We both slept in until I got up at about 8:00 AM to do my usual routine of going down to Deck 1 for a coffee and a morning snack and to work on the blog while I enjoyed the coffee. This lets Stephanie sleep in a bit longer, especially since this is a sea day and there is nothing scheduled.
I headed down to Deck 1 and was surprised at how few people were there getting coffee. It is usually crowded with people sitting at the bar with their coffee or in the nearby tables like I planned on doing. I was the only one other for a while. There were not even a lot of people getting coffee to go.
I worked on the blog until about 9:30 AM and then headed back up to the cabin to wake up Stephanie up so we could make it to the breakfast buffet before it closed at 10:00 AM.
We headed to breakfast and I ordered two over-easy eggs and Stephanie had an omelet. There is a new section in the buffet just for cooking eggs. I also believe you can still get them at the main food station in the middle of the buffet.
We enjoyed the breakfast and watched the sun begin to appear on the horizon. The seas were fairly rough this morning, and I looked on the Windy App and could see a large storm over the UK, and it was heading this way. Luckily, we were north of most of the bad winds, it would have been worse if we were just leaving Bergen today. I looked on the Cruisemapper App to see our position and to get a wind and wave report. I thought it odd that the detailed position report said our destination was Tromso and not Alta, but maybe we were just going by Tromso on the way to Alta and that was why it was showing it this way.
The information on the ship’s position is provided by the ship to the Global Tracking system used by all of the ships so they know where each other is for safety.
After breakfast, we headed back to the cabin to get my computer and Stephanie wanted to go and watch the Baggo Tournament (Cornhole to most) in the Atrium. It is always fun to watch and is usually crew versus passengers.
We watched from some chairs on Deck 2, they had already started but there was still the funniest part to go, throwing the bags from the middle landing on the atrium staircase. It was the hardest throwing spot, but worth the most points.
Today, it was just passengers versus passengers in Baggo.
After the game was over, we headed up to sit in the Explorer’s Bar area on Deck 7 so I could work on the blog posts, trying not to get too far behind.
It was crowded and busy there and we had a hard time finding a seat, but there was a couple leaving as we were looking around, so we took their spot and I was able to work a bit. There was a couple behind me and they started up a conversation with another man who was there by himself, it was a bit distracting, this was supposed to be a quiet area, but I do not think they knew that.
After a while, we thought we would go back to the room and drop off our gear before heading to lunch in the buffet. We found out from a text that Suzie and Michael were in the theatre watching a documentary film on Mt. Everest and the first ascent by Hillery.
We ate lunch and were just sitting enjoying a glass of wine when the Captain came on the loudspeaker and made an announcement that we were not going to Alta at all. This was supposedly due to the large storm over the UK that I had mentioned earlier that I had seen on the Windy App. It was difficult to hear and understand the entire announcement in the loud buffet area, so we were not sure we heard all of the details on why the changes were being made other than because of the storm.
There were other changes to the Itinerary, mostly date changes to each of the next three ports, Alta, which we were now skipping altogether, Tromso, which we were arriving earlier at, and Narvik, which we will now arrive earlier at and also stay overnight. We were originally only going to be in Narvik for several hours.
We had independent reservations for tours in each of those places, and now we had to go and try to find specific written information on the new dates and times for the next several days so we could try to make adjustments to the excursions we had planned to do on our own.
We headed to guest services and got a sheet with the new Itinerary printed on it. In the meantime, Michael and Suzie had sent a text about getting together to make a new plan since they were also doing the same excursions with us in Alta, Tromso and Narvik.
With the information in hand, the first thing we needed to do was to cancel the excursion in Alta, which was luckily reserved, but had not yet been paid, it was going to be charged to the credit card tonight at 7:00 PM. We canceled through Viator where we had made the reservation and also sent a note directly to the operator on why we had to cancel, which I am sure they would eventually find out about anyway. I imagine that when a 980-person ship cancels a port call in a small town like Alta, the word spreads pretty quickly.
At least we did not have to worry about getting back any refunded credit, which seems to always take longer than the credit card’s initial charge.
All of this was tough because the ship’s internet was really slow due to our location, rough seas, the number of users on the ship or some combination of all of these together. Sometimes our phones would work better, sometimes the computer would work better. Michael and I were canceling our individual reservations separately, but at the same time to make sure we were coordinating everything.
Next were the train tickets for the Arctic Train in Narivik. Once we could actually get into there webpage, it was easy to cancel, but it took a while to get to the cancellation area and then make the link work with the spotty internet. We did not see anywhere to just change the dates of the tickets, only to cancel, so we did that and received a confirmation that all of our prepaid ticket costs would be refunded, about $100 per couple.
Then we tried to go in and make new reservations, but there was no ticket availability for either of the two days we are now going to be in Narvik on the new Itinerary. The train runs twice in the morning, so there should have been some available seats, but none were showing up. We will try and check for tickets over the next couple of days, maybe something will open up, or we could try and go to the station on the two mornings and see if there are any tickets available at the last minute.
Next was to try and change our Northern Lights tour in Tromso. We could see through Viator that there was availability for the tour on the first night we are now there, which is tomorrow night instead of January 28. There was availability listed online, but once again, we could not see a way to just change the dates for our tour online. We had used a one-time 20% off coupon and that had made a big difference in the cost for the four reservations since I had made them all together.
I sent a message to the tour operator through the Viator messaging system and they responded quickly. We needed to go through Viator’s customer service to change the dates. I started a chat session with them on the Viator Phone App, and the agent was able to make the date changes and keep the same pricing, so we did not lose our coupon savings. For some reason, there was even a credit of around $26.00, the customer service person said it was due to differential pricing on certain days.
I made sure we had confirmation on the Viator App of the new dates, and it was for our party of four persons before ending the chat session. I also saw that I had received an email confirmation of the changes, but since I was on my phone doing this, it was harder to go back and forth between Apps and make sure I did not lose the chat session.
Now we tried to figure out some new things to do, especially since we are staying much longer in Narvik. We could not find much offered online at Viator for tours there, nothing was listed other than transportation to and from the airport.
It was stressful, and we were not happy missing Alta, it was the farthest point north on our trip. It is also disappointing that we don’t have much to do in Narvik for the almost two days we are now there instead of the original several hours.
The last major change was the addition of a port stop in a city called Stavanger, Norway. We are there on Friday, January 31, but arrive at the port at midnight and stay until 11:00 PM the following day, so we need to look into tours there and confirm it is all on January 31, midnight arrivals can be tricky for dates.
Below is the revised Itinerary for the Cruise Portion of this trip.
| Day | Date | Destination | Arrival Time | Departure Time | Notes: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday | January 23, 2025 | Bergen, Norway | 3:00 PM | Leave Port | |
| Friday | January 24, 2025 | Norwegian Inside Passage | Scenic Sailing | ||
| Saturday | January 25, 2025 | Tromso, Norway | 2:00 PM | Overnight in Tromso | |
| Sunday | January 26, 2025 | Tromso, Norway | 7:00 PM | Depart Tromso | |
| Monday | January 27, 2025 | Narvik | 7:00 AM | Overnight in Narvik | |
| Tuesday | January 28, 2025 | Narvik | 6:00 PM | Depart Narvik | |
| Wednesday | January 29, 2025 | Norwegian Inside Passage | Scenic Sailing | ||
| Thursday | January 30, 2025 | Norwegian Inside Passage | Scenic Sailing | ||
| Friday | January 31, 2025 | Stavanger | 12:00 Midnight | 11:00 PM | Scenic Sailing |
| Saturday | February 1, 2025 | Sail The North Sea | Sea Day | ||
| Sunday | February 2, 2025 | Amsterdam (Ijmuiden), The Netherlands | 8:00 AM | 2:00 PM | |
| Monday | February 3, 2025 | Disembark In London (Tilbury) | 6:00 AM | Move To London Hotel |
After we had finished making these changes to our plans, the area on Deck 1 started to get crowded with people. We realized that the Past Viking Cruise gathering was getting ready to start. We stayed for that, it only lasted about 20 minutes.
The waitstaff was serving champagne and some small appetizers. The future cruise coordinator made some announcements about new ships and itineraries and then offered up a toast. Then the Viking Singers sang a few songs, and the event was over.
Suzie and Michael were heading back to their room, Stephanie and I had 7:30 PM reservations for the Chef’s Table Restaurant, so we first stopped off at the Library Bar on Deck 1 for a “to go”glass of wine, and headed back to our room to change for dinner. We had tried to change our dinner reservation to a table for four so Suzie and Michael could eat with us, but that was not possible.
We changed and headed back down to Deck 1 to wait for our reservation time at the Chef’s Table. It is also located on Deck 1, so the Library Bar is a convenient waiting place for dinner.
We went to the Chef’s Table restaurant a little early, and that probably got us the last table for two next to the window, so we had a view outside of the passing seas. We try to go a little earlier than our actual reservation time to avoid the crowds that show up promptly at their reserved time, and it usually works.
Dinner was good, it was an Asian theme, and most of the items were quite good, Our only complaint was the wait time for the last course, the main course, which was a wok-tossed beef dish. We could also see other people who were at the same point in the meal, and they were waiting also. It was easy to tell, they were pairing a red wine with the last course, and it was the only red wine served tonight, all of the other wine pairings were white wines.
Our beef course finally arrived and it was quite good. There was a fried rice dish along with it, but the fried rice was served inside some type of leaf that was tied together, and the wrapping gave the rice a different flavor.
A mango dessert was served and we had had that before, it was decorated to look like a whole mango with its coloring, and was tasty.
After dinner, we headed to the Explorer’s Bar for a refreshment there.
We started a conversation with an older couple from the UK and they were fun to talk to, and Stephanie enjoyed talking with them about the royal family.
We were about to leave when there was an announcement that The Northern Lights could be seen outside. All of a sudden, it was like someone had disturbed an ant pile, people were everywhere and many were coming here because of the panoramic glass windows that looked out the front of the ship. Stephanie commented that it looked like a giant pajama party, many people had leisurewear on under their coats, and they had probably been asleep when the announcement was made.
We did not have any jackets to go outside, and it was very windy, and we assumed quite cold. The wind made a howling sound when anyone opened a door to try and get outside.
The bar staff was trying to cover the lights on the back of the bar which represents simulated star constellations and is quite bright, and was casting a lot of glare on the windows from the inside.
We decided to head down to the room and see if we could see anything from our balcony. It was no use trying to see anything from here, it was too crowded, and too windy outside.
When we got back to the room, the Aurora was still visible, but once again it only looked like a hazy cloud in the sky, but you could definitely see it was moving and changing shapes. We tried to take some photos with our phones, it was too windy and there was too much salt spray to get out the Nikon camera and tripod. Plus, the ship was rocking a little from the waves, so that nothing would show up in the longer exposures.
We did get s few photos, and we will look at them better tomorrow. The aurora was definitely there but seemed rather faint in the photos we took. After reviewing them the next day, many of the photos were certainly more blurry due to the motion of the ship and having to hand hold the phone in the windy conditions.
We headed to sleep shortly afterward, so we did not know if the aurora lasted very long or not.
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