LIVE Norwaylady sails on Edge World Cruise from Rome to Singapore 30.10 to 25.11.23 , 26.night

[Norwaylady]

Ladies and gentlemen it’s time to walk the gangway again!

 

This time on Edge world cruise⚓️🗺️⚓️

 

We have time to do 2 out of 4 segments 26 nights. YES, that meant no holiday this summer😂🤭

 

 

🫶🏻❤️Fingers crossed that @Jim_Iain  will take you onward on the journey in his own style and string when we walk off in 🇸🇬 Singapore.

We will be sailing Rome to Singapore.🥂🥰⚓️🥳💙

[Norwaylady]

Norwaylady has been extremely occupied since the return from the Mediterranean adventure by the Queen on Infinity.

(The Queen loved it❤️! We will be back on infinity ⚓️ May 2024)

 

For those on the roll call, you have seen a small notification for why I have been away from CC and not active on the roll call.

Sorry to everyone out sailing on the seven seas that I missed lives from and not payed full attention to❤️

But for the rest of the world, I can say it:

 

Life has been hard since return from Infinity....❤️‍🩹

My younger brother is very ill, he is admitted to psychiatric ward.

It's been a long summer and it's affecting me, Mr Norwaylady and my parents a lot.

So it's only been work, helping out and supporting my parents in this situation. 

We hope and pray that he will clear up to his old him, but we all know this is very serious and it takes time to get better.

 

So, back to the fun and great things in life!

It’s time for a new cruise adventure🥳🤩⚓️💙

 

I will post live on CC and I will post on my IG account. It’s in private setting, so please send me a message, Hello from CC.

I post from travel abroad and in Norway. Not private at all, just tired of sales add.

 

https://instagram.com/al_be_ra_bo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

 

For those not familiar by me, we are Jarle and Alexandra from Norway🇳🇴

Mr and Mrs Norwaylady🇳🇴 We are JA in Norwegian, that means YES in English.

For more information about us, you can look into earlier Live treads from our adventure.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2880218-norwaylady-goes-b2b-alaskahawaii-on-eclipse/#comment-63931944

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2925773-live—-norwaylady-goes-b2b-on-sil-27march-to-10april-in-the-caribbean/#comment-65062836

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2939286-norwaylady-goes-b2b-in-the-mediterranean-on-infinity-245-10623-live/#comment-65415622

 

 

So just to make it clear, it will be beers! 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻( keep in mind that I don’t drink beer 🍺😝 what not to do for your Darling🥰😘)

Mr Norwaylady is looking forward to taste some local specialities on his way to Singapore….

 

As the good wife I try to be😇  I surprised Mr by a weekend trip to Bergen and Laksevaag Beer festival 30.September🍻🥰 Did you know Laksevaag is an old shipyard? So a very industrial site for a beer festival!

 

 

 

One happy camper🤩🙌🏻🥳✔️

 

 

 

For those into beer, you can search him up on Untappd, Jarle Oddvang.

https://untappd.com

 

We are getting out of the celebration rhythm….. you know from last year….. We always try to sail on our wedding anniversary 16.10. This year it was impossible again…. (You know, when you want THIS itinerary, you just got to adjust…… BUT if anyone at X is listening, keep those special routes and sailings coming in mid October)

We been a couple for 16 years now.

 

So the smashing number 13 Lace (OMG times fly and we still haven’t killed each other)

 

celebration as MR and MRS was celebrated by work and having a meeting by our neighbour in the afternoon. (The new renovation house we finally were able to secure in our neighbourhood last year needs some TLC. And it’s a duplex Townhouse. So we need to agree on the new roofing. The house will undergo a big renovation next year. So it will go from 1963 original to 2024) Can’t wait for those heating bills to get lower….. We will take the house from a G to B on the energy certification.

So quick said, we are building a new house in the body of the original house.

 

Did the meeting go well?

Let’s just say it would probably be more fun and romantic eating dinner together on Burger King by Mr😝🙈

Our neighbour are renting out his part of the building and don’t want to spend a $$$$$$$$$$$$

 

So they prefer to delay the roofing until it’s a water leak😱😱🤯🥵😳

We know it’s very close to that point… our battens is rotten so our roof tile is moving down. (So we need to have a walk to put it back on place every now and then)

We highly prefer to change the roof before we need buckets 🪣😖😩

 

[Beachlover1989]

Oh no! Hope your neighbor decides he needs to spend the $$$$ now!  Good luck!  Looking forward to following along on your month cruise!

[Norwaylady]

The Cruise

 

Originally we booked this cruise itinerary on AZ in 2019 as an onboard booking on a X cruise. Rome to Dubai.

We really wanted to sail Suez and it was a good itinerary (better route and timing then Edge) 🥳🙌🏻🕺🏻💃🏻

And a small vessel was really tempting. We knew what to expect. (we were ready to take the step “up” and we had sailed on several river cruises on small vessels)

AND an important factor, it was in the royal family⚓️ (so we would receive some benefits)

 

Few weeks after booking, we received a notification that our sailing was canceled due to change of plans.

So we rebooked to a 26/n cruise to Antarctic from Chile to Buenos Aires in 2022 and we made a new booking to a Suez cruise.  So 2 AZ⚓️⚓️🤩

Well, we all know what happened there…. It went down the drain by COVID, canceled.

AND then AZ was sold out of the royal family……😔😑😳

So lets just say that AZ owns us some money in FCC…( I will not go collecting them😜)

 

So when Edge was reviling that she would sail Suez, I was online booking it ASAP.

First we could only book the first part, Rome to Dubai, but after making the puzzle for work, we were able to sail Dubai to Singapore. So we are very happy for this💙🥰💙

 

We are booked in concierge class infinity veranda on both segments⚓️.

We dont have the same stateroom for both segments, we need to move one deck down in Dubai.

Deck 12 and deck 11.

 

We sailed a b2b in the Caribbean when Edge was new.

We had a porthole veranda.

We were very happy for this real balcony and truly enjoyed Edge.

The only BIG drawback was the sound from the theatre.

If you book a porthole balcony, don’t book deck 6 close to the theatre.

Our room was vibrating when they did rehearsals and shows.

We could listen to the entire set of the songs before we went to the evening show😑 So that was a bit 😵‍💫😮‍💨🫨😬 for us. But other then that, all good🥰

 

The bathroom was really huge (for cruise size) and the stateroom was okey planned. (Except the extremely low coffee table/tutu thing…🤨)

The 4 dining rooms worked perfect and we really enjoyed all of them.

We tried some of the speciality restaurants; Eden, Raw on 5, Fine cut and le petit chef. We had a great time.

Shows and the theatre performances were excellent.

 

So our biggest concern is if we will enjoy the window balcony….. Time will tell😅🤓

 

We were very lucky for the booking. (See it from the Norwegian perspective of OBC and what we usually get)

For the first part of our B2B we received 100 OBC, not too bad for us.

But on the second leg Dubai to Singapore, we had an onboard booking we changed, so we had some OBC on this booking and they had an offer, giving out more when we booked this sailing. So in total it gave us 600OBC. That’s very OKAY for us and not normal for us. So very happy for this!

Accounting department was approving the final price and value for money feeling was okey.

 

MoveUp has not been our friend…

But on this cruise, we received an email about this 60 days before departure. That’s very unusual for us.

We had the option to bid on all staterooms over Concierge class.

 

We have made an offer for Aqua class for the first segment of the cruise. It’s most sea days and the thermal area is appealing😇

We did put in a little bit over the minimum bidding. Fingers crossed they will accept our bid on the segments. (From earlier experience, it will not be accepted) It would be great to try out AQ on Edge.

The bidding for the suits was extremely expensive, so it was a NO from el cheapo accounting Norwaylady.

 

We are Elite members, so according to MoveUp, they will give us a little boost on our bid. Time will tell if we are moved up.

 

Back to the Elite status, we will board the ship at 738 points (YES, you all know what that means…. We are very close to elite pluss….) If we had lived in FL, we would have done a short cruise😂🤭😎. But you all know, we need to travel somewhere to sail… So we are not stressed or angry for this. (And NO, we can’t do power up points, it’s not for guest from the nordic countrys….)

On the positive side, on the leg from Dubai to Singapore, we can do a lot of laundry. 4 bags for us!😂😂😂

 

I think and are very safe in saying that this cruise will be loaded heavily of Captain’s Club guests in the upper part of the club.🎖️🎖️🎖️

[hcat]

will be following..

 

Hope all goes well with your brother.. very sad but treatment gives hope.

 

We have a paired Villa in Fl..(shared roof) but luckily we & our neighbors have done things together over the years.  Now their side is up for sale

We .hope to get equally nice folks next door!

BON VOYAGE!  SAFE TRAVELS!

[PSU]

Looking forward to your review. 

[jzad]

Looking forward to this.  Between you and Charla I should have some good reading!

[DaKahuna]

@Norwaylady Very much looking forward to following along. 

I understand you feels with regards to your Elite / Elite plus.  At least you will have your Elite Plus for your second segment.  We start our next cruise at 733, unless more plus up points come along.  

 

I will try and not hold Mr Norwaylady's fondness of IPA against him.  Hopefully he'll find some really good beers.  I have some very found memories of Singha from my days in Singapore in the 70's and 8o's. 

 

[upwarduk]

1 hour ago, Norwaylady said:

And NO, we can’t do power up points, it’s not for guest from the nordic countrys….

That is so wrong, all Celebrity guests should have the same opportunities.😱

I will be following along.

[WNCtourist]

So looking forward to your cruise reports!

[Louhut1]

We were also on the AZamara cruise that got canceled.  Was really disappointed for that. Had been really looking forward to it. Will be following you on this cruise.  Enjoy.  Hope you get upgraded to Aqua. 

[Barwick Cruiser]

I will also be looking forward to your posts and pics. Have fun! 🍻🥂🛳️

 

As to the elite/elite plus dilemma think of what you’d have to spend on that short cruise just to get those extra points…that money would more than cover the expense of many bags of laundry as well as a premium wifi package lol. 
 

[mauimary]

Your reviews are so fun. I love them.  We were originally on this cruise for all four segments but decided to cancel earlier this year. Will look forward to following you and Mr Norwaylady on this adventure. 

[Susanb10567]

Following along..enjoy your cruises…they seem amazing.

[Jim_Iain]

2 hours ago, Norwaylady said:

🫶🏻❤️Fingers crossed that @Jim_Iain  will take you onward on the journey in his own style and string when we walk off in 🇸🇬 Singapore.

We will be sailing Rome to Singapore.🥂🥰⚓️🥳💙

 

So happy to see your post.   Really looking forward to it as we know so many aboard with you.  I will definitely pick up where you drop off (32 days from now- but who's counting).   I was hoping that you would continue you journey so we could finally get to meet you.

 

 

[Lena11033]

I'm following along, this looks like a really fun cruise.
 

I'm sorry to hear about your brother, hopefully he gets the treatment he needs. I understand how you feel, my mum was committed to a psychiatric hospital twice after I moved to Canada.🤗

[raudacruise]

Yippee!  Following another fabulous Norwaylady adventure! 🍸🍺🚢

[theopup]

Yeah another Norwaylady review to follow!

 

 I am very sorry to hear about your bothers health issues, I send some positive vibes his way for improvement.

 

Enjoy your trip it looks like a very interesting itinerary 

[Ciaranaman]

What an itinerary!  Sounds wonderful!  Wishing you safe travels and great internet so we can all follow along 😊

~Bernadette

[Norwaylady]

5 hours ago, jzad said:

Looking forward to this.  Between you and Charla I should have some good reading!

 Thank you🥰 Charla is wonderful in writing style and fun🙌 

[dock]

Sounds like a wonderful cruise.

Hoping one day to find the time to do a b2b. 
 

Hope your brother recovers.

Safe travels.

[Norwaylady]

4 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

@Norwaylady Very much looking forward to following along. 

I understand you feels with regards to your Elite / Elite plus.  At least you will have your Elite Plus for your second segment.  We start our next cruise at 733, unless more plus up points come along.  

 

I will try and not hold Mr Norwaylady's fondness of IPA against him.  Hopefully he'll find some really good beers.  I have some very found memories of Singha from my days in Singapore in the 70's and 8o's. 

 

 What Mr is drinking of beers I have no infiltration on... it all smells beer and really dont tempt me. What I have learned is that the IPA is one of the more smellier beers😵‍💫 I have tried to train him to be a better wine drinker, but I have failed..... aiaiaiaia😬

 

For the elite/ elite pluss status, we are not concerned... 4 bags of Landry is the golden award! The perfect thing for me🤩 aka the laundry keeper, chef and housekeeping...... And people still wonder why I like to go cruising??????🙈

[Norwaylady]

We have visited several of the ports on the first part of the cruise several times.

 

Time will tell if we will keep our original itinerary…. Let’s just say the speculations has run wild….

The situation in Israel and Palestine has my condolences.

 

On the 20 of October, Jordan and Aqaba was taken away from the cruise planner in the App and on my page online the ports listed was missing Aqaba and the background picture was changed from Petra to a mainstream mediterranean picture.

But next day Aqaba was back in the app, but not in the banner of my listed cruises online….

 

So they are thinking heavy at X about this stop……

 

 

The only new port is Aqaba, Jordan.

We will not do Petra.

It’s very tempting, but we prefer to visit on a land tour. So we would have more time to visit Petra.

 

We have a mixture of private and ship tours.

 

Tours booked before departure Rome to Dubai.

 

DAY 2 Catania:

Taormina on your own, X ship tour

 

DAY 4 Athens:

Enjoy ourselves in Pireus or take the metro to the city centre😎

 

DAY 7 Aqaba:

Wadi Rum, private tour

 

DAY 14 Abu Dhabi:

Emirate’s palace  guided tour & out for a walk, on our own

 

DAY 15 Dubai:

The View, on our own (Turnaround day)

 

Tours booked before departure Dubai to Singapore.

 

DAY 4 Mumbai:

Private tour Lijo, by roll call

 

DAY 6 Cochin:

Private tour Lijo, by roll call

 

DAY 7 Colombo:

Destination Highlight Exploring Old Colombo on foot, X Ship tour

 

DAY 8 Colombo :

Ultimate Beach Experience Negombo Beach Escape, X Ship tour

 

DAY 11 Phuket:

Destination Highlight Island Hopping and snorkelling at Phi Phi Island, X ship tour

 

We really looking forward to tours and ports of call on the second part of our b2b. Since all of them will be new to us.

 

Airfare

 

Open Jaw tickets are very costly, so we hoped for award fares tickets. Special on the segment SIN/NORWAY

We have searched and checked, it did not look to promising…

But the day after my return home from Infinity. Thai airways/TG had 2 tickets in economy (I dont always travel on Biz) from Singapore/Bangkok/Copenhagen

leaving Singapore late in the evening on the 25.11.

So that was perfect!

The fare was 120.000 eurobonus points for both and 1800NOK in taxes. So really happy for this!

SAVED A LOT of money, the ticket from SIN-OSL would be at least 30.000NOK for us in eco one way.

 

I tried to book it as a roundtrip on LH, TG etc, but the price was never less than 35.000NOK for both of us roundtrip in eco.

 

Ticket from OSL to FCO in SAS Plus was 2200NOK for both of us.

And since we only could get an award fare ticket SIN-CPH, we needed to book a ticket CPH-OSL.

This ticket needed to be semi flex, so it was 4000NOK for us.

So all in all, the account department was happy for this.

 

I have travelled a lot on TG economy OSL-BKK-OSL, so this will be fine. It’s really not an emergency not to travel biz. It’s comfy in biz, can’t say no that.

But I prefer to spend some money on my holiday also…..

 

Visa

 

This cruise requires visa to several ports of call. We need to obtain visa to India and Sri Lanka before departure.

The process for both is online.

 

One thing we are not surprised of is the lack of Celebrity Cruises to tell us, what visa do we need to obtain before departure.

We had the same situation before our Japan cruise in 2018 on Milli.

We didn’t hear a thing and some people needed to get a visa to China before departure (we were aware the minute we booked the cruise that we needed a visa for China). Some guests were able to use the 144/h visa waiver program and others, like us could not.

So we needed to get a visa before leaving home from the Chinese embassy. Not a quick fix…..

We had 1 day in Shanghai. Otherwise you were denied bording in Hong Kong…..

 

The Sri Lankan visa can be obtained 4months before your arrival.

They have a transit visa for free 48H but this is not valid for cruise guests on overnight.

I contacted the Sri Lankan embassy to get a clear answer, since the web page of applications did not state clear if it was only for long layovers on the airport or if on a cruise was just a transit.

They stated that we needed to apply for a full visa.

So we needed to apply for a visitor visa and pay the full fee.

The online application took 10 minutes to fill out, pay and receive the visa approval.

Price 50USD.

 

The Indian visa can only be obtained 30 days before arrival for Norwegian passport holders for singel entry 30/days. So we could not apply far in advance for this.

Or you can apply for multiple visa 1 year. This can be applied 4 months in advance.

It’s very strict how the picture is sized and how big the file can be.

Price 1 year visa 40USD.

 

We 🐓 out and went for the 1 year visa.

 

The Indian visa is a bit of a puzzle to get the correct format on the picture and passport upload. So it makes a lot of grey hairs on the applicant…

But we survived!

 

 

Vaccines

 

This cruise is not a standard Caribbean adventure.

So the majority of the sailors should have taken a consultant by their GP or asked a travel vaccine centre in decent time before departure.

 

We have travelled a lot to different areas, so we were good to go for travel🙌🏻

 

We do have the basic necessary for travel that are not in the normal vaccine regime for Norwegians: Hep A&B, Yellow fever and Typhoid fever.

 

We decided after consulting our GP that it was vise to update our Covid vaccine. Since last dose was from January 2022.

 

I always take the influensa vaccine due to my not fully functional immunsystem.

So we should be good to go for this cruise now❤️⚓️😅

[chemmo]

Looking forward to following your adventures…Between my favourite live travellers at the moment I may need to start my morning coffee time early…

 

Time for you and your husband now to switch off from the ‘real world’ and enjoy some couple time…

 

We have visited many of your ports of call either on land based holidays or on cruises….Enjoy!

[bjahil47]

So excited for your upcoming cruise!  Dubai is on my bucket list!  
 

sorry about your brother and praying he gets the help he needs and gets better soon.