Celebrity Silhouette, Norwegian Fjords Sept. 1 2019

[cinnamon]

9 hours ago, Bimmer09 said:

 

I would certainly have enjoyed the ship more if the sailing weather had been warmer and less windy/rainy. The week before we sailed the cruise had lovely weather. So far we have had 3 ports where the weather was fine and only in Alesund did it rain before we sailed and it was drizzle but even that killed the Sunset bar for me and everyone else.

 

Thanks for your kind comments!

Norris

Norris, we cruised to Norway from 5-12th September. Whilst the weather in our 3 ports was wonderful, the days crossing the North Sea were horrid in both directions. Cold, wet and windy. Spirit of Discovery has wonderful open terraces at the aft of the ship but we could only be out there in the fjords, not the open sea. 

[Bimmer09]

Here were your ship's choices in Flam

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bimmer09]

 

3 photos stitched together 

 

drizzle

 

view from our stern and what we woke up to

 

as always a trim little city

 

 

on deck 5 with an espresso 

 

more later....

[CruiserRob]

On 10/12/2019 at 11:58 PM, Bimmer09 said:

 Rob which ship were you on to the North Cape?

The inside sounds like a good idea in permanent daylight and of course easy on the pocket.

Someday we'll get that far North. We were just watching Jeff Corwin (Ocean Treks) on Crown Princess in Iceland and that's on our bucket list.

Cheers !

Norris

We were on the Norwegian Jade.  As I said, it was a cruise that I didn't intend to take at that time but an incredible last minute deal and an easy going boss that supported a last minute vacation request made it impossible to pass.  I had intended to go to Flam on a Norwegian cruise after seeing the Rick Steves "Norway in a Nutshell" show but this cruise did not go there.  The rest of the cruise was fabulous. 

 

Robert

[CruiserRob]

19 hours ago, Clipper Chick said:

I love your review and am kinda sorry I have now caught up.  I visited Norway on Marella Discovery and loved it.  We did the Flam excursion you did but Train out coach back.  The mountain tunnels are amazing we went through one in Eidfjord with a roundabout inside.  Also love the pictures of Silhouette as I am joining her on 24 th October from Southampton to Fort Lauderdale.

 

Mandy

I have to admit, I thought the tour guide was pulling my leg when she mentioned a roundabout in the tunnel.  But as they say seeing is believing.  Awesome experience.

 

Robert

[Bimmer09]

see those people down there....what they are holding above their heads?

 

soon we are going to be doing likewise as we have to get off the ship and walk a ways down the dock and get on a boat that will take us to Lysefjord

 

but first we need to fuel up , so off I go to the MDR to meet Carol

deck 5 I will see you later!

 

 

[Bimmer09]

Once again the  Grand Cuvee excelled in food and service and gave us a great start to our day

 

we have our drinks; tap water, orange juice and cappuccino in an odd cup. I prefer the wide bowl shaped cup but that's a first world problem

next my Kadota figs which I always order on Princess

 

my full English breakfast, composed of sides

 

off to the theater to get our lapel stickers and head off the ship...

[Bimmer09]

16 hours ago, singinalot said:

hi Norris, back from vacation and getting all caught up!

 

Welcome back Crystal -that time must have flown by!

I was out of the house for 14 hours yesterday and that will be the case today, but I'll get to our Lysefjord excursion when I get home this evening.

 

Cheers!

Norris

[TenneSea]

On 10/13/2019 at 1:57 PM, Buffetfan47 said:

I have been loving this post. We are on Silhouette to the Norwegian fjords next June. We will have the same itinerary except for Alesund. We go to Geiranger instead. 

June 27th ?  We're on that cruise as well.  I hope it's warmer too !

[Buffetfan47]

2 hours ago, TenneSea said:

June 27th ?  We're on that cruise as well.  I hope it's warmer too !

Yeah, it's definitely not the Caribbean. My great grandparents came over from Norway so this will be a return to my ancestors homeland as well as we will be celebrating our 50th anniversary.

[Bimmer09]

Oh, I sure hope you like rocks and waterfalls...

Off the ship and we follow our X guide along the harbor to a waiting excursion boat where it's seat yourself

picture taken at turnaround point in the cruise 

 

we sat near the back and were lucky to score a window seat

 

we left the picturesque harbor (pics taken from Silhouette)

 

 

a warship had docked just before we went to breakfast

 

occasional showers would mean window photography not ideal

 

to get good pictures I would have to go upstairs onto the open deck

 

 

 

 

 

[Bimmer09]

We enter Lysefjord

 

 

 

 

looking back

 

the bridge is accessed by tunnels 

 

 

people live out here

 

from here on in it will be rocks and waterfalls and rain

 

more much later....

[JaniceB]

Did you enjoy the aft balcony view on the ship?  I had an aft wrap on our Alaska cruise and love it so I booked just an aft balcony for Norway.

Where did you do the currency exchange?

[Bimmer09]

now, these are rocks!

 

 

and trees and waterfalls

 

 

the boat goes into a very narrow gap in the rocks in a display of Norwegian seamanship

 

 

 

[Bimmer09]

 

 

 

boat dock

 

the rain came, a strong drizzle. The outside deck was now crammed with people and I couldn't lose my place by the deck railings. I wasn't carrying an umbrella as I need two hands to work the camera which is getting soaked, as is my uncovered head. The camera is weather sealed luckily, even if I am not. Water ran down my face from my newly-washed hair

 

 

 

very close to the rocks

 

 

 

this is Pulpit Rock (the tall square one)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preikestolen

 

 

 

[Bimmer09]

and not far away

 

 

 

 

 

now I have rain and waterfall spray to deal with. Once we turn away from the falls I retreat indoors as does everyone else

[Bimmer09]

We leave the raging waterfall and head for our 30 minute waffle stop on a beach. The drizzle heads there too.

no dining al fresco today

 

I'm not waffling  but Carol is. I'm having coffee and standing away from cover as I am savoring a cigarette 

 

a couple of other picture-takers do likewise as we soak in the scene. I brought our umbrella from the boat and only put it down to take pics

 

 

then it's back to the boat to return to Stavanger 

 

a map is passed around on the way back

 

as is the recipe for the waffles which Carol didn't enjoy as they were soggy so no picture.

I had a chance to dry off once back indoors. We had a very good guide narrating the trip

and telling us about life in Norway on the coast. It was a 3 hour excursion including the 30 minute stop. 2.5 hours on the move.

[Bimmer09]

20 hours ago, JaniceB said:

Did you enjoy the aft balcony view on the ship?  I had an aft wrap on our Alaska cruise and love it so I booked just an aft balcony for Norway.

Where did you do the currency exchange?

 

Hi Janice, we always book an aft cabin for the wake view and the lack of wind.

Carol got the foreign currency from a bank in Chicago.

Norris

[silkismom]

I found that Wells Fargo, if you have an account, of any kind, with them, doesn't charge extra for foreign currency exchanges.

[dtwcal]

Hi Norris,

 

You mentioned a while back that the band playing in the bar was perhaps a tad too loud, and you left.  It has seemed to me that the music levels have been getting louder and louder in the past few years. When we were on the Reflection, the music was felt all the way up the atrium, and the library wasn't the peaceful place that it should have been. Since you spent time as a musician on cruise ships, do you think I'm just entering fogeyhood, or is the entertainment getting ear-bleeding loud?

 

John

[dickinson]

7 hours ago, silkismom said:

I found that Wells Fargo, if you have an account, of any kind, with them, doesn't charge extra for foreign currency exchanges.

 

For our two trips abroad I checked out a lot of places.  Best is to charge to a credit card with no foreign transaction fees.  Then an ATM.  Buying in advance, which we did, I found Wells Fargo to be the best deal.  HOWEVER, even though no extra "fees" their conversion rate is higher than what you would pay if you were in a foreign country and charged your meal (or whatever) to your credit card as the banks get better rates.  That is where Wells Fargo makes their money.   If you were to go to a currency converter site and entered to find out the conversion rate for euros from dollars... whatever it says, that is NOT the amount Wells Fargo would charge.  They would charge you higher.  You also lose money if you want to sell them your left overs when you get home.

[Bimmer09]

7 hours ago, dtwcal said:

Hi Norris,

 

You mentioned a while back that the band playing in the bar was perhaps a tad too loud, and you left.  It has seemed to me that the music levels have been getting louder and louder in the past few years. When we were on the Reflection, the music was felt all the way up the atrium, and the library wasn't the peaceful place that it should have been. Since you spent time as a musician on cruise ships, do you think I'm just entering fogeyhood, or is the entertainment getting ear-bleeding loud?

 

John

 

Hi John. Thanks for posting an interesting question.

I have to clear one thing up though- I didn't leave the Ensemble lounge because the band was too loud. I was just walking through as the lounge is a walkway to the Specialty Restaurants at the stern. I didn't stop to listen to the band but I thought that indulgent jazz with trumpet isn't the right thing for such a narrow room with people trying to talk with friends in comfy armchairs.

 

Also- the music I like and that is a very wide spectrum from Debussy piano dreamscapes to Led Zeppelin at a festival-played back to back, is played loud and clear in the comfort of my own home where no-one else is forced to listen to it. When I go to a concert-last one was Gipsy Kings in Chicago- I want it to be loud and clear as I am not there to drink cocktails and catch up with an old friend. Princess has some rooms with doors on them where bands can play and people can dance on wooden floors. The rooms are filled with soft furnishings which dull the volume. Celebrity bands may play in open spaces like those down on deck 3 in the atrium with open decks above them. They are playing in a 100 ft high ceiling space which is an upward tunnel of glass-the elevators- and the sound also bounces off the marble floor in front of the band so there is nothing to dull the sound. Forget quietly reading a book in the library in the evening.

 

So people in the library, Sushi on 5, Cafe al Bacio, Passport bar and Martini Bar get blasted.

 

Somehow I never get the time to sit and listen to a band as I restlessly roam the ships but I hear them from all over on the S Class. Ensemble Lounge needs an acoustic piano player-that would be appropriate for the narrow space. The pool deck in the Caribbean needs a steel drum band from the islands not a rock band however good they may be (and they usually are good players).

 

What none of us needs is music in elevators, coming from gas pumps, or on deck 15 on the S Class at 5 a.m where I often find myself. "Background music" is usually dire and intrusive to just plain thinking or talking. 

 

We find ourselves, when not on a ship, choosing restaurants for their good food and a quieter ambiance, where conversation can take place and you are encouraged to sit a while and savor.

Modern restaurant design tends towards big glass windows, hard floors, hard seats and no sound absorbing materials like tablecloths, padded seats and back pillows or leather banquettes. Loud music is pumped into the room to add atmosphere and consequently conversation is a casualty.

 

The ship bands are cover bands and they play loudly to try and recapture the sound of the studio band whose songs they are using for their show and speaking from experience it is harder to fill a dance floor and get a thumbs up from the CD if you are quietly tapping away with a tenth of the energy of the original band in a controlled environment. It's hard for a trumpeter to play quietly when the drummer is emulating the energy found on the original recording.

 

I don't think you have entered fogeydom. You are just observing with your ears. I don't see one Celebrity drummer playing as loud as I used to in the Song of Norway disco 33 years ago but the spaces they play in now are less friendly (atriums especially) than when bands played only in showrooms built for the purpose or on deck for people in bikinis who were too drunk to care about the volume.  The sound in the Celebrity Theater with a man operating a 24 channel mixing desk is wonderfully loud and clear and appropriate for a 1200 seat space in my opinion, but that is a purpose-built space. Ensemble Lounge and the deck 3 dance floor are not and it shows.

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

I sat indoors for the bulk of the journey back to Stavanger, taking hope in memories of being dry but when we approached the harbor again I went out on the bow of the ship. The rain had stopped (Hurrah!) and the wind dried my hair, which is soft and manageable.

 

There! There's the city!  I cried

 

Duh Sherlock! said the Captain who does this trip every day

 

'tis a wee bit cloudy. Could there be rain in the offing?

 

under the bridge we go

 

 

[Bimmer09]

Stavanger

(3 photos stitched together)

 

 

she waits for us

 

 

 

 

we live back here

 

 

back on dry land I tip the guide as I leave the boat and look forward to a nice hot lunch

[perfect match]

Norris, I want to express my gratitude for the lengths and level of wetness you went to in order to get those awesome pictures you just shared with us! Thank you for the extraordinary effort!   🏆