The Arctic Circle Crossing ... What to expect if you're thinking about booking it

[emeraldcity]

This isn't so much a review, as it is an introspective look back at one of the most unique itineraries I've ever taken. Your mileage may vary.

 

I joined a group of cruise friends (we initially met on the Brilliance Spring TA in 2016). Most of us hadn't seen each other in three years and as amazing as this trip was, the best part was being reunited with my friends after such a long time. We arrived in Copenhagen three days early from our respective corners of the world and managed to get in a number of major attractions before boarding day.

 

We did the hop-on/hop-off bus one day and visited Rosenborg Castle at one of the stops. I had missed out on doing that my previous visit and it was on my hit list. It didn't exactly deliver the "wow" I was expecting ... I think because it's decorated in such dark colors. But I suppose it was all the rage in it's day. I was surprised at how close they let you get to the crown jewels. I actually slapped my phone right up against the glass for a photo and nobody rushed up and bundled me off to a police van.

 

We took one of the canal boat tours and had lunch at one of the open air eateries in Nyhavn. Since the boat tour provides for views of the famous Little Mermaid from the back, we also managed to check her out by land from the front (this is a Hop-on/Hop-off stop). We also visited Tivoli Gardens. It was nice, but I'm not sure it was worth the hype.

 

As you can see, we didn't stray much from the beaten path (except maybe that evening we headed down a series of side streets to find that Thai Restaurant on Google Maps).

 

And, of course we visited the iconic spot all Copenhagen Royal Caribbean cruisers visit ... the Pharmacia for our covid tests.

 

Tests and Passports in hand, we boarded the Voyager of the Seas on September 4th and set sail for Kristiansand, Norway. This wasn't my first time in this port and I had done the "wander the town" thing last time. If this is the sort of thing others like, I can recommend Ravnedalen Park, which is within walking distance of the port. This time I wanted to see something more of Norway, so I joined Doreen and we set off on a RCI Excursion to Setesdal Mineral Park. An hour's drive through some stunning scenery brought us to a deserted parking lot. I was certain they had closed for the season from the looks of it. But the guide led us around back and they were expecting us ... all 26 of us. We had the place to ourselves. What an incredible find! An old feldspar mine has been converted into a museum of crystalline minerals from all over the world. They used mine cars as display cases in some places. Old mining machinery was still scattered about with display cases placed between them. The delicate nature of some of the crystals blew me away. How did they transport them without breaking the fibers? There were 5 different rooms in the mine to explore and I could have spent more time, but one doesn't want to be the last person on the bus. Ours was an afternoon tour and we returned to the ship just before sail-away. They were apparently counting us as we got off the bus "Yeah. That's all 26 of them. Now we just have to wait for the two from the airport."

 

 

[emeraldcity]

One final photo ... as we sailed away from Norway and into the North Sea, I caught this one.

 

 

[skyhawk352]

Do you happen to know what time the ‘walk-off’ time slot was? Was it 6:45am? Trying to time a flight home. Thanks!

[emeraldcity]

6 minutes ago, skyhawk352 said:

Do you happen to know what time the ‘walk-off’ time slot was? Was it 6:45am? Trying to time a flight home. Thanks!

I'm not certain, but friends of mine walked off and made it to the airport in enough time to change their Delta flight to one that left before 11:00. That exceeds my comfort zone, but they pulled it off.

[emeraldcity]

In order to get to Akureyri, Iceland, we had to cross the Arctic Circle. This is, of course, an occasion that needs to be marked with a certain amount of tomfoolery. Hence, there is the Blue Nose Ceremony. King Neptune shows up to officiate at the rites of passage ... and a hapless junior officer is chosen as the sacrificial lamb for all of us. His gleeful fellow officers seize him and toss him into the pool and then all who choose can crowd forward to have blue paint swabbed on their nose. I do not do blue paint ... I simply photograph people who do blue paint.

 

You will note that King Neptune is appropriately dressed for the weather and his lovely young assistant is not. I hope she got paid more than he did.

 

[Sunshine3601]

This cruise is definitely one we would love to do.  I look forward to hearing more about it, as well as more lovely photos.

Thank you😀

[emeraldcity]

There are a large number of shore excursions to choose from so you have to choose carefully. I sorted through the options with my key objective in mind. I wanted to see waterfalls and geothermal activity. There are so few places in the world that have mineral springs and bubbling mud and streams of steam escaping from the ground. I've been to Yellowstone and I knew this wasn't going to be on that scale, but I knew it would be amazing in it's own right and I wanted to experience those sights. So I selected the Jewels of the North excursion. And yes, one can also choose to book something with a private company, but my appetite for that sort of thing has suffered considerably in the past couple of years. If you book it with Royal Caribbean and there's a cancellation, they handle the refunds effortlessly.

 

So we set off from the ship and circled around to the other side of the fjord, offering us some pretty decent photos of the ship docked in Akureryi. We headed inland to our first stop -- Goddfoss Waterfall. It's an amazing thing that nature situated the waterfall right by the main road, so you can actually see it from the bus, but they stopped anyway and let us out to venture closer for pictures. There were a number of angles for those who wanted to get closer, but I was happy to experience the incredible force of the water from the easiest vantage point. I'll try to post a video, since a simple screen grab of a waterfall doesn't do it justice. You have to hear the rushing water and feel the force of the current as it rushes over the brink.

 

Our next stop was at a lake that was nice, but not worth the experience of having to deal with the midges that are attracted to that water. I had read the warnings that a face net was a good idea as the midges were bothersome. But I reasoned that it was so late in the season, that they should be done spawning and bothering people. Besides, I had so many other things to pack, did I really want to buy something else on Amazon.com? Yeah, the net would have been a plus here. But even if I had the face net, I think I would have voted to give this stop a pass.

 

Our next stop was on the other side of the lake. They took us to a restaurant for a snack, which was a sandwich and something to drink. This restaurant boast floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a view of the lake ... without the midges. So again, they could have skipped the midges experience and just brought us here. Unless of course, the intent is to insure we get the full experience of what life is like for those who live near a lake in Iceland.

 

Our next stop was the geothermal area ... and that calls for another video. I saw the pictures beforehand when choosing my shore excursion in the comfort of my house, but those pictures didn't have the impact of standing on the edge of the thin crust of ground that covered the hot steam rising from deep in the earth. I do apologize that I can't also deliver the scents that go along with the video. To get the full effect you need to crack open a dozen rotten eggs and scatter them across your desk before you run the video.

[emeraldcity]

deleted

Edited October 11, 2022 by emeraldcity

[emeraldcity]

I tried posting the video of the waterfall. I don't think it worked.

Edited October 11, 2022 by emeraldcity

[emeraldcity]

[emeraldcity]

Yeah. I don't think that worked either. I'm open to advice on how to post a video.

[emeraldcity]

OK. Moving on. The last stop was the lava labyrinth. Completely unique, as far as I am concerned. I've walked across lava fields before but nothing like this, where towers of jagged lava are all around you as you walk the path that leads through the labyrinth.

 

Then it was time to head back ... past the roadside waterfall, over the mountains and down to the ship. And she set sail at dusk ... and dusk seemed to last a really long time in Iceland.

 

 

[Bluemymind]

Thanks for the reviews. We are doing the crossing next summer on the Jewel. Looking forward to seeing more. 

[xpcdoojk]

35 minutes ago, emeraldcity said:

Yeah. I don't think that worked either. I'm open to advice on how to post a video.

Put your video on a web sharing site, and then copy the link.  Videos can be really large, which means CC doesn’t want to host them.  I post videos here occassionally, if they are short ish…. No problem if they are long and in UHD not gonna work,

 

jc

[emeraldcity]

This was the night I saw a green glimmer that was the northern lights ... sort of. I've seen some truly amazing pictures of the northern lights, but they didn't perform for me. I even suited up in my warmest gear and headed out to the bow when the night was clear and Doreen's app said we were in a prime location to see them. We didn't see them. We heard of others who were more fortunate, but their odds probably improved once I went back inside. 

[emeraldcity]

3 minutes ago, xpcdoojk said:

Put your video on a web sharing site, and then copy the link.  Videos can be really large, which means CC doesn’t want to host them.  I post videos here occassionally, if they are short ish…. No problem if they are long and in UHD not gonna work,

 

jc

Thank you. I'll see if I can figure out how to do that. I got a guy who's pretty tech savvy.

[xpcdoojk]

So, from my experience traveling to northern Norway in early February to Tromso to see the northern lights, when you actually see them, they are white.  When you take a picture of them they are green and a little pink and purple, etc.  To the naked eye they are just white.  The camera can capture the colors, due to a longer exposure.  When we first saw them our guide was setting up cameras, and I said, what is the white fountain on that mountaintop over to the right?  He replied, O yes they are starting.

 

Unfortunately, seeing them this time of the year is a bit hit or miss, mostly miss.  Very happy to have searched in mid winter.

 

jc

[Coralc]

26 minutes ago, xpcdoojk said:

So, from my experience traveling to northern Norway in early February to Tromso to see the northern lights, when you actually see them, they are white.  

jc

That is interesting. I did not know that. When I was a child in Seattle, the Northern Lights dropped down that far, and my dad woke me up to come out and see them. It was a big, rolling carpet in the sky, and I have always wondered why they were white. ☺️

[Another_Critic]

1 hour ago, emeraldcity said:

IMG_6810.MOV

This link worked for me.

[Another_Critic]

35 minutes ago, xpcdoojk said:

So, from my experience traveling to northern Norway in early February to Tromso to see the northern lights, when you actually see them, they are white.  When you take a picture of them they are green and a little pink and purple, etc.  To the naked eye they are just white.  

When I saw them leaving Akureyri on Vision August 31, 2017, they were green to the naked eye.

[Coralc]

24 minutes ago, Another_Critic said:

This link worked for me.

How Pretty! 

[xpcdoojk]

10 hours ago, Coralc said:

That is interesting. I did not know that. When I was a child in Seattle, the Northern Lights dropped down that far, and my dad woke me up to come out and see them. It was a big, rolling carpet in the sky, and I have always wondered why they were white. ☺️

I think there are colors within the light.  You can see slight nuances when you are looking at them of pink, green, blue and purple.  But the overwhelming color you eye picks up is just white light.

 

Here is a picture of me on a mountaintop surrounded on 3 + sides by the North Sea a 90 minute drive north from Tromso Norway taken by our tour guide.  When I looked at the Aurora it looked pure white.  The photo is anything but.  The aurora went from horizon to horizon. 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by xpcdoojk
Picture didn’t post

[xpcdoojk]

That didn’t work…. Trying to post the picture again.

[xpcdoojk]

After about 4 hours on the mountain top with heavy goretex hiking boots and ski socks, long under wear, and lots of layers, taking pictures my hands and feet were frozen.  🤣  Everytime I had to adjust something on the camera I had to remove my gloves, everytime I put them back on they were frozen!

 

It was one of the best experiences we have ever done.  Would do it again in a heartbeat.

 

jc

[emeraldcity]

The ship arrived in Reykjavik at 2:00 in the afternoon, by which time vast hoards of passengers were trying to all get into the Royal Theater at the same time. I really question the sanity of the excursion gurus for setting up so many excursions with identical departure times. Obviously they can't get all of us off at the same time. And since we arrived during a unrelenting downpour, the decision was made to pull the buses up closer ... which meant they could only board 5 buses at a time. My excursion was supposed to depart at 2:30. We finally got called about 4:00. We were thanked repeatedly for our patience and told we would be compensated. I'm not sure what they meant by compensation, but I was pretty sure we were being served empty promises. I did ask about 3:30 if the Windjammer would be open when our 5 hour tour got back, because we were certainly going to miss our dinner time. Of course, nobody knew. (Windjammer closing time on the Voyager was 8:30.)

 

Our group was set to do the iconic Golden Circle Tour. Once our number was called, we headed out into the pouring rain and hustled to the waiting buses. Then off we went through countryside consisting of rolling hills and very little vertical vegetation.

 

The first stop was the Gollfoss Waterfall. This one was not a roadside attraction. There was a considerable downhill walk against a very stiff headwind to get down to the point where you could view the water falling into the gorge. A better view was undoubtedly had by taking the stairway down into the gorge, but I opted for the clifftop view, a couple quick pictures and then the tailwind pushing me back up that walkway to the nice warm, windless gift shop. I didn't buy anything, but I pretended I might, to recover from the bit of adventure I'd just experienced. Our guide insisted it wasn't windy that day. I compare that nonsense to the guy who drives a top-down convertible down the freeway on a 50-degree day.

Edited October 12, 2022 by emeraldcity