Circle Iceland with The Inside Cabin - 24 days on the NIeuw Statendam

[The-Inside-Cabin]

Sydney sailaway!

Sydney pulled pork and Poutine 

 

Tonights menu in the MDR

 

[janmcn]

You lucky bums! Just left Iceland en route back on V of V to find the Reykjavik volcano started erupting again! Darn! Hope you get to see it! Our lecturer (Jon Sigurdsson, the best!) had given a lecture that showed its recent “oozing” which was beautiful. According to news though it’s definitely a larger eruption now. Enjoy!

[LuvsACruise]

Great Tuxedos-Toooo smoozy!  You two are all ready for Las Vegas Night on the 2023 GWV!

[scrappytraveler]

On 8/2/2022 at 5:02 PM, maryandmarge said:

My sister and I are doing a similar trip - 25 days -  July 29th, 2023 on the Zaandam so following along to get lots of good ideas on what we should do.     Safe travels and have lots of fun.

Maryell

I will also be on that cruise.  There is a board called "Zaandam July 29, 2023" that has been started for the cruise next year.  Hope to see you there.

 

On 8/2/2022 at 5:02 PM, maryandmarge said:

My sister and I are doing a similar trip - 25 days -  July 29th, 2023 on the Zaandam so following along to get lots of good ideas on what we should do.     Safe travels and have lots of fun.

Maryell

 

[scrappytraveler]

Where did you get the pulled pork and Poutine in Sydney?  Looking forward to trying Poutine and love being able to find it with pork as my husband does not beef.

 

Thanks for the great blog with lots of pictures and information.

 

[bcummin]

After our Voyage of the Vikings a few years ago, we bragged to our son that we had enjoyed poutine in Canada.  He informed us that they get poutine at our downtown pub.

Barbara in Washington State

[The-Inside-Cabin]

10 hours ago, scrappytraveler said:

Where did you get the pulled pork and Poutine in Sydney?  Looking forward to trying Poutine and love being able to find it with pork as my husband does not beef.

 

Thanks for the great blog with lots of pictures and information.

 

Check out the history of Poutine HERE

 

Lot's of different variations of

Poutine across Canada 

 

Governor's Pub

 

Very close to the ship.   See map.   Ship moors near Big Fiddle 

 

A bank with a ATM is nearby

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by The-Inside-Cabin

[The-Inside-Cabin]

We are sailing down an inlet toward Corner Brook.   Arrive around 10 am local.   We had a 30 minute time change this morning.  Looks like another nice day ahead. 

 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

When I plan a port I use maps.me and drop pins for all my points of interest.    Here is my Corner Brook Map.  
 

Toms Port Guides has a detailed guide for Corner Brook HERE

[jimbri]

Looks like a great trip.  Enjoy.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

Arrived Corner Brook!

 

They have the "red chairs" set up for photos on the pier.

 

A few vendor stands available

 

A few quick hits

 

Lines are back to normal at guest services.   As others have noted, they really need to have a separate desk set up for IT questions for the first 48 hours - these take a lot of time and really inconvenience people with a quick question.

 

We seem to get towel animals and chocolates only on "Dressy Nights"

 

Nightly turn down service is standard - no special request was required.

 

Internet is the fastest I have EVER experienced on a HAL ship -so far so good.   We have the premium package

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by The-Inside-Cabin

[Florida_gal_50]

They’ve been doing the chocolate and towel animals only on dressy nights since last November on the koningsdam.  You know you jinxed yourself with that internet comment 😛.  Thanks for posting the menus.  I’d expected better considering the price of this cruise.  The look pretty much the same as 7 day cruises so far.  I’m enjoying your thread.

Edited August 6, 2022 by Florida_gal_50

[CruiserBruce]

3 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

They’ve been doing the chocolate and towel animals only on dressy nights since last November on the koningsdam.  You know you jinxed yourself with that internet comment 😛.  Thanks for posting the menus.  I’d expected better considering the price of this cruise.  The look pretty much the same as 7 day cruises so far.  I’m enjoying your thread.

Disagree. Just had towel animals, and other interesting towel creations probably 2/3rds of the 18 nights on our just ended Statendam cruise. And I don't recognize the menu in post #76, although I didn't check the MDR menu for the first night we ate at Pinnacle. But I checked it for every other night we didn't eat in the MDR.

 

Yes, pillow chocolates only on dressy nights. Speaking of which, how many dressy nights on this 24 day cruise? 3 on our 18 day cruise.

[SharonN]

1 hour ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

 

 

Internet is the fastest I have EVER experienced on a HAL ship -so far so good.   We have the premium package

 

The internet has been very good except for an hour or so very early yesterday morning when I couldn't connect. It was also good on the Nieuw Amsterdam in June. I'm hoping this means they've switched to a new provider and it will be as good on the World Cruise in Jan. 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

40 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

They’ve been doing the chocolate and towel animals only on dressy nights since last November on the koningsdam.  You know you jinxed yourself with that internet comment 😛.  Thanks for posting the menus.  I’d expected better considering the price of this cruise.  The look pretty much the same as 7 day cruises so far.  I’m enjoying your thread.

I know - I fear the jinx - so far so good!   

[The-Inside-Cabin]

34 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Disagree. Just had towel animals, and other interesting towel creations probably 2/3rds of the 18 nights on our just ended Statendam cruise. And I don't recognize the menu in post #76, although I didn't check the MDR menu for the first night we ate at Pinnacle. But I checked it for every other night we didn't eat in the MDR.

 

Yes, pillow chocolates only on dressy nights. Speaking of which, how many dressy nights on this 24 day cruise? 3 on our 18 day cruise.

4 Dressy nights scheduled

 

Here is tonight's menu - just posted on the Navigator

 

6 Aug.pdf

[Florida_gal_50]

1 hour ago, CruiserBruce said:

Disagree. Just had towel animals, and other interesting towel creations probably 2/3rds of the 18 nights on our just ended Statendam cruise. And I don't recognize the menu in post #76, although I didn't check the MDR menu for the first night we ate at Pinnacle. But I checked it for every other night we didn't eat in the MDR.

 

Yes, pillow chocolates only on dressy nights. Speaking of which, how many dressy nights on this 24 day cruise? 3 on our 18 day cruise.

I said nothing about the nieuw statendam.  I was speaking about the koningsdam.  You read my post, right?  Anyway several other posters have said the same.  Maybe things are different in the Neptune suites. It doesn’t matter whether you recognize the menu.  It’s nothing that I haven’t seen.  You really don’t have to discount every post on this board.

[CruiserBruce]

8 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

I said nothing about the nieuw statendam.  I was speaking about the koningsdam.  You read my post, right?  Anyway several other posters have said the same.  Maybe things are different in the Neptune suites. It doesn’t matter whether you recognize the menu.  It’s nothing that I haven’t seen.  You really don’t have to discount every post on this board.

And I was on KDam in Feb/Mar, and there were only towel animals on dressy nights.

 

This entire thread is NOT about Koningsdam, right?

[VennDiagram]

Thanks for taking the time to report.  It's appreciated.

[BarbinMich]

On 8/5/2022 at 6:52 AM, The-Inside-Cabin said:

Welcome to Sydney, Nova Scotia!

 

 

I just loved that huge fiddle when we were there!

 

 

 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

@Btimmerand @The-Inside-Cabinmeet in Corner Brook!   Beautiful day!  Perfect weather Judy, Pete, Tim and Angela 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

Getting ready to leave Corner Brook.   We hired a taxi for an hour to drive us around.   $87 CDN on the meter.  

saw Captain Cook, old man mountain, train museum. 

here was our routing 

[cccole]

5 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

@Btimmerand @The-Inside-Cabinmeet in Corner Brook!   Beautiful day!  Perfect weather Judy, Pete, Tim and Angela 

This is an awesome photo since I am following both of your "live froms."  This itinerary is just amazing, thank you for letting us cruise with you.  Cherie

[The-Inside-Cabin]

The World’s largest fiddle is in Sydney, Nova Scotia

After a relaxing day at sea, we arrived at our first port, Sydney, Nova Scotia.  This port is best known for the Big Fiddle – which is right on the dock — you can’t miss it.  It is advertised as the largest fiddle in the world.

The terminal in Sydney has some shops and vendors

 

We booked the 5-hour “Baddeck & St Anns Loop taxi tour from Sydney & Cape Breton Taxi Tours – price $330 CDN – 10% deposit – balance after the tour.  We were in a Toyota RAV 4 with one person in front and 3 people in the back seat.  Here are our tour stops:

At 8:18 am we were cleared to go ashore.  There weren’t any immigration formalities.  I assume that since we all had ARRIVE CAN – we were “cleared” electronically last evening.  Our driver, Nap, was waiting for us with a sign and we were on our way at 8:35 am.

Nap told us that on cruise ship days, almost all the taxis get booked for all-day tours leaving the locals a little miffed as they have to wait much longer than normal to get a taxi for their daily business.

The weather was perfect and we enjoyed the scenery as we headed toward the ferry at Englishtown.

We had a brief photo stop at an overlook where we could see the Seal Island Bridge.

Seal Island Bridge

 

Continuing on, we arrived at the Englishtown ferry.  The ferry ride was only about 10 minutes and we were quickly back on the road and continued to our first stop – the Clucking Hen Café.  This is a popular stop and there was a large tour bus leaving as we arrived.  They sell coffee and pastries and have clean restrooms.  Judy bought a bag of cookies which we all enjoyed.

The Clucking Hen Cafe

The Clucking Hen has clean restrooms and sells a variety of tasty baked goods

 

Our next stop was The Gaelic College.  There wasn’t much to see here and you could easily pass this on your trip.  There was a gift shop but not much else.

Outside we met 4 cyclists who were riding the 300 KM Cabot Trail – More HERE.

Linda, Ray, Aaron and Neal

 

Ray and Linda were taking a more leisurely 7 days to complete the loop, while Aaron and Neal were going to finish in 3 days.  They met at The Gaelic Collegeand spent a few minutes catching up helping with a tube repair before they headed off in different directions.

Tourist map showing the Cabot Trail

 

The Alexander Bell Museum was our next stop.  We didn’t realize that Alexander Belt spent so much time in Nova Scotia.  We only had 30 minutes to explore the museum.  You could easily spend a few hours here.  If you are pressed for time – walk quickly to the far end of the museum and check out the large exhibits, then walk back toward the entrance and stop at those exhibits that catch your eye.

Alexander Graham Bell museum in Baddeck

 

Outside the museum, you will find a pair of the “Red Chairs” that are in various parks throughout Canada.  More HERE

   Judy and Pete (back) with Brad and Cindy on the Red Chairs in Baddeck

 

We drove thru Baddeck but didn’t stop due to our schedule.  We did have a few minutes to stop at a sculpture of Alexander Graham Bell and his wife, Mabel, and take a few pictures.

You can find this park bench on Water Street in Baddeck

 

Back in Sydney Nap dropped us off at the Governor’s Pub very near the ship.  We got some Fish and Chips, Pulled Pork, and Poutine, which were all very good.

Pulled Pork and Poutine The Governor’s Pub has a nice outdoor seating area

Pete with our driver, Nap

 

On the way back to the ship we stopped by the Merchant Marine Memorialand finally the Big Fiddle for some photos.

Sydney was the starting point for many convoys across the Atlantic during WW II.  This is the Merchant Marine Memorial to commemorate the sacrifice of many

Visitor Center on Dock

Vendors selling Crafts inside the terminal

A small snack area inside the terminal

Pete with new friend

This Big Red Chair is right on the dock in Sydney

Chris Pendleton was the featured entertainer tonight.  She does a stand-up comedy routine and plays some humorous arrangements of popular songs.  She played a medley of songs that you could play on a violin, but probably shouldn’t.  Very entertaining.

Chris Pendleton Chris Pendleton playing the violin

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by The-Inside-Cabin

[The-Inside-Cabin]

Red Bay 

Arrived around 8 am 

Tendering started around 8:30

A little rough - check out these pictures

7 Aug Menu attached

Daily Program

Tender Priority Rules

 

Blog Itinerary and Menu page updated HERE

 

Went to open tendering at 11 AM

 

Quick Hit

Second Show moved to 9:30 pm - Yeah!

 

View of tender landing from ship

Lots of motion on returning tenders

A bumpy ride

7 AUg MDR.pdf 7 Aug Program006.pdf

Edited August 7, 2022 by The-Inside-Cabin