Live - NCL Prima - 06/23-07/04/2024 - Southampton, Belgium, Amsterdam, Norway and Iceland - Is it more beautiful than Alaska?

[www3traveler]

58 minutes ago, JandC_Cruising said:

We're booked on that one!  See you on board...Jon & Carolyn...We'll be hanging in the Vibe and Spa while on board

Not me-- not booking either the Spa or Vibe.

Can not wait to see the Gingerbread Village display.

[adstz]

I have a question about disembarkation. The itinerary show a very early disembarkation on the second day in Reykjavik. If you want your luggage taken off for you how early can you leave? Do you have a picture of the disembarkation choices?

Just wondering in case I have an early flight. (nothing booked yet as I am still in the research stage).

Thanks for this insider knowledge of this cruise. I'm hopeful we can take it next year.

[odie1024]

3 hours ago, Seas2mountains said:

We are on the cruise shuttle bus now and had planned to have lunch at the Local today. We passed on getting the famous Iceland hot dog as there was a decent line and we weren’t too hungry for a hot dog. 

I did a food tour when I was there last year and we stopped here, line moves quickly and it was just okay. If you have a chance look for rye bread ice cream which was amazing. 

[2TwinsMom]

So happy to have found your post, I am following your journey and recommendations. We are on the Prima from Southampton July 14, 2024. So many great recommendations! When we arrive in Reykjavik booked the 8.5 hour Glacier Safari tour, has anyone done this? Worried about a long tour when we need to pack that evening and get off the ship by 6:30am the next morning to transfer to the airport.

[Seas2mountains]

1 hour ago, adstz said:

I have a question about disembarkation. The itinerary show a very early disembarkation on the second day in Reykjavik. If you want your luggage taken off for you how early can you leave? Do you have a picture of the disembarkation choices?

Just wondering in case I have an early flight. (nothing booked yet as I am still in the research stage).

Thanks for this insider knowledge of this cruise. I'm hopeful we can take it next year.

It was a great cruise and is one of our top 3 NCL cruises taken. 
 

We have an 11am flight and plan to disembark between 6-6:30am   
 

Hopefully this document below will help you see different options. We did see a woman disembark with her luggage this morning. 
 

 

Edited Wednesday at 05:49 PM by Seas2mountains

[Seas2mountains]

49 minutes ago, odie1024 said:

I did a food tour when I was there last year and we stopped here, line moves quickly and it was just okay. If you have a chance look for rye bread ice cream which was amazing. 

I heard about the ice cream and will need to try it. 
 

We are going to come back and take a cruise from Reykjavík. The ones going from Reykvavik to New York with four times of pushing the clock back one hour looks good to us. We just are so spoiled after being on Prima which we loved that Star doesn’t seem as appealing. 

[2TwinsMom]

Thanks for the disembarkation information we have an 11:30am flight from Reykjavik to return home on the last day. It should work out😀, I was a bit nervous. I was able to book a private transfer to the airport through Viator to pick us up at the dock at 6:30am.

[ontheweb]

To any of you flying from Reykjavik, be aware that if you are on Iceland Air, they do not serve a free meal even on trans-Atlantic flights. They do sell food, but IIRC not really a real meal.

 

Having flown with them before when we did a land trip to Reykjavik, we knew that, so for our flight home we bought food at the airport lounge.

[PhillyTravelBug]

It goes by so fast, doesn’t it? This itinerary with two day deviations on each end was the perfect length for a vacation, but it does fly by. Looks like you had near perfect weather and enjoyed a lot of sights. 

[projecthandbag]

Thank you for the wonderful, informative review!  I really enjoyed it.  We are doing the same cruise in the opposite direction.  What time did the scenic cruise into Geiranger begin?  I don't want to miss it.

[Nataly1982]

Would you have any photos of buffet? 

[Seas2mountains]

Current situation. 
Essence Duo playing in Syd Norman’s for three sets tonight.

 

We said we should go back to the cabin early tonight to get sleep since we have an early wake up. But knowing we have a 6 hour flight, 4 hour layover and a 4 hour flight, we have plenty of time to sleep. 
 

Syd Norman’s is a great venue for Essence Duo. He is fantastic on keyboards and singing and  her voice is amazing.  They start vacation tomorrow. 
 

We have the Majority Rules game show before their next set. 

[Seas2mountains]

We were at the Majority Rules game before Essence Duo played again. With Majority Rules, if you are the last team to turn in your answer, you have to dance, tell a joke, sing or be a sad flamingo.  It was fun to watch the singing and dancing from the members who were late. 
 

 A man said he wanted to  

tell a joke. The joke was one that was horribly demeaning to women. If told at my work or my husband’s work, it would likely result in immediate termination as it was that bad. 

It got worse as the cruise director staff running the game laughed at the joke and asked if the team should get a point for the joke. We thought they  should have said  it was inappropriate and the joke should be awarded no points. Only one team cheered but everyone else was speechless.  The cruise director staff said the team should get an extra point for telling the joke.
 

We spoke to the cruise director staff after the game  to say that joke was horrible. They said they can’t control what people say and they left quickly acting like we were wrong for saying something. 

 My husband waited in line at the guest services and the people working at guest services agreed it was very inappropriate and  said it needed to be reported to Alvin the cruise director and they got him on the phone to hear my husband.  Alvin said he wound talk to the staff members on how to respond to something Ike this in the future. It was like we went back 40 years and made it acceptable to act like women 

 

I would not cheer for one of our sons to make those comments. And any woman who worked in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s or beyond or before

can tell if their own yucky situation of things like this happening as if it was nothing and no big deal. 

[Seas2mountains]

5 minutes ago, Seas2mountains said:

We were at the Majority Rules game before Essence Duo played again. With Majority Rules, if you are the last team to turn in your answer, you have to dance, tell a joke, sing or be a sad flamingo.  It was fun to watch the singing and dancing from the members who were late. 
 

 A man said he wanted to  

tell a joke. The joke was one that was horribly demeaning to women. If told at my work or my husband’s work, it would likely result in immediate termination as it was that bad. 

It got worse as the cruise director staff running the game laughed at the joke and asked if the team should get a point for the joke. We thought they  should have said  it was inappropriate and the joke should be awarded no points. Only one team cheered but everyone else was speechless.  The cruise director staff said the team should get an extra point for telling the joke.
 

We spoke to the cruise director staff after the game  to say that joke was horrible. They said they can’t control what people say and they left quickly acting like we were wrong for saying something. 

 My husband waited in line at the guest services and the people working at guest services agreed it was very inappropriate and  said it needed to be reported to Alvin the cruise director and they got him on the phone to hear my husband.  Alvin said he wound talk to the staff members on how to respond to something Ike this in the future. It was like we went back 40 years and made it acceptable to act like women 

 

I would not cheer for one of our sons to make those comments. And any woman who worked in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s or beyond or before

can tell if their own yucky situation of things like this happening as if it was nothing and no big deal. 

When my husband told guest services about the “joke” it was considered to be so bad they wanted to contact security.  He said no, it needs to be handled within the cruise director staff for their inappropriate response. We know English is their second language and know they are trying so hard.  Maybe they didn’t understand how bad this “joke” was? 

[laudergayle]

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us.  We’re doing a similar cruise in ‘26 (which is way too far away).  The one thing that I will definitely need to do in advance…learn how to pronounce the port names!

 

Have a safe, uneventful trip back home.

Edited Wednesday at 11:07 PM by laudergayle

[Seas2mountains]

7 hours ago, laudergayle said:

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us.  We’re doing a similar cruise in ‘26 (which is way too far away).  The one thing that I will definitely need to do in advance…learn how to pronounce the port names!

 

Have a safe, uneventful trip back home.

Thank you for following along.

 

Yes, 2026 seems too far away I am still working on learning how to properly pronounce all the port names and spell them correctly. 

Edited Thursday at 06:16 AM by Seas2mountains

[Seas2mountains]

Well it’s that sad time to report that we are off the Prima waiting on the bus to go to the airport.  

[Seas2mountains]

12 hours ago, 2TwinsMom said:

Thanks for the disembarkation information we have an 11:30am flight from Reykjavik to return home on the last day. It should work out😀, I was a bit nervous. I was able to book a private transfer to the airport through Viator to pick us up at the dock at 6:30am.

The line to disembark was really short at about 6am.  Have a wonderful cruise! 

[Seas2mountains]

12 hours ago, 2TwinsMom said:

So happy to have found your post, I am following your journey and recommendations. We are on the Prima from Southampton July 14, 2024. So many great recommendations! When we arrive in Reykjavik booked the 8.5 hour Glacier Safari tour, has anyone done this? Worried about a long tour when we need to pack that evening and get off the ship by 6:30am the next morning to transfer to the airport.

I can’t comment on the tour but hope you have a great cruise!  We loved Prima and the service and food were fantastic! 

[Seas2mountains]

11 hours ago, ontheweb said:

To any of you flying from Reykjavik, be aware that if you are on Iceland Air, they do not serve a free meal even on trans-Atlantic flights. They do sell food, but IIRC not really a real meal.

 

Having flown with them before when we did a land trip to Reykjavik, we knew that, so for our flight home we bought food at the airport lounge.

Great suggestion.
 

We are on a US based air carrier and preorderd our meals although I’m sure I ate so much the past two weeks I need to adjust back to normal eating.  😄

[Seas2mountains]

11 hours ago, PhillyTravelBug said:

It goes by so fast, doesn’t it? This itinerary with two day deviations on each end was the perfect length for a vacation, but it does fly by. Looks like you had near perfect weather and enjoyed a lot of sights. 

Thank you!  We were really lucky with the weather and had a great time! 

[Seas2mountains]

10 hours ago, projecthandbag said:

Thank you for the wonderful, informative review!  I really enjoyed it.  We are doing the same cruise in the opposite direction.  What time did the scenic cruise into Geiranger begin?  I don't want to miss it.

Thank you for following along. 
 

I believe the scenic cruise into Geiranger started about 8 or 9 am on this itinerary as we didn’t arrive there until before 11am. It is spectacular and is like an excursion just by being on the cruise. 
 

Have a great cruise! 

[Seas2mountains]

9 hours ago, Nataly1982 said:

Would you have any photos of buffet? 

Here are a few taken the first morning at breakfast. The buffet area was quite crowded when we were there. They do have outside seating with overhead heaters. 

[Seas2mountains]

Yesterday morning we took a free shuttle bus from the cruise port to the Harpa concert hall.  Our bus also shuttled passengers from Coral Princess. Harpa is a beautiful building. 

[Seas2mountains]

Next, we walked down the street to the Sólfar (Sun Voyager) sculpture. 
 

When we got to the sculpture, there was a woman standing within the sculpture taking selfies.  There were probably about 20 of us waiting for her to move so we could take photos of the sculpture. She didn’t budge for awhile and finally a man gestured to her that she needed to move and pointed to all of us waiting to take photos.  But she still didn’t move so someone offered to take a photo of her and the sculpture which finally got her to move.
 

We were laughing so hard as we couldn’t believe how long she stood in place taking multiple selfies and possibly a video while we all waited. 🤣  I should have taken a photo of her and the waiting crowd but missed my chance. 

Edited Thursday at 06:55 AM by Seas2mountains