Hi All, We’re back from our Norwegian Fjords & Arctic Cruise. OMG the Fjords are SO beautiful! I must admit to shedding a few tears when I woke up on our 1st stop at Skjolen & opened the curtains, as I was totally stunned by the scenery – the greenness of everything & the snow on top of the numerous mountains. The blue/green of the water. Talk about idyllic! I just thought I’d died & gone to heaven as it was that beautiful, I felt I could happily & peacefully pass away looking at the beautiful sights ( a strange reaction by me). I just felt really sorry for the people who lived there as we’d parked looking into their windows. Looked like where we’d docked opposite were idyllic small farms & the people who lived in them were out at work or staying away from their from their floor to ceiling windows. Norway is a REALLY beautiful country. We were also exceedingly lucky that Norway was also having a heatwave like the UK. Most of the trip we were up in 70’s & 80’sF – over 20C & even in the Arctic it was 56F. All those heavy jumpers were unworn as were the thermals.
Sadly we didn’t get to see much of the Northern Lights. We did see some red, green & yellow ones when we were going away from Tromso BUT that was only because the clouds parted in places for a short while. It must have been stunning with no clouds. The Captain said he’d wake us all up if they had a great display, Apparently the ship has NO cameras on the back & the following night apparently everyone who stayed up & were on the back deck were treated to a stupendous display off the back of the ship. As most of us had stayed up hoping the previous night – when the chances were excellent, we were mostly tucked into bed & no announcement was made 🙁 Hubby bought a Northern Lights Baseball cap anyways. lol
The ship was beautiful, the staff were lovely BUT sadly the food was just OK, nothing very special except for a couple of meals I’m going to reproduce here hopefully. The entertainment was pretty poor with just a few rare exceptions. Apparently no line now has enough staff & entertainers so I wonder if Royal Caribbean. which we loved would be any better? We’re booked to go on exactly the same ship – Sky Princess for our 2 transatlantics. I did look to see if there was an alternative to the 2nd trans. one which we only have a $2 deposit on, but sadly couldn’t find one. I’ll look again when I’m more awake. We’ll enjoy them anyways. Met some lovely people on board, it was wonderful to go from full shielding to actually talking to people.
I changed from Plusnet to BT our broadband & phone whilst we were away so we’d have no break in service. Hmmm that didn’t work as they hadn’t delivered our router or phones & had cut us off plusnet so it’s only today we are finally up & running with broadband & phones again. Got the entertainment package too as we haven’t watched TV for nearly 2 years now. I’ll set that up in a few days.
Weight – I think I’ve put on 7lbs & hubby a bit more. Hardly surprising as we ate too many croissants every morning. Hubby because he needed something to take his Manuka10+ UMF on & I helped him eat some too (silly me!) We also over indulged on their huge speciality coffees daily (& thoroughly enjoyed them) plus huge brewed coffees smothered in cream. Then again there was the chocolate & hazelnut concoctions that were easily on a par with GU except twice the size, that we just couldn’t resist.
We just had our 1st ‘proper’ meal – steamed cauliflower & broccoli with Steak & Ale pie (that we tossed away the pastry) & hubby was talking to it 🙂 “I have SO missed you, I’ve been longing for you for weeks’ so we’re coming on this bus. We only have 7.5wks until our next trip for a month to visit the girls, their hubbies & our 2 grand-kids. I’d love to lose a stone by then (I know we’re going to put weight on during the cruise but we’ve decided we will either miss breakfast or go have breakfast on much more suitable fare.) We did have extra vegetables at every meal, followed usually by Gelato – we’re on holiday!
It’s so nice to see all of you here. I will write in a day or 2 as have to send messages & make tel calls to US, Keep on keeping off all of you. So happy to be back on the shiny new bus, thanks DCM for setting this up again. Hi Yowser, Cathy, Nokie, Sue. Mariet & Extra Special hugs to Dawn. So nice to see so many newbies to this thread too. Too little time at mo. but if you want to see how we’ve done click on my profile – nothing better than losing a few stone relatively easily, with help from this lovely group of people & also no longer being classed as a diabetic YAY! Keep on keeping off peeps. XXXX
