Live from Journey Norway Cruise

[oddjob16]

7 hours ago, excitedofharpenden said:

I agree.  In my view it's horrid. 

 

Phil 

Like making love in a canoe...

[2ndsailing]

Royal Yacht Brittania in Leith, Scotland

[uktog]

21 minutes ago, 2ndsailing said:

Royal Yacht Brittania in Leith, Scotland

Welcome to a rather grey Edinburgh 

Always a perfect spot beside such an iconic vessel - worth a visit if you have time. 

[excitedofharpenden]

43 minutes ago, uktog said:

Welcome to a rather grey Edinburgh 

Always a perfect spot beside such an iconic vessel - worth a visit if you have time. 

I highly recommend it too. I loved my trip to see it. 

 

Phil 

[Mercruiser]

4 hours ago, uktog said:

Welcome to a rather grey Edinburgh 

Always a perfect spot beside such an iconic vessel - worth a visit if you have time. 

I visited there last month. They had a very impressive passenger to crew ratio.

 

My biggest surprise was seeing that the wheelhouse was a windowless room, one deck below the bridge. They steered the ship by taking orders spoken  from the bridge through a speaking tube.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Mercruiser

[uktog]

Just now, Mercruiser said:

I visited there last month. They had a very impressive passenger to crew ratio.

 

My biggest surprise was seeing that the wheelhouse was a windowless room, one deck below the bridge. They steered the ship by taking orders spoken  from the bridge through speaking tube.

I think I was surprised by how narrow the Royal beds were - and that the lounge had several items that my Granny had in the lounge at the farm.  Very ordinary homely furniture

[excitedofharpenden]

And that the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh slept in different bedrooms.  It was the dining room that fascinated me, thinking of all who had sat there. And of course very plain and 50s inside.

 

Phil

[uktog]

8 minutes ago, excitedofharpenden said:

And that the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh slept in different bedrooms.  It was the dining room that fascinated me, thinking of all who had sat there. And of course very plain and 50s inside.

 

Phil

Yes the (very small) double bed was first installed for Charles and Diana's honeymoon.......

[Mercruiser]

Here are pictures of the windowless wheelhouse and the Queen's narrow bed.

 

 

[Grandma Cruising]

Sorry it’s taken me so long to finish of this ‘blog’, but the WiFi on the last day was practically not existent, and as it was a sea day we couldn’t use cellular either (except ‘cellular at sea’).

We ate in Aqualina on 15 July with other roll call members. The meal was absolutely superb.  The extra appetiser was pea & mint purée on a crouton. We both had lobster ravioli, followed by fisherman’s soup, and lobster with squid ink pasta in which there were chopped calamari, shrimp and small scallops. For dessert we both had limoncello soufflé. A lovely meal with great company and excellent service - what more could you ask.

We had hoped to finish our meal in time to go and see at least some of Danny’s show, but we were too late, so we rounded off the evening in Spirits bar, talking to lots of the people we had met throughout the cruise.

 

Tuesday 16 July

Just got up in time for breakfast in Discoveries (it closes at 9:30am on sea days). We had received an invitation to do a tour of the Bridge so went to the meeting point in the Living Room and had a very interesting tour led by the third officer. We were also lucky enough to see a pod of dolphins off the starboard side of the ship while we were up on the Bridge.  Captain Johannes came up to the Bridge at the end of the tour following his Q & A session in the Caberet Lounge.

 

We decided to pack next as the weather was quite cloudy, so we got that done by lunchtime. We had lunch in the Patio as usual.  The weather improved after lunch so we spent much of the afternoon on a sun bed on the Pool Deck. 

 

We ate dinner in Discoveries and had a great meal, as usual. We both had beef tenderloin and it was really good. We finished the evening in Spirits bar saying goodbye to everyone we had met.

 

Wednesday 17 July

Up bright and early as our time to go through immigration, which was in the Caberet Lounge, was 7:15. We were through very quickly and had time for a last breakfast in Windows before clearing our cabin. We stayed onboard until just after 9 then went ashore. We walked around the corner to the Ocean Terminal and got the number 22 bus to Waverley Station in good time for our 10:30 train home via York. We had booked first class advance tickets so had lunch on the train before changing at York. It was a great way to get home and finish the cruise.

 

Some reflections on the cruise:-

 Captain Johannes’s knowledge about and passion for Norway made this cruise extra special and we’ll never forget the extra touches like

 - stopping the ship twice in the Fjords so the chef could go ashore to buy local goats cheese and then berries

- the oil rig Safari 

- the 360 degree turns alongside the seven sisters waterfall and in Trollfjord

- going under the low bridge with the Captain’s friend waving a Norwegian flag over our heads.

 

The atmosphere on board was great, and we met some lovely people - for us this was one of our most sociable and enjoyable cruises ever.

 

So glad that we found out how nice and quiet Discoveries is for breakfast

 

We wondered how many Heikes (Hotel Director) there were onboard - everywhere we looked there she was, making sure everything was perfect.

 

Norway is a beautiful country but obviously it can be very cold - in the Arctic we needed all the layers we had packed.

 

The only disappointment was the woeful WiFi. It’s never very fast on Azamara, but the problems they had made it pretty inaccessible, even after two IT technicians came onboard.

 

 

 

 

[Fatfish]

Thanks for a wonderful cruise etc via your pictures and blog..... 😎

[upwarduk]

• IC.C is very slow this morning, please accept my apologies for a couple of spelling errors, the 20 minute editing feature won’t allow me to go back to correct them.

I wrote this quite a few days ago when I had attached the photos of the Midnight Sun on White Night on post #123.Then C. Critic went down. It has been iffy for a few days while you have been away HGC, so maybe it’s not been all Journey’s Wi-Fi that has been your problem.

Edited July 18, 2019 by upwarduk

[excitedofharpenden]

Glad you had such a great time. Having a Norwegian Master and as nice as Johannes is makes it even more special. 😎

 

Phil 

Edited July 18, 2019 by excitedofharpenden

[Grandma Cruising]

32 minutes ago, upwarduk said:

• IC.C is very slow this morning, please accept my apologies for a couple of spelling errors, the 20 minute editing feature won’t allow me to go back to correct them.

I wrote this quite a few days ago when I had attached the photos of the Midnight Sun on White Night on post #123.Then C. Critic went down. It has been iffy for a few days while you have been away HGC, so maybe it’s not been all Journey’s Wi-Fi that has been your problem.

May have been a combination of both, but I spoke to a lot of other people who, like me, often couldn’t even get to log in, or logged in then got logged off immediately.

[uktog]

Journey leaving Edinburgh for her next cruise 

 

 

[mchell810]

3 hours ago, Host Grandma Cruising said:

Norway is a beautiful country but obviously it can be very cold - in the Arctic we needed all the layers we had packed.

 

I probably won't get to Norway so I truly enjoyed the pictures; thanks for taking us along with you. 

 

[bob278]

JUst have to share our "good fortune" with flights.  Our post-cruise trip was not a lot better than the pre-cruise.  Our flight from Edinburgh to JFK was wonderful but that's where it ended.  We had a long layover and about 3 hours into it, we were toldf our flight to Charlotte had been cancelled.  Of course, there were no options for Wednesday and because it was "weather related (so Delta claimed), they gave us no help with dinner or hotel.

 

So we enjoyed another airport hotel overnight.  To top off the entire trip, our bags did not make it to Charlotte.  We are now home (arrived in Charlotte at 1:30 and 2 of our bags are on their way from Atlanta to Charlotte and one is still in the Baggage Services Office at JFK.  We may need drugs before we get on another airplane. 😳

 

But despite the horrors of transportation (and doing without luggage for the first 4 days of the cruise), it was a wonderful cruise. We met really nice people, saw some beautiful scenery and enjoyed an on-board experience that made us book the 2021 trip with Capt. Johannes (but we'll have to get over the flight fiasco to keep that date).

[BBMacLaird]

57 minutes ago, bob278 said:

But despite the horrors of transportation (and doing without luggage for the first 4 days of the cruise), it was a wonderful cruise. We met really nice people, saw some beautiful scenery and enjoyed an on-board experience that made us book the 2021 trip with Capt. Johannes

 

So glad you had a wonderful cruise Bob278. Thank you for booking 2021 with us ❤️

 

p.s. Were you separated from your luggage on both the flight over AND the return flight?? How awful!

 

 

[BBMacLaird]

Thank you Host Grandma Cruising for sharing your cruise blog of Norway! 

 

[Doh15]

1 hour ago, bob278 said:

JUst have to share our "good fortune" with flights.  Our post-cruise trip was not a lot better than the pre-cruise.  Our flight from Edinburgh to JFK was wonderful but that's where it ended.  We had a long layover and about 3 hours into it, we were toldf our flight to Charlotte had been cancelled.  Of course, there were no options for Wednesday and because it was "weather related (so Delta claimed), they gave us no help with dinner or hotel.

 

So we enjoyed another airport hotel overnight.  To top off the entire trip, our bags did not make it to Charlotte.  We are now home (arrived in Charlotte at 1:30 and 2 of our bags are on their way from Atlanta to Charlotte and one is still in the Baggage Services Office at JFK.  We may need drugs before we get on another airplane. 😳

 

But despite the horrors of transportation (and doing without luggage for the first 4 days of the cruise), it was a wonderful cruise. We met really nice people, saw some beautiful scenery and enjoyed an on-board experience that made us book the 2021 trip with Capt. Johannes (but we'll have to get over the flight fiasco to keep that date).

 

You might investigate whether you are entitled to compensation from Delta under EU 261.

 

I don’t remember all the details but I do remember that as of 2018 if you fly from the EU and a later connecting flight is delayed or canceled you may be eligible for compensation. 

[bob278]

3 hours ago, BBMacLaird said:

 

So glad you had a wonderful cruise Bob278. Thank you for booking 2021 with us ❤️

 

p.s. Were you separated from your luggage on both the flight over AND the return flight?? How awful!

 

 

Yes.  Going over, the luggage did not catch up to us until day 5 of the cruise. 

On the return, it is now 10:30 EDT and 2 of the 3 bags have been delivered.  But the most important one (Garry's big bag) is still MIA.  

 

What makes it all worse, is that we had one flight cancelled and two delayed going to Oslo and on the return "only" one flight cancelled.

[bob278]

2 hours ago, Doh15 said:

 

You might investigate whether you are entitled to compensation from Delta under EU 261.

 

I don’t remember all the details but I do remember that as of 2018 if you fly from the EU and a later connecting flight is delayed or canceled you may be eligible for compensation. 

Thanks for the thought, but I am pretty sure Delta can dodge any responsibility because they said it was weather related and mandated by the FAA.  No way to disprove that.  I plan to file a claim on our travel insurance for the hotel at least.

[Grandma Cruising]

7 hours ago, bob278 said:

JUst have to share our "good fortune" with flights.  Our post-cruise trip was not a lot better than the pre-cruise.  Our flight from Edinburgh to JFK was wonderful but that's where it ended.  We had a long layover and about 3 hours into it, we were toldf our flight to Charlotte had been cancelled.  Of course, there were no options for Wednesday and because it was "weather related (so Delta claimed), they gave us no help with dinner or hotel.

 

So we enjoyed another airport hotel overnight.  To top off the entire trip, our bags did not make it to Charlotte.  We are now home (arrived in Charlotte at 1:30 and 2 of our bags are on their way from Atlanta to Charlotte and one is still in the Baggage Services Office at JFK.  We may need drugs before we get on another airplane. 😳

 

So sorry to hear that, what awful luck. I hope you get the other bag back soon.

[uktog]

Oh Bob, you should have bought that lucky white heather at Edinburgh airport 😊. Hope it all works out and we will see you on that 2021 trip if not before. 

[Rabo]

We’ve been home for just over a day, and now have had a little time to settle in.  In addition to the staff and crew of the Journey (who are nothing less that extraordinary), we made a number of new friends . . . too many to mention . . . but I do want to thank Denise & Nick, Pam & Eric, and Sue & Darren for helping make a fantastic voyage even more memorable.  We'll be back with Azamara on the Pursuit in March.  Hope to see you all then.

Jerry