MJC

Another beautiful Norman church. It was Sunday so we couldn't go inside. The canal area is very pretty with some beautiful old boats. A large part of the old city center was destroyed by a terrible fire in 1904, so the new buildings were built in the Art Nouveau style. Lots of charming details. The last time we board the Island Princess. Two sea days until Southampton. End of a sunny - cloudy - sunny - cloudy day in beautiful Alesund. Every place we visited in Norway was so clean and tidy and lovely.

Our last port was Alesund. Our plan was to taxi up to the top of Mount Aksla where there is a viewpoint with a cafe and lookout. You can climb to it... you can see the zig zag of stone stairs (418 of them!) in this picture. We heard later that they were very slippery. It was snowing up there when our ship arrived. There were no taxis in the parking lot, so we opted to take the tourist train up to the top. We sat on the train for about 15 minutes. Eventually someone came to tell us that it was so icy up there that the other train couldn't come back down, so they didn't want to risk it and were cancelling ours. We got a refund and changed plans. I had maps, of course, because our second planned activity was to walk around the historic part of the city. It was interesting in every city how they managed to have flowers and color even this late in the season. Many homes had window boxes and planters in all the places we visited. At one point during our walk, it started to hail. Hail the size of chickpeas. We were expecting a bit of rain but I could hear it hitting the car roofs so I grabbed Mark and we ducked into a doorway until it passed. So cool, bouncing around, people exclaiming. We rarely get hail in NYC. We later met someone on the train that had been stuck up the mountain, and he said they crammed everyone on a doubledecker bus to come down, so he and all the others up top in the open were hailed on. A great adventure story to tell when he got back to SoCal!

I have a very nice Canon SX60HS that I got specifically for our African safari in 2019, but believe it or not I ended up using my cell phone mostly on this trip. It is a Samsung Android phone. It was just easier to carry around, especially in London. I did use my camera all day at Lofoten. But after all the tinkering we did this summer practicing our night photography, we both got the best pictures of the northern lights with our phones on night mode. Had we been ashore, without the movement of the ship, they would have been sharper with either phone or camera because we could have used our tripods and timers for the NL. One reason I bought the camera I have is because it has a really great zoom capacity. I thought I would need it in Africa, but it turned out all the animals were so much closer than we had expected. The only time it was necessary was when we saw a rhino way in the distance, it was the only one we saw and it is veeerrryyy tiny in the photo. I had to put my camera on the car roof and set the timer to keep the camera still enough to get it. 🙂

Thank you Laurie, yes we were happy and having an awesome day. You know, you plan and plan and hope things go well, and stress over the details, so when it exceeds your expectations it's just a very special time together. The only times I was cold were at night. I do have to be conscious of my feet and hands which get cold easily and then get stiff. So having layers for gloves and socks was key. I had brought instant hand warmers but forgot to bring them ashore for our night excursion. They would have helped I'm sure, but it wasn't so bad that I stopped doing what I was doing. If you don't plan to be out at night, then it's easy to dress for the weather. It wasn't much worse than the coldest days in NYC which are gray and blustery. Our temps didn't drop below 20 but the wind chill was another 10 degrees or so. Our lunch was at Anita's Seafood, commonly recommended online. We stopped just before noon which was a good thing because it was quiet when we got there, and our food came quickly. By the time we left the parking lot was full. I had also read that some excursion buses stop there but we didn't see any. I had the fish burger, it was amazing. The chandelier features dried codfish: This was about 4pm. Because we were far north, the sun was always low in the sky to the south of us, and the daylight was short. That night after dinner, about 9:30pm, the captain announced lights up top. We scrambled to dress and everyone was rewarded with some beautiful northern lights for an hour or more. The pictures don't do it justice, and I am not a practiced night photographer. But they were streaking across the sky and also appeared to rise up from the mountain in the distance. Spectacular end to a fabulous day.

We are experienced snorkelers, looking for a good opportunity in Huatulco to go off on our own with a guide/boat to visit some good spots, or a resort day pass to snorkel from the beach and have some lunch. Any recommendations would be appreciated. We will be there in April from a cruise ship and don't want to follow the masses.

Thank you Melody. It's easy to take good pictures there. Now I want to visit the Rocky Mountains. When I was a child we drove through in the dark on our way to California, so all us kids slept through it.

The Lofoten Islands were the port highlight of the trip IMO. So beautiful. We rented a car for 8 hours. I had planned out our route to avoid the tour buses and get off the usual route a bit. I had used my driving app to plan out how long it would take to get from point to point, included a lunch break, and left a good cushion for pickup/dropoff. It wasn't difficult navigating because there are only a few main roads where we were at the very end of the island chain. We had at least an hour more to tour than I had scheduled for because rather than driving the attendant back to the rental agency, they had the car at the pier for us and then at the end of the day we just left it there with the keys hidden. I also studied Norwegian road signs! This was another instance where layering was so important. The tender was very cold. The car was warm. We spent a lot of time outside, where it was sometimes windy. Most of the day was sunny which was helpful though still cool in the shade. Then it got very gray and chilly later in the day. I wore a base layer, lightweight tunic sweater, down coat, scarf hat gloves, wool socks, insulated boots. It was perfect. We both have so many pictures. Here are some of my favorites. We did get to do a little hiking in the woods at one point. And we had to clamber up some boulders to get that last shot in Nusfjord. It wasn't bad going up, but coming down was a bit tricky, what with my two bum knees and Mark's two metal hips, but we did it! 🙂 You can see why this is a popular spot for mountain climbers.

We were going to be overnight in Alta, where we had booked a late excursion for the Northern Lights. We met our tour ashore at 5pm, and were back at 12:30am, a bit early, because the full cloud cover meant nobody saw any NL at Alta. We visited three locations and saw bupkis. This is how I dressed for breakfast on the ship. With the tenders going all day, it was cold on board except in the cabins: Look who was waiting for me when I got back: The sail-in to Alta was beautiful: Coming back after midnight. Our second day in Alta we just stayed on the ship and rested. Tomorrow would be a full day of touring on our own in the Lofoten Islands.

Our next port was Tromso and by now it was getting cold. We had planned to ride the cablecar for the view, but it was snowing while we were getting ready, so we changed plans and just walked to the Polar Museum. We had to take a shuttle bus from the port to the center of town. We walked by the cathedral, strolled along the waterfront, and had lunch at a waterfront restaurant with a view of the Arctic Cathedral. Our waiter showed us pictures of the Northern Lights on his phone, they had been seeing them in town for the last couple nights. I wore my leggings with my warm brown boots (but my legs got cold). This is one of my favorite cashmere sweaters, perfect for layering, and actually the only one large enough to do that well -- so I'm glad it went with my other clothes! This gift shop was doing a bustling business. But they have a free "restaurant map" that is good for the center of town and came in very handy. The Polar Museum is much larger than it looks. Hunting and trapping for food and pelts was an important part of life, especially for the Sami, and some of the exhibits involving dead stuffed animals and old hunting photos might not be to everyone's taste, but we were prepared about what we would see, and found it very educational. I especially wanted to see the section about polar exploration and Roald Amundson. They had a lot of photos and documents about that era. This restaurant along the marina had excellent fish and a really good beer selection. Excellent view of the Arctic Cathedral as well. The area around Tromso was really beautiful. But cold and cloudy. Later that night, I met a woman in the elevator with a cast on her arm. She had fallen on the ice at the cablecar viewpoint and spent the afternoon at the hospital getting her broken arm set. So we were wise not to go up there.

We skipped our first port, Stavanger, in order to charge ahead of a storm. So we stopped at Trondheim instead. This had happened before on this itinerary, so was I prepared? Of course! We no sooner got ashore and it started to rain pretty hard. Mark decided to stay on the ship. I had forgotten my warmest gloves and lost my lip balm, so I was on a shopping mission. I was quickly successful and by then the sun was out so I took a wander. Pedestrian shopping area: Old Norman Church: Famous view from the Old Bridge: Nidaros Cathedral, and burial site of King Olaf II. I got to hear the beautiful noon bells (and there was wifi there so I checked in): The next day was a sea day, so not much to report, but it was formal night. I wore my black sheath dress and silver peep-toe pumps. Love the lousy downlights! After dinner I was checking our cruise's FB page and people were reporting lights. So we got our first taste though they were very faint and distant.

Embarkation Day! You can see how lovely the weather was for October, not even a jacket. This covered pool area was only really cold in the middle of the cruise. The hot tubs here and even in the open pool area were often busy. Of course, this is also where the ice cream was. 🙂 Our cabin is what Princess calls a Mini-Suite. It does not have any suite benefits, but we like having more room and a bathroom with a tub/shower. Mark is 6'3" and takes up a lot of space! Believe it or not we actually used our balcony often, for taking pictures, sail in/sail out from some of the ports, even just to pop out and see what the temperature was like. We sat out there to drink our "champagne" during sailaway from Southampton.

Here are some photos from Southampton. We left our hotel in London about 10am and were there by lunchtime. This is a popular spot with cruisers and was within walking distance of our hotel. I had downloaded a walking tour called The Jane Austen HeritageTrail, which leads you to places she would have frequented when she lived here and is also a nice way to see some of the historic buildings within the old walled city. https://www.elnasmith.com/southampton-the-jane-austen-heritage-trail-tour/ I found the map here: https://tudorhouseandgarden.com/explore/old_town/ We had dinner at another Bill's. The decor was a little different, but with the same eclectic vibe. Through the windows we could see part of the old city wall.

I have a tablecloth at the lake that is very similar to that print. I love it.

I like the new drapes, and I think having blue in the laundry room will nicely complement the blue/gray tones in your floor. I bought new curtains for our bedroom at the beginning of the summer and they are still waiting for me to hem them. I need to just designate a sewing weekend.

Our last day in London was a work day for Mark, so I took myself off to the National Gallery. It has an incredible collection, if you like art I highly recommend it. There is so much to love, but I will only post one picture because it was an extremely delightful surprise, and is truly a world treasure. I didn't even know such a thing existed. It is the only surviving drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. OMG. It is all the way in the back on the left side of the building. Run don't walk. The area around the museum was bustling with activity. This guitarist was amazing so I stopped a listened for a bit. Nice view of Big Ben That night we had tickets to see Macbeth at the Globe. We had a quick early dinner at another Pret a Manger on the block behind our hotel and headed out. It turned out that three actors were sick and the show was canceled. Oh well. Our money was refunded before we were out of the subway. We grabbed some snacks and wine on the way back and had a picnic in our room. The next day we would pack up in the morning and head to Southampton. I'll take a break here and let Laurie post some pictures! Can't wait to see some more of your trip!

On Sunday we went to the Science Museum.I won't bore you with pictures and tales of all the cool inventions we saw. However, the exhibits about the earliest mechanical computers, vacuum tube computers, and the size of some of them was fascinating to us. I also enjoyed the section on the invention of wireless telegraph. Some of the earlier items like telescopes, clocks, and scientific testing apparatus were very beautiful and ornate. I was most excited about seeing an early Charles Babbage difference engine: There was even a working steam engine on the first floor. My best hint for this museum is when you go online to order your tickets (advance purchase required), also order box lunches. The cafeteria steam table offerings are not so great. There is a selection of sandwiches and wraps in cases that you can buy, along with fruit, chips, etc. However, we just walked to the cashier and said we had preordered, they went in the back and brought them out, we bought a couple drinks, and we skipped the whole line for food. There is a seating area right there (full of families) but go up the stairs where it is quieter. Check out the giant computer behind us! For dinner we went back to the same area to eat at another restaurant we had seen there called Bill's. It had a very diverse menu that we both enjoyed. Burgers, shawarma chicken, lots of vegetarian choices, you name it, something for everyone.

St. Paul's. It's not open to the public, but you can "attend" mass or evensong. They open the church 15 minutes beforehand, so you can visit briefly and sneak out before the service begins if you don't choose to stay. There's a man out front managing the line to get in. You can just see it in the bottom left of this photo. From there we took the underground back to Victoria Station. I stopped in a handbag shop to ask a clerk there where I could find a nightgown (since I had forgotten mine), and she directed me to an office complex that had shops and restaurants on the ground floors, including a Marks & Spencer. Mission accomplished. There were also several restaurants, so later we went back to one called Brown's. They have three in London. I had the BEST haddock fish & chips! Mark enjoyed his chicken caesar salad but had major food envy when he saw mine. Add a scotch and I was set for a good nights' sleep. 🙂

Laurie, I think dressing for Alaska really depends on when and where you go, and what kind of activities you will do. This was a pretty specialized cruise where there were some good threads about what to take. We felt well-prepared. Being out at night in the cold in the Arctic is a whole other level of preparation than the usual Alaska cruise. We were fine with the usual level of winter gear for our coldest days in Alaska, which for us was being outdoors for the scenic cruising among the glaciers. Given where you live, I'd lay a bet that you have everything you need in your closet. 🙂 Our first full day in London we went to the Tate Modern (art museum). It is in a former power plant that housed turbines. The entrance floor is very industrial with a large open area. The art galleries are at the two ends of the buildings on several floors. So you go up and down one side to see those galleries, then cross the big open space to the other side, and go up and down again for the rest of the galleries. Some of them have special exhibits that cost extra. We skipped those floors. There are escalators in the middle to move up and down, and elevators at either end. My mother was a painter so we all grew up painting and going to art shows, and I still have a love of museums of all kinds. I'll only post a couple pictures of pieces from the museum, which are ones that had extra meaning for me. So here are a few things I really liked and why. This first one just felt so dynamic, like it was moving off the wall. As a former dancer and choreographer, I really liked the motion in it. It is by Leonard Drew and is made of found and recycled objects. It was very large. This painting is by Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf, and member of the Bloomsbury group. It is the first painting of hers I've ever seen, so I was happy to see it. I also just really liked it. This is a funny story, and one of the reasons we ended up at the Tate. Mark and I both read a book where the color International Klein Blue was significant. It turns out the painter Yves Klein invented it, and it was a big deal in its day. A big deal. We always wanted to see one of his paintings after reading the book. So here is one. BTW the book we read is called Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, one of my favorite scifi authors. The museum has a lovely restaurant at the top. It is a bit pricey but the food was very good, and it has lovely views across the Thames. This is the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance. When we left, this grassy area had children running around and people resting on the grass and having picnics. Since it was Saturday, the esplanade along the river had many people strolling, jogging, and generally enjoying the sunny day. Between the paved area that sticks out into the water, and the barge anchored out past it, there were probably two dozen swans hanging out. People were feeding them. There were stairs from that area down to the water's edge where you could walk along the water for a bit. After lunch we crossed the bridge and found a Pret a Manger for some coffee and a snack.

Arrival at Heathrow was very smooth. Going through immigration was super quick, and we found our bags easily. It took some time for our driver to reach us but eventually we found him and off we went. Our room was not available for early arrival, unfortunately, and we were both needing a nap and a shower. Oh well. We had lunch at the hotel and then walked to Buckingham Palace, took some photos, and found a bank. Mark had an assortment of old British pounds that were no longer legal after rolling around in a drawer at home for years. The bank was good about replacing them with new money. Tada! We have $100 more! We were happy. Eventually we got to our room, took showers, and settled in. This was our view looking over the train station. We wanted an easy dinner so I googled and found a French bistro across the street at Victoria Station. There is a small mall at one end where upstairs we found Café Rouge. There was one other party apart from us. It was quite good! It turns out it is a chain restaurant but with only a handful of locations around England. The train station is full of some handy stores and a few restaurants, including a McDonalds. There was a Boots and a M&S store for snacks and ready to go food, and most importantly, WINE. I knew as soon as I took this photo that I had a similar one from our previous trip to London. I knew then that our hotel was the same one we had been in before. It is across the street from a side entrance into the station. At the far end under the arch is where the main entrance is. That is also where the Underground entrance is. We used it a lot.

The first time we saw that background, earlier in the cruise, I said to Mark that I would never pick that for a photo, it's too fussy, lol. But look at our skin! So nice. I'll talk a bit about packing and weather. Anita's list for Fairbanks was a great starting point for us. There was a also a great packing list posted on the roll call for last year's Northern Lights cruise. We had four days in London where it was in the 70s, with one slightly rainy day. Southampton was about the same but windier. Then we dropped to mid to high 40's for our first port and stayed in that range during the days, and it was usually windy. Our night excursion in Alta it was 25-30ish but felt like 10-15 because we were always up high when we were outside. We were also looking for the Northern Lights on the top deck of the ship some nights until 1-2am, with the wind blowing, which was very cold. Sometimes we were outside viewing the beautiful snow-covered mountains. Chilly. The ship had lots of open space up on deck since the Island Princess was designed for the Panama Canal, and that was great when everyone was up top looking for the NL. It also has many wonderful inside viewing areas full of windows. If you were near the windows a lot like we were, it could be chilly. On tender days with the gangway open all day, the ship could be quite cold in the public spaces and also the decks adjacent to them. Our cabin was aft and not too high, which we were happy with because of the covered balcony, which allowed us to hop outside and take pictures even if it was rainy. The temperature in our cabin adjusted very quickly, but we could feel it get colder the closer we were to the glass balcony doors (which was the couch side of the room, thankfully not the bed side). So. As a person who hates being cold, I took more outerwear choices than I ever have before, I think, since we were outdoors a lot on this trip, even in London. And I wore them all, multiple times, even sometimes indoors. I took a parka, packable down jacket with hood, packable down vest, a rain shell, and a fleece. All got lots of use. The lightweight down vest was very handy indoors in the mornings when it was cool, as was the fleece. I needed the rain jacket and umbrella one day in London. My daywear was organized around 2 pairs of Skechers Go Walk pants, with black and navy blue/tan as my two colorways. They went with a black waterfall cardigan and a tan yoga hoodie thing. The pants are awesome because they are comfy, can also work for dinner in the evening, and have good pockets. I also brought one pair of dressier blue pants, and brown leggings. The dressier blue pants were one of the things I didn't wear. My brodder, gaiter, and puffy ski gloves were the others. The leggings I threw in at the last minute and I ended up wearing several times on sea days. So comfy. Here is my selection of tops. I had three t-shirts (plus one that I wore to fly), the blue one on top, the purple, orange, tan one under on the left, and a blue tan multi one under on the right: Four long sleeved Lucky Brand tops - blue, burgundy, (brown leggings), blue&teal, and on the far right, blue black brown. I usually wore these for dinner one night and then they became daywear: In the middle are some of the tops I wore for evening, the blue/black pattern at the top from Desigual, black plaid with flowers, red and yellow floral, and black velvet that I wore for the Captains Circle party (the loyalty program event). The Lucky top at far right I wore for the last night and then to fly home the next day. It is so comfortable. I also wore this silk-like Ann Taylor shell one night, it is a favorite of mine for the interesting color combination and has a pretty ribbon tie at the back of the neck: I took two slimming tank tops, black and nude, that I layered under these on the colder days. Sometimes I also wore my sleeveless down vest, like to breakfast in the morning so we could sit by the windows in the buffet for the scenery, or my fleece. And finally two sweaters, and two sweatshirt-type things. First one is prettier IRL than it looks, the colors are dark blue, gray blue, muted green and ivory: I was happy to have these tunic-length sweatshirt thingies to wear with my leggings and brown booties on sea days. So comfy: So, for footwear I had black/leopard slipons (wore on the plane) and brown Coach sneakers for daytime/walking shoes. I can't walk a lot in the same shoes day after day. Black suede booties and brown westernish booties for casual nights and dinners in London. My red suede pumps and silver sparkle heels for formal nights (3). Short brown snow boots for walking ashore where it was cold and wet, and worn on deck at night for the NL. Full on snow boots for Alta, where there was snow and ice on the ground and we were outside most of the night. And my Zumba shoes which I never wear outside. Zumba on sea days is a treat, and a big lure for me on Princess.

Even though I have a picture in this dress from a prior cruise, we both liked this one the best from this trip. It was toward the end of the cruise, and we were both relaxed and happy.

Laurie, I love all your pictures. I'm especially a fan of that orange botanical-like print dress. Sounds like you had a great cruise and you both look so relaxed and happy. We got home very late last night from our Norway cruise. We are so turned around time-wise, it's going to take a few days to feel normal. We flew United on miles and had Premium Plus seats, which were the most uncomfortable seats for me. It took a lot of pillows and a blanket to get comfortable. Part of it was that the seat was very deep, so it didn't hit the back of my legs in the right place, and it was flat and a bit too hard. Also they have hard sides so there's not a lot of choice about how to sit. I was very disappointed in that part because I got very little sleep. Otherwise all the travel aspects went smoothly. Norway was stunningly beautiful, and we did see the northern lights twice. The first time was from our balcony on the way north. The second time we had an amazing show for a couple of hours up on deck as we were leaving the Lofoten Islands. Everyone was so excited. I did not take outfit pictures. After our four days in London, I came down with a cold, so I didn't look my best. Also it felt like we changed our clothes more often throughout the day. Partly because of the weather... it would be cold in the morning, warm in the afternoon, and cold again at night, so we often changed during the day. We wore different things ashore than on the ship, and sea days we worked out, dressed for lunch, took a nap, dressed for dinner etc. We had two ports with tendering where the ship got so cold from having the tender area open all day. Other days the sun would shine and we'd be in tshirts. Layering was very important, even inside. As I was packing, I thought I was bringing too much, but it turned out there were only 3 or 4 things I never used. I even used my bathing suit for the hot tub at the covered pool on our last sunny day. Here is a taste. This was our driving tour day at the Lofoten Islands. It is so beautiful there.

So sorry for your loss, Melody. What a difficult month for you, so many sad anniversaries.

We have the same ship/same cabin booked for a full transit west to east (some will quibble that it's south to north) next year. Those Vista suites are our favorites and we always ask to mark them "no upgrade." We love the aft location. Those cabins are roomy and comfortable, with a great view. Also quiet, being that they are at the end of the hallway and have no neighbor on one side. The buffet, Terrace Pool and Club Fusion are all easily accessible from the aft elevators. Some of our favorite spots. 🙂 Edited to add that you may read some discussion about the small beam, but with the table and chairs on one side, and the loungers on the other, we don't find it impacts our balcony time in any way.

Can anyone comment on whether there is a decaf Lavazza available? Sadly, some of us can't take hi-test, and Princess has always had terrible decaf, so I usually have to bring my own Via. Would prefer not to.