Night.

 

Off to the Troussachs today.

 

 

Am curious if Yanto is the same wonderful Yanto who worked in the Pinnacle Grill on the Maasdam Australian Circumnavigation and the voyage to New Zealand last year.? He went on leave when we arrived in Auckland.

[Alaskafitzway]

Why on earth would you expect places to take anything but local currency ... ????

 

Because Holland America information said to just use credit cards, not get local currency, so my point was not so much that they wouldn't take USD or Euro but that the information provided was incorrect, I wanted people to have better information - so credit cards are not accepted at most places, and you will have to get local currency. BTW Local currency for Scotland, Iceland and Norway is all different.

[Alaskafitzway]

Invergordon - We arrive in Invergordon on time and pulled in past a number of Oil rigs waiting to be serviced which was interesting. We thought that since we were not tendering, that it would be smooth sailing off the ship but they still seemed to struggle to get people off. We arrived at 8:00 for what was supposed to be an 8:30 departure They started to call groups at around 8:30 to leave the ship but the lines were so long to get off that by the time we were called and left the ship it was 30 minutes after our scheduled departure. Our excursion was very small - 8 people in 2 vans, so meeting at the end of the pier would likely have made more sense. Certainly there should have been more than 1 person scanning the people getting off the ship.

 

The excursion was wonderful. We did a photography of the Scottish highlands tour. Our guide/photographer Tim did an excellent job. He was a local photographer who knew exactly where to go to get great pictures and was very helpful and interesting.

 

We wandered into the little town by the port, but there wasn't much there. We were planning to get lunch, but unfortunately no credit cards accepted here either. Interestingly they did take USD or Euro in at least one cafe as long as you had small bills that required very little change. Just FYI to those hoping to go ashore and have something to eat so that you can plan ahead.

 

Back on the ship we tried The Dive which had great burgers and fries in reasonable portion sizes so that we were not over stuffed.

Dinner also proved to be excellent, the Chili Prawns and Farfalle dish were excellent.

 

We ran into some rough waters on the North Sea overnight and the ship was really rocking. We didn't notice as much in our room which is mid-ship location wise and also on floor 6, which is also about mid-ship floor wise. We were fairly stable but in the Lido and other locations you could really notice the rocking. The Captain said that the waves were about 12-18 feet. We expected that this would be the case and it wasn't a problem, and the ship's crew handled it quite well.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Great report.

We hit waves so bad one time in the North Sea that I was literally thrown out of bed. It can be rough there.

[Alaskafitzway]

Here are some photos from Invergordon and our Photography Excursion

 

 

Oil Rig in the mudflats outside of Invergordon

 

Balmore Distillery

 

A hotel outside of Invergordon

 

A local Loch

 

 

In the Highlands

[Reagan0712]

Because Holland America information said to just use credit cards, not get local currency, so my point was not so much that they wouldn't take USD or Euro but that the information provided was incorrect, I wanted people to have better information - so credit cards are not accepted at most places, and you will have to get local currency. BTW Local currency for Scotland, Iceland and Norway is all different.

 

You may be able to get a small amount of the currency needed for Iceland and Norway at Guest Services.

[kenevenpar]

Thanks for sharing the photos!

[freestyling]

Love your journey so far. Looks like the weather has been good as well!

[Alaskafitzway]

You may be able to get a small amount of the currency needed for Iceland and Norway at Guest Services.

 

Thanks!

[Alaskafitzway]

We ran into a storm at sea which was about 15-18 foot waves. It has delayed the landing in Iceland today. The team here onboard did a great job of adjusting the excursions and keeping everyone informed.

 

Lots of passengers and crew were feeling under the weather yesterday but it was handled well by the remainder of the crew and we had a nice at sea day, if a bit bumpy. The outside portions of the ship were closed in response to the weather. The pool was closed with a net over it but we sat beside it and enjoyed some Gelato and watched the big waves in the pool. It sounded like the ocean!

 

Formal night went off as planned and we both had the Filet and Lobster Ravioli which was excellent.

 

No photos for the at sea day but now that I have the process working for pictures I'll try to post some of the common areas of the ship.

 

Instead of arriving in Iceland at 2, we will arrive at 5:30. We had booked the Golden Circle tour for 8.5 hours and it has been revised to leave at 6 and run for 5.5 hours. We will skip the lunch, and the thermo nuclear plant but should see most of the other sights. We'll review that when we get back to the ship and have a chance.

[Alaskafitzway]

Have a great cruise. Donot forget to see how the ship goes into the lock at IJmuiden, about 2 hours after sail off.

 

Thank you - we loved this part!

[Ine]

You may be able to get a small amount of the currency needed for Iceland and Norway at Guest Services.

 

Or find a local ATM. In general they are all over Europe.

[Krazy Kruizers]

At least you are getting some time in Iceland.

Years ago we missed that stop completely because of the high seas and bad weather.

Loved the pictures.

[Alaskafitzway]

Reykjavik - We did a shortened Golden Circle tour when we got into port yesterday which was fantastic. We are so happy that HAL made accommodations for us to still take this tour despite the late arrival.

 

We were able to see Thingveiller National Park which was beautiful and had a large lake, and a huge geological fault which we were able to walk down into.

 

Next we went to The Geyser which erupts every 4 minutes so you can't miss there. Also we visited the cafe at the geyser "Geysir" and had the best soup - minestrone.

 

 

 

We drove on from there through the rugged interior of Iceland to Gullfoss - a stunning waterfall. The sun was setting while we were there. The waterfall is massive and the amount of water that is rushing over it is hard to put into words.

 

 

 

 

 

Our guide Herman was excellent and the scenery was not to be missed.

 

We recommend this tour.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Loving your review and pictures.