OK, last sea day. We can do this. Tomorrow we get an extra day in Reykjavik, we can stretch our legs, and feel a little less like a pig in a trough.
But honestly, how can any day with this man be a tough one? He tried two new drinks today based on my recommendation for what I thought he might like: a lemon drop and a Midori sour. He’s got a sweet tooth but seems to handle this salty woman just fine.
And besides, Scott went ahead and defied the odds and won money at a slot machine on a cruise ship today. I guess our hotel bill in Oaxaca is gonna be just about covered!
Originally, today was our port stop for Nuuk, Greenland. Then Plan B was to go into a fjord/glacier situation and then another smaller town south. Then Plan C was to skip the fjord and just go into the smaller today today. Well, ummm… not. The vast drift ice and currents just weren’t on our side. The captain said that they looked back at charts for the last 10 years and this is the worst year they’ve seen. I was disappointed that we had to miss Nuuk as it’s the capital and we had a full day planned there including a whale watching tour, a local yarn shop, and a brewery. Ugh.
Since the failure of the original itinerary, Plan B, and Plan C we are at a count of 5/10 sea days on a cruise that was originally supposed to be 3/10 sea days. But some good news in the mix… the captain is going to head back to Reykjavik a day early for an added shore day, so instead of 6/10 sea days we will stay at 5/10 sea days. Yes, we should have paid for the thermal suite on day 1 (or when booking, honestly).
At this point our sea days are pretty monotonous… sleep in, eat 2-3 meals at O’Sheehan’s, have a drink or two at Proof Whiskey Bar, have a drink or two at Gatsby’s, spend a little money on the slot machines in the casino, do some reading/knitting/spreadsheet work.
But Scott’s a happy boy on a cruise ship, generally. It’s his favorite way to travel. He says, “you can do as much or as little as you want”. It’s not my favorite way to travel, but there are appealing things about it when it’s set up right. So I’m going to consider this trip a learning opportunity, and we’ve already started talking about how we will plan cruises for the future. And since my love enjoys them so much, I can’t exactly call it a burden to plan one a year into our vacation planning. I mean… boo hoo for me, right?
And since my partner is so loving and easy going he’s fine with the types of things we are talking about to make future cruise trips work for both of us. For example, I will investigate the ship we are considering booking in a little more detail and make sure it has plenty of space and quiet areas for me to do my introversion thing in. And I will likely book us thermal suite passes on future trips. I used to think I would need a balcony room to make me super happy, but after this cruise in an interior cabin I think I’m ok with trading the cost of a balcony cabin for the cost of the thermal suite. We also have NCL status racking up, so within a couple more cruises we will have the status that gets you priority boarding and tender boat access (this means less lines for me to wither in), not to mention a free bag of laundry.
I think the NCL Bliss has our name on it for next summer…
Today was supposed to be Paamiut, Greenland. But mother nature says no.
It was pretty early in the day that the captain came over the intercom system to let everyone know we would not be stopping at Paamiut today due to weather and difficulties navigating the drift ice surrounding the port. So today was a sea day, but I couldn’t be too sad with these awesome views.
The new plan is to travel up a fjord to see a glacier tomorrow, and likely replace the port of Nuuk with Qaqortuk. Bummer I will have to miss the yarn shop in Nuuk! But c’est la vie!
Next stop – the first of three port stops that made me choose this cruise itinerary – Nanortalik, GREENLAND bitches! I appreciate an obscure destination. Although we were visiting with 2000+ other cruise ship passengers which would kind of negate the idea of obscurity, right? Whatever, it’s still cool.
But before I even saw land I saw my very first iceberg. MY FIRST EVER! I was inordinately excited about the idea of seeing icebergs for the first time ever when booking and anticipating this trip. So that would explain this truly horrible photo of an iceberg I took through a dirty window in a ship restaurant, and why I’m saving it here for all eternity as record of my FIRST EVER ICEBERG SIGHTING.
Don’t worry, the iceberg photos get a little better. Like these!
And then these shots of them with land that is green(ish). So epic.
As you can probably tell from the photos the weather wasn’t the best. It was really overcast, there was a little rain, and it was windy. The captain announced that they wouldn’t start the tender boat process to go onshore for a bit due to weather, and then when tendering started it was 3 hours before Scott & I were able to get on one. There were 4 boats in process, but there was only one small dock onshore for them to use and it took a really long time to get people on/off the tender boats.
My first honest thought getting off the boat was that we didn’t belong there. I mean this town is teeny tiny. The internet says that as of 2020 there were 1,185 inhabitants, and the number of passengers on this ship was north of 2,000. We might have seen 50 locals on-shore out and about while we were there. I know a lot of people didn’t disembark due to the tender boat slowness, but still. And there weren’t even many opportunities on land to spend money for the community, very few in fact. We tried to buy some Danish candy in the grocery store and then realized it was cash only. Hopefully NCL had to pay a hefty fee for this intrusion.
Regardless of my big feelings, I really did enjoy stopping here. It was really beautiful. It was raining on us for a lot of it, but my favorite color is gray so that just added to my enjoyment honestly.
After walking around for about 90 minutes, we then stood in the tender boat line for about an hour to get back on board. Despite the time inefficiencies and colonizer guilt I’m glad we walked around town, especially since (spoiler alert) this would be our only Greenland opportunity.
Today was a scheduled “sea day” as our ship crossed between Iceland and Greenland.
I need to get better at writing during trips, or at least taking notes, so that when it’s weeks later and I’m trying to write about a day I have a clue beyond the photos we took. The only photos we have from this day are from us eating. Which, honestly, isn’t too far from the truth of most of the time spent on board.
Two of the three photos are of us eating at O’Sheehan’s. We probably ate here 8/10 days on this ship. On this day we scored a window booth. It’s the only 24-hour dining venue onboard, and I’ll choose a sit-down restaurant over a buffet any day of the year. It’s not great food but it’s not bad either. Scott would say, “I have no issue.” The venue appeals to us because it’s casual and easy, but it can get repetitive. I would bet my life that Scott started this meal with a cobb salad.
As part of our “Free At Sea” package deal we got one specialty dining restaurant meal on this cruise. On our last cruise in 2021 the promotion came with more meals, and our favorite had been Moderno Churrascaria. So on this ship we decided to repeat the Brazilian steakhouse-themed restaurant. Since this ship was quite a bit smaller, the atmosphere in the bar/restaurant wasn’t quite as nice, but it was fine. The staff were super attentive and friendly and wonderful, and I could’ve eaten my whole meal just from the fantastic “salad” bar that also had sushi and other appetizer-type snacks. There were a lot of meat options that came around to the table (maybe 7 or maybe 9 options?), and then the super yummy pineapple.
The only reason my face looks like this is because I was pointed directly at a dude (maybe he was 16, maybe he was 28?) who was watching videos (or maybe facetiming?) with the volume on during the meal. He also… brace yourself… picked his nose and… seriously, brace yourself… ATE IT during the meal.
Today’s port was Isafjordur, Iceland. Per Wiki, “Ísafjörður experiences high winds and very few clear days throughout all the year”… well suck it Wiki, because our day was freaking epic and gorgeous.
I honestly kind of squealed when I saw this view from the ship the morning we arrived.
You can’t really see too much out of a tender boat when you’re in one, but I haven’t ever seen a cooler view of a tender boat from the outside before.
We landed on shore a bit before our planned activity, so had time to wander around town. I don’t know if they differentiate the two sections as locals, but the area we landed in is the kind of small peninsula here, then you walk around this sort of inner bay to find more of it. The initial exploration in that peninsula was a ghost town. It felt like all of the locals saw the ship coming, scampered inside, closed their curtains and turned off the lights. Who can blame them, really?
A ghost town, but a lovely, colorful ghost town. With a friendly cat. Sadly, the local yarn shop was closed.
That inner bay was really cool on its own with a miniature statue of Scott! Seriously why does he look like a toy in this photo? I was only maybe 20 feet away from him when I took it.
Finally we were ready for our previously scheduled activity: an ATV tour with a local company! Once again we scored leaving the ship excursion options behind.
We paid around $385 for the both of us. There’s an option to pay less if you share an ATV but we know ourselves and knew it would be worth it for each of us to have our own bike. We were the only ones in our group of maybe 10 people that chose this though; everyone else rode as couples. I think I had ridden as a passenger on an ATV once in my 20s, but have never driven one. Scott said he has never driven one either. But these were super easy – fully automatic and the guide took a few minutes with each of us individually to make sure we understood what we were doing. We rode through the town then up to two different lookout points and then to a waterfall. I found myself wishing that we had a GoPro. It was so fun! Highly recommended. If you’re going to this town book this tour!
Afterwards we found our way over to a local brewery: Dokkan Brugghus. Their website is only in Icelandic, but you can visit this site for some information, including the fact that Dokkan Brugghus “is the Westfjords first and only brewery”. It was a great space with both indoor and outdoor seating. In addition to their taps they had food, but we just grabbed beers before heading back to our floating all-you-can-eat buffet that we had already paid for.
Next cruise port stop: Akureyri, Iceland. Long, but good day. Long, but (you decide) post.
Again I looked to see what we could do on our own vs. a ship excursion. In researching the area we decided we were most interested in seeing the Godafoss waterfall, and checking out the Myvatn Nature Baths. The ship offered an excursion that included the waterfall but nothing that included the nature baths. Local tour operators offered coach bus trips out to Myvatn but their cost didn’t include the admission to the nature baths.
Then I looked up local car rentals and was pleasantly surprised by how easy and (relatively) affordable that option would be. Alaska Airlines got us a discount via the local Akureyri Avis/Budget rentals office, and the local office was literally only a 5 minute walk from the cruise port. We failed to get a pic of our little chariot from the outside, but here’s a lovely little photo I like to call, “Why Did I Gain Weight On This Trip?” Did I crop the photo to remove my gut from view? Maybe? Absolutely yes.
Another bonus to this option is that we are considering doing a Ring Road trip in the future and this was a chance to check out driving in Iceland, and it was easy. Roads were fine, well-marked, etc.
First destination was Godafoss Waterfall, just a little over 30 miles away. We went this slightly longer route to avoid a toll road/tunnel and the car rental fella said it was more scenic anyway.
Scott took photos along our route but it was rainy and difficult to catch good shots. These two are pretty nice, though! They do a good job of capturing the scale of the land I think.
Godafoss itself was a great stop, and completely free! Well unless you buy candy in the extensive souvenir shop (ahem, Scott). But he earned it by being our official photographer for this stop, and doing a fantastic job. He especially enjoyed playing with the long exposure setting on his phone camera today.
Here’s a menagerie of other photos that he took of Godafoss today…
Then a few long exposure ones he crafted that are cool…
And here’s a little bonus video short for y’all…
The waterfall was gorgeous of course, but I was super enamored with the flora around the site.
As well as this old local guy who climbs down a very steep ladder to fish here just a bit downstream from the waterfall.
After some time here we jumped into the car and headed towards Myvatn. Along the way we stopped at a little fish & chips stand that was really good. Oddly it was called “Fish & Chips Lake Myvatn“. Recommended!
The area around Myvatn Lake was really gorgeous. At times a moonscape, and others really lushly green.
Then we made it to Myvatn Nature Baths which we had prebooked. Brace yourself for an unpopular opinion here: I didn’t love it. And my disappointment really had nothing to do with the facility itself, honestly. This was my first time ever in a geothermal hot springs environment, and while I had heard that they smell a bit like eggs, I didn’t realize how little I would love sitting in hot egg-smelling water. I really just couldn’t figure out how to relax and fully enjoy the experience feeling like I was becoming a hard boiled egg. Well, considering the deteriorating status of my waistline due to overeating on vacay, perhaps I should say a soft boiled egg. For other folks that enjoy it – more power to you! And for those that have never tried it before, definitely try it yourself and form your own opinion. I definitely feel like I’m in the minority with these feelings based on my internet perusings.
But then again, any time with my hun is a good experience. Sorry, I know, gag. But he’s just the cutest.
So, suffice it to say, we didn’t stay long. We had a lovely drive back down to return the vehicle – the entire rental process was easy peasy. The gas refill wasn’t bad either – the car was really gas efficient and we ended up paying around $28 to refill before we turned it back in.
We got back in plenty of time to wander around the town center. Unfortunately a couple of places we really wanted to go were closed, including a yarn shop and Einstok’s Brewers’ Lounge. The town was definitely appealing though and made for a great leg stretch before getting back on the boat.
A short walk back to the pier and we got back on board…
In the evening we tried a complimentary dining venue called Ginza that served “Asian” food. I had a decent dragon roll, and Scott enjoyed some sake that was included in our beverage package.
Then we went and enjoyed the cover band that played nearly daily – The Excell. They did a good job I thought, definitely a ship favorite based on attendance at their shows (especially after dinner).
Kjar-ied Away 