UnDisney Family in denial about Gold Status -Norwegian Fjords - August 16-26 2018

I haven't been on the cruise boards in a while, but I'm so glad I ventured back over! I loved all your trip reports, so I look forward to reading this one. :)
 
I’ve enjoyed reading all your trip reports. I like your writing style. I’d love to see the Norwegian Fjords. They look spectacular. I hope you do a comparison with the Alaskan cruise scenery. Looking forward to reading more. I’m amazed that you’ve never been to WDW. But you are seeing the world and taking us along!
 
I haven't seen another on from our trip on here. Yours is the first. And I doubt I'll be writing one. I'm working on the movie and photo album still. We flew from CA, so a much longer flight. We also took a night flight (Air France) with a stop in Paris. We were in business and I don't think I slept for more than 10 mins, if that. Since it was a longer flight by the time we got to Copenhagen it was late at night the next day, so at least I could get some sleep. It's a toss up whether night or day flights are better, so we just picked the one that had the seats we wanted on points.

I love your FE gifts. Wow! What lucky recipients. I didn't join since we took 3 carryons and no checked baggage and there was no room for anything extra, but I've heard this one was very good. Looking forward to your next update!

CA would definitely be a longer flight. Ick. :)

3 carryons only... that's incredible. And here I was feeling virtuous that we weren't using our luggage allowance!

And yes, we had lovely folks in our FE.

Watching! The Norwegian Fjords is one we’d like to do one day!

Thanks!

Well, well, you travel in style :flower1: Nicely done!
Short and sweet in Copenhagen, you packed enough in for sure!
After 4 cruises, I avoid sailway like the plague as well (DH and eldest DD usually meander up near the end while younger DD and I hole up in the cabin eating cheese haha!)

Off and running, can't wait for the next update!

We'd love to go back to Copenhagen- I was just grateful we had no big plans. This way, we felt like we had a great day and a half, doing what we wanted. (Key to success in my world of vacationing.)

I haven't been on the cruise boards in a while, but I'm so glad I ventured back over! I loved all your trip reports, so I look forward to reading this one. :)

Thanks so much!

I’ve enjoyed reading all your trip reports. I like your writing style. I’d love to see the Norwegian Fjords. They look spectacular. I hope you do a comparison with the Alaskan cruise scenery. Looking forward to reading more. I’m amazed that you’ve never been to WDW. But you are seeing the world and taking us along!

Thank you! I'll try to remember to compare to Alaska- this was both similar and very different.

And nope - no WDW. The closest we've been is one half-day at Disney Springs. We gazed over at WDW!
 


CA would definitely be a longer flight. Ick. :)

3 carryons only... that's incredible. And here I was feeling virtuous that we weren't using our luggage allowance!



We'd love to go back to Copenhagen- I was just grateful we had no big plans. This way, we felt like we had a great day and a half, doing what we wanted. (Key to success in my world of vacationing.)


If it makes you feel better we each had a "personal item" along with our carryons.

I was at CVS today and saw a pile of Tsum Tsums and thought of your TR.

Your Copenhagen plan was a good one. We tried to maximize our time there and see as much as possible, which led to a lot of tiredness, some unhappiness, and my finally parking myself at a Nyhavn cafe and telling the rest of the family to do what they pleased. DH ended up joining me (it was soooo nice to relax a bit) and DD ran over to see the Marble Church and Amalienborg Castle. While I am a tiny bit sad to have missed those sights, my feet were much happier at the cafe. We need to learn to take it easy on these trips. We were very ready for the sea day when it finally arrived.
 
Day 2 - Kristiansand - and a milestone is achieved in DH's life.

When planning what to do on port days, we contemplated doing various things in Kristiansand ... and then we sat down, and we felt better. :)

Seriously, though- we looked, and we didn't see anything that had huge appeal to us, so we elected to simply meander, have a nice lunch, and sashay back to the ship.

Big planners are we.

Anyhow, we arrived in port before all ashore at 8:00 a.m. We did not attempt to be first off the ship. We aimed for 9:00, and sort of made that goal... maybe?

To be fair, we were looking at this sort of thing. It was distracting.

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It was raining when we got off the ship (cue the rain gear) but not much at all. Our first goal was to hit up (sigh) Starbucks, to address DCL Queen's need to grow her mug collection (to each his own?)

Those of us who have Newfoundland connections (amazing island province in the middle of the North Atlantic ... where DH and I met!) appreciated the 'eau de fish' scent, and the general cool dampness. (Did I mention the sauna that was Southern Ontario this summer? Needing a jacket was truly glorious.)

We sauntered (I am killing the synonym game tonight), towards town, and located Starbucks ... without a mug. Sadness. We did caffeinate (adults, not children), and recovered from this disappointment.

Then, we just had fun. (The sun came out too.) We wandered. We looked. We enjoyed a nice old church and some of us caught a concert there. We did touristy things (shopped in the little market) and Conor bought another keychain (he collects them) with reindeer horn. Men bought blueberries and reminisced about their youth (yeah- that was DH, and it was his 50th birthday, so we put up with him).

Lovely church (and you can see that the weather was not, in fact, totally rainy).

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Conor's goal was to try to find Norwegian curling pants. What are these, you ask? If you ask this, you did not watch enough Winter Olympics. These are sartorially splendiferous trousers. Here you go....

http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/definitive-ranking-norways-olympic-curling-pants

Yep. That's what he wanted.

I'll jump ahead... we were not successful. We (ahem) perhaps could have looked harder but, well, we didn't.

At one point (thrilling day), DH and Conor and some of the rest discovered that you might have to pay to use a public washroom in a mall in Norway. This was apparently a learning experience... but all was well.

We escaped the mall, and discovered some lovely quirky Scandinavian stores. Conor was DELIGHTED to buy a notebook (he has 30,000 of them) that featured a sloth AND a narwhal (his current favourite stuffy - the one he collapsed on on night one in Copenhagen). To be fair, he's using it daily still, so no complaints.

We randomly picked a place for lunch, and it was amazing - lots of healthy yet very yummy stuff - I got all hipster and had avocado toast, I know. Dude enjoyed this:

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(Rhubarb drink. We are big fans of rhubarb... as it grows like crazy around here.)

The wait for the food was super long, but it didn't really matter - we were in dire need of a break. (Too much moseying.)

After lunch, various other shopping quests were sought, but were generally not successful, but it was OK - we had 2 more Norwegian stops to save up for. (As Conor reminded us. Dude's quite good with his money.)

Thus, we rambled back to the ship.

Conor willingly posed on a little pedestrian bridge- that's his skating jacket- because that's what you wear in Norway.

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We paused on the way back to conquer a gym (no, no sweating was involved... just Pokemon-Go). It was quite fun, actually, to leave various Pokemon in multiple countries. (Yes, we are THAT COOL.)

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And, the requisite pic of the child and the ship.

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Once on board, we generally vegetated until supper. Well, the men vegetated and I finished unpacking- not enough time to do so the day before. We're used to having a day at sea after boarding, and this required some adjusting. We're also use to formal night on day 2... but nope. Uncle Walt was keeping things interesting.

We enjoyed sail away on our verandah.

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So... if you've been to Alaska... does this look familiar? All in all - we thought it was more like Newfoundland. Alaska's mountains and cliffs are younger, so higher. (See? I paid attention in geography many years ago... I hope!)

I probably forgot to mention that our first dinner was at Lumière's. Night 2 was at Animator's Palate.

DH had actually spoken ahead of time to our head waiter about NOT having any singing. As he was the ancient one now, we didn't go behind his back ... much. In fact, they did a great job - he got a quiet little yummy cupcake, with a candy candle, and our server made quiet sound effects like fireworks. Totally understated, and totally awesome, and not terribly Disney.

I'm pretty sure we retreated to an early bed (or at least, those of us whose ages do not involve the word 'teen').

Overall- another lovely day. It was neat to just regular Norway if that makes sense. Nothing too touristy- just a wandering kind of day, exploring, with no agenda. So- not a day at sea... yet somehow, approaching it for peacefulness.

Okey dokey- I need to do the same now- head to bed. Tomorrow... we FINALLY find a fjord. FINALLY.
 
My goodness, I'm struck by how mature Conor looks in that footbridge pic. Every now and then I look at my 9 year old and go holy crap he looks 16 there. Then he does something totally gross and I'm back in reality.
 


I think that was a great first day, like you said most (but not all) cruises have a sea day as your first full day so to hit the ground running right away is a bit jarring!
 
If it makes you feel better we each had a "personal item" along with our carryons.

I was at CVS today and saw a pile of Tsum Tsums and thought of your TR.

Your Copenhagen plan was a good one. We tried to maximize our time there and see as much as possible, which led to a lot of tiredness, some unhappiness, and my finally parking myself at a Nyhavn cafe and telling the rest of the family to do what they pleased. DH ended up joining me (it was soooo nice to relax a bit) and DD ran over to see the Marble Church and Amalienborg Castle. While I am a tiny bit sad to have missed those sights, my feet were much happier at the cafe. We need to learn to take it easy on these trips. We were very ready for the sea day when it finally arrived.

Still trying to fathom that packing planning. :)

I've learned on many trips - I generally need to work flat out leading up to the vacation, that if I don't plan to be 'unplanned' in the first few days (as much as possible), I don't relax. My feet are one thing- my brain is a whole other beast. My best memories of Copenhagen are mostly really the part where we just sat outside at the cafe and people-watched. I'm glad you got a break!

My goodness, I'm struck by how mature Conor looks in that footbridge pic. Every now and then I look at my 9 year old and go holy crap he looks 16 there. Then he does something totally gross and I'm back in reality.

Yeah- we are firmly in the Tween zone. Rapid-fire alternating between incredible maturity and then ... this morning's utterance: "Look mom! Barf emojis! (giggling)." Why, I ask? "Because they're awesome." Right.

I think that was a great first day, like you said most (but not all) cruises have a sea day as your first full day so to hit the ground running right away is a bit jarring!

Yeah- this trip involved 3 port days before a sea day- pacing was definitely needed!
 
In a moment of tactical error, I had Conor sitting with me when I was reading a certain page on a certain social media network about this cruise. He saw the Tsum Tsum exchange sign-up. There was no turning back.

This sort of thing already happened to me with my 7-year old son too many times too. I try to avoid him in trip-planning but he has a knack for looking over my shoulder at just the wrong time.

Although I'll admit that although we generally avoid FE's, I'd be tempted by a Tsum Tsum exchange. Less ambiguity.


We had no real plan or goal - just to explore. We did this until 5:00 (Wine hour!) and then headed 2 doors down for an authentic Danish supper as recommended by the hotel. It was warm enough to eat outside, actually. Food was yummy, though I can't remember what I had... I know Conor had a salmon appetizer and a salmon main course though, much to our waitress' amusement.

My son is going through a Calvin & Hobbes phase and was completely mystified to discover yesterday that otherwise-epitome-of-cool Calvin hates salmon.

I was careful to not explain that 90% of his peers are Team Calvin on that one.
 
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Glad I found this - I remembered at the end of your last TR you talking about this one and I was even thinking a few weeks ago - hmm, didn't that un-Disney family do another cruise, I wonder if they'll do a TR? :rotfl:

I have to be careful with the Tsums because I know once I get started, I'll get obsessed! I did let myself get some from Disneyland Paris though because they were super cute in their French outfits! Like Goofy had a baguette, Donald had a map of Paris, and Chip and Dale had berets!
 
Enjoying your TR! I hope you update it soon. I was on the same cruise- you may have seen me and my friend. We were the random adults taking photos of American Girl dolls everywhere for a blog.
 
Subbing in! Hi! :wave:

I've never done a Disney Cruise (or any cruise!) before, I'm looking forward to hearing more about yours. I agree, sail-away shot does look like Nfld! My in-laws used to have a vacation place there in Humber Valley. I loved it, and DH and I had our honeymoon there. Such a beautiful place!
 
Yay for another Un-Disney family trip report! Rhubarb... it grew like weeds where I grew up, but here in Arizona, you can only find it once in a while at specialty grocery stores for something like $9 per pound. Ridiculous!
 
Day 3 - Stavanger - and FJORDS!!!! (and apologies for the delay)

Ahem. This is a bit delayed. I had computer issues, then work got a bit on the wild side. And then, well, we had other priorities.

So- sorry! I'm back and I'm marathoning this until it's done... before Feb 15. Because... it needs to be done by then. :)

However, this has been bothering me, and we're snowed in again today (repeated theme this month), so... having fixed computer/photo/motivation issues, we shall resume.

I left us leaving our first Norwegian port.

Second Norwegian port day was dedicated to actual fjording... as this cruise was called "Norwegian Fjords" but, well, there WERE NO FJORDS (unless you booked them ... which we did).

I woke up early and snuck off with my book, to hit up the Cove Café and a nice lounge chair. It wasn't exactly balmy, but nice with one of DCL's blankets. I read, and watched as we sailed into Stavanger.



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I enjoyed this little island.

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I got the menfolk up a bit later (with the usual latté for DH), and hit up the usual breakfast options with our very own maple syrup to top waffles and pancakes. We nabbed our rain gear and good cameras, and met up with our travel companions.

It was not warm (sorry- we do Celsius here) - but note my proof that I was up early. :)

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Our goal? To (try to) obtain a coveted Starbucks mug (as we were unsuccessful the day before) for DCL Queen. Starbucks #1 was not helpful, so all the rest of our little party elected to hike over to Starbucks #2. I elected to sit, and read my book, and sip coffee. It was actually a particularly lovely part of my trip - 20 minutes on my own, reading and people watching.

The mug-seekers returned, elated with success.

We headed back towards port, to find ourselves the last folks to NOT board the fjord-travelling boat (DH booked this independently). However, this turned out to be AWESOME, as they just called in another boat, and we were first on, which meant we had full pick of the best place to sit (at the back, near the door to the deck).

Conor had his nifty binoculars, and was initially happy to be all Canadian and sit inside.

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However, after that, his true nature took over. The boy LOVES rain. And fjords. And standing outside. He spent most of the trip outside.


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And basically, then, we spent a pleasant 90 minutes or so meandering through a fjord - in the rain, mostly. The nice thing about the smaller boat is that you get right up close to lots of cool things. See below.

Cool goats.

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Cool scenery.

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More cool scenery.

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Yeah. No one else is actually outside at this point. His parents took photos from inside. :)


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Pretty amazing waterfall.

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And, I think I need to start a new post for the rest of the photos...

(Fear not- there will be no delay this time!)
 
Day 3- Stavanger - Continued

As promised.. more photos of our fjord.

This one shows the not-so-ancient-mariner and how close we got to some amazing nature.

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I'll confess- he comes by this naturally- mostly I love rain and this type of weather too, though it's brutal on my hair.

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After you get to the cool bits, you basically do a pretty direct line back to port, which was good, as we had very hungry offspring on board.

We found an OK pub/pizza place (because pizza is what you eat in Norway??? - it was easy, and it had local beer for DH), ate a quick lunch, warmed up, and then headed off to shop a bit.

I appear to have completely failed on nabbing photos of the shopping district in Stavanger, but it's quite lovely. We did a lot of window shopping, but then stopped mostly at the requisite tourist-type place, where we splurged a bit on what are now called "Conor's Norwegian Skating Socks" (lovely thick socks in a traditional Norwegian pattern) and a few other bits and pieces. Conor bought a small viking with his Norwegian money.

You can admire the Norwegian socks here, as they compliment (NOT), Conor's purple shoes nicely.

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At this point (I am dedicated to honest reporting) the grumpy factor was VERY HIGH, so we headed back to the ship.

We did mandate a stop for photos complete with "I don't really want to smile, but I will to get out of this" smiles.

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At this point, we were only a few steps away from our ship- you are really right *in* Stavanger when you are in port.

I know at this point we spent some much-needed time in our cabin, chilling. This was a great day, but exhausting- and the nature of this itinerary is that you are very port-heavy the first few days, so we needed some down time.

That night - we were in Rapunzel's Royal table. I only remember this because of this sort of thing that happened whilst we were waiting in line.

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I remember that the show during supper was kind of loud, but the kids liked it. We knew from videos to avoid being caught up in dancing with anyone who resembles a princess!

The other significant memory from this night was that we were reminded, not very subtly, that we were sailing in the North Atlantic. The seas were pretty choppy. We had already deployed DH to the medical centre to get us some of their lovely samples, and my stash of 'Gin Gins' (ginger chewy candy - they really worked for me and for Conor- DH hated them) was very much in demand. None of us got sick, just felt woozy at times.

You can get a bit of an idea here:

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I know that despite all this, we enjoyed our supper, but were all ready for an early-ish night.

See? I did that well. We got through day 3 in 1 day, and I'll get Day 4 (fortunately pretty quiet) up today too I hope.

Next up- Alesund.
 
Belated replies to you all!

Reading along! So far looks like an amazing trip!

Thanks! It continued on to be amazing, so we'll just make sure I get this info up. :)

Loving your report!

Thanks!

This sort of thing already happened to me with my 7-year old son too many times too. I try to avoid him in trip-planning but he has a knack for looking over my shoulder at just the wrong time.

Although I'll admit that although we generally avoid FE's, I'd be tempted by a Tsum Tsum exchange. Less ambiguity.


My son is going through a Calvin & Hobbes phase and was completely mystified to discover yesterday that otherwise-epitome-of-cool Calvin hates salmon.

I was careful to not explain that 90% of his peers are Team Calvin on that one.

Tsum Tsum exchange was cool- especially since we can hardly find anymore now. Someone is very sad on this front.

Firmly on Team Salmon around here! :)


Enjoying your trip report. More, please!

No problem... finally! :)

Glad I found this - I remembered at the end of your last TR you talking about this one and I was even thinking a few weeks ago - hmm, didn't that un-Disney family do another cruise, I wonder if they'll do a TR? :rotfl:

I have to be careful with the Tsums because I know once I get started, I'll get obsessed! I did let myself get some from Disneyland Paris though because they were super cute in their French outfits! Like Goofy had a baguette, Donald had a map of Paris, and Chip and Dale had berets!

We are back at the TR, finally.

The last time we were at a Disney Store (Canadian one anyway) - they told us they will only make them now for new movies. We are hoping this will be reversed at some point. Well, SOME of us are hoping this will be reversed, and the rest of us are fine with this concept ...as we trip over yet another Tsum Tsum.

Thanks for following!


Enjoying your TR! I hope you update it soon. I was on the same cruise- you may have seen me and my friend. We were the random adults taking photos of American Girl dolls everywhere for a blog.

I have to confess I missed the American Girl photo-ops - and yes, I'm back to updating. Thanks for following!

Subbing in! Hi! :wave:

I've never done a Disney Cruise (or any cruise!) before, I'm looking forward to hearing more about yours. I agree, sail-away shot does look like Nfld! My in-laws used to have a vacation place there in Humber Valley. I loved it, and DH and I had our honeymoon there. Such a beautiful place!

Newfoundland is awesome - not that I'm biased having met my husband there. Thanks for following!


Yay for another Un-Disney family trip report! Rhubarb... it grew like weeds where I grew up, but here in Arizona, you can only find it once in a while at specialty grocery stores for something like $9 per pound. Ridiculous!

It grows like weeds here too... but that doesn't mean we like it any less. :) Tx for following!
 

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