Another sort of live thread - this time Apex in Scandinavia 2 cruises with a 4 day break

[Ciaranaman]

Caught back up 😊.  Sounds like you both had a perfect Day 1 Sea day!  Looking forward to your adventures tomorrow!

~Bernadette

[abbydancer2003]

Day 3 - Stravigner - Sunday 1

 

Today is our first of 4 port stops in a row.  It’s Stavanger Norway, which somebody said is one of the oldest cities.  Because all aboard is 2:30, Luminae is open for both breakfast and lunch.  This is one of the two ports where we have privately booked excursions.  We’d booked a RIB boat tour of the Fjords at 11.

 

We set the alarm for 8 am, since breakfast ends at 9.  We dressed, and Kenneth brought us coffee.  I asked about potato chips, and I think he felt bad about forgetting.   Hopefully he remembers going forward.  I saw we’d arrived in Stavanger.  

 

For breakfast, we had French toast.  Glen got the official Peach Cobbler version and I got plain.  Next time, I need to remember to order only one piece, as we both left one over.  

 

After breakfast, we got ready to go.  Google maps said the meeting point was about 8 minutes away, so we allowed a lot of extra time.  After we left the ship we saw this:

 

 

Are Stavanger and Houston sister cities?  I should look it up.

 

After about 10 minutes, we arrived at the location they described, and found the company.  We checked in, and they told us we had 20 minutes.  Not really enough time to do anything else, so we waited.  It was raining on and off.  At about 10:50, three RIB boats pulled up.  The people were wearing what looks like a survival suit.  We watched them take them all off and then were given our own to wear.  (I don’t have a picture, but they have them in our next port so I’ll try to get a picture.  

 

At about 11:05 we we lead to our boat,  There were about 12 of us.  The boat is open, and has rows of two seats, which look like big bicycle seats.  Once we were all settled, and given goggles, we headed out.  We passed the Apex as we left the harbor.

 

 

The harbor, and its speed restriction ended at the bridge.

 

 

 

Once past the bridge, we headed into the Fjord.  We were probably going about 30mph, but in a small open boat it feels like more.  After about 30 minutes of enjoying the views, and moving too fast for me to take good pictures,  we stopped at the side, to admire a rock formation.

 

 

We then continued.  This next picture should give you an idea of the Fjord.  

 

 

We saw a few waterfalls.

 

 

And a plant growing the rocks.  Local legend has it that if there are a lot of flowers, it means lots of snow.  Our guide said this was a lot.

 

 

And then we came to the highlight of the area (apparently) - Pulpit rock.  

 

 

Apparently all hiking tours were cancelled because of our time in port.  So I guess this was the only way we could see it.

 

After a couple of waterfalls and rock formations, we headed back to the pier.  We were going against the wind and it was raining, so not very comfortable.   

 

At about 12:50, we arrived back at the dock. We left the boot and took off our survival suites.  That took a few minutes, but by 1pm, we were on our way back to the ship.  We were rather wet and a little sore, so we headed straight back.  

 

Since it was 1:15, we dropped our stuff and headed to lunch.  I tried something new, the chicken consumme.  It was OK.  I also had a grilled cheese sandwich with fries.  For dessert, I had the coffee panna cotta, which is good, but they couldn’t take the chocolate sprinkles off, so I had to remove them myself (first world problem).  That was good.  

 

While eating lunch, I got a text from Wes, the moderator of our social media group, apologizing for missing me at the failed meetup.  We ended up deciding to meet at 3:30 for a drink.

 

After lunch, I had time to do my exercises at the pool.  I first tried the solarium, but the hot tubs were full, so I sucked it up and went to the retreat sundeck.  It was cold, but there were actually a few people there, and I had a nice conversation with a father and daughter from New York and two couples from Texas.

 

I finished there at about 3:15, so I got dressed and headed to the pool bar.  They were a few minutes late, due to the event they were at running over, so Glen went down to get a jacket before meeting with my “imaginary friends”.  They arrived and we agreed it was too cold and wet to stay.  We thought about the martini bar, but as I texted Glen to go there, he arrived, so we headed to the Ocean View and just sat and chatted for an hour.  It was very nice, and I’m glad we had time to do it.

 

After that we decided to go to Al Baccio for a coffee.  One thing about Edge class ships - there is a lot of seating at Al Baccio, so we can usually get a seat.  Today we found one towards the back, then an open table closer to the bar.  Someone approached us and said they were leaving their window table, so we could have it.  We took and spent about an hour or so enjoying coffees and peanut butter cookies.

 

At about 5:30, Glen went to the room and I went to the Casino for a few minutes.  I put in 40.00 (to one the machines that uses US bills as their images) and ended up about 20.00 up.  The problem was that I hadn’t spent enough to withdraw more, so I had to play until I could see that I could do transfers.  I ended up ahad by 9.50, so still behind overall but not by much.

 

After that it was back to the room to dress for dinner.  We went to the lounge for a drink, and then headed to the restaurant about 8:10.    Yuri (hostess) said nothing in our section but a couple people on dessert, so we said we’d wait.   She gave us a beeper and told us to go to the lounge, We noticed that one of the 2 tops was empty (the people just left, so we said we were happy at any table in that section.  So we waited 5 minutes and then were seated at the window 2 top.  

 

Our amuse bouche today was a pea mousse with crabmeat.  Our assistant waiter, Wiwiki mad me one without crabmeat.  

 

 

Glen’s.

 

I had another beef tartare for appetizer, and for dinner I had chicken in a mushroom consumme, with mushrooms and cilantro.  It was actually the sea bass preparation, but since I don’t like sea bass, I subbed chicken.  

 

For dessert I had the strawberry Vacharin.  

 

During dinner, we watched the sunset.  Here’s one picture.

 

 

After dinner it was room to work on blog.

 

The port of Geiranger is tomorrow, and the sail in is supposed to be gorgeous.

 

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

Day 4 Geiranger Monday 1 

 

Today is the only tender port of the trip.  I’m hoping, that since this is a small town, we use the ships tenders, not local boats.  (The E tenders are supposed to be different and better).

 

We were told that the sail in through the Fjord would start around 8, and that we’d pass the Seven Sisters waterfall between 7:45 and 8:30 (not quite sure of the math on that).  We woke to this:

 

 

Breakfast went to 9:30, so we ordered our coffee and took our time getting dressed.    Just passed 8:30, we saw this.

 

 

That is the seven sisters waterfall (7 at the top, but they merge coming down).  So we didn’t miss it.  Pretty impressive.  They might be more impressive in June, but still good.

 

Lots of little villages along the way.

 

 

At about 9, we headed to breakfast.  I had a small portion of scrambled eggs and bacon.  Also a half grapefruit.

 

After that, we leisurely got ready to go, since the ship was supposed to start tendering around 10:20 or so.

 

At about 10:45 we headed to Fine Cut to get escorted to the tenders.  To my surprise, there were about 40 people there waiting.  The person in charge told us to sit down and wait, but before we sat she announced we could all go.  

 

We all headed down to the gangway.  Celebrity has done very well with this, as we walked through the gangway area, down a flight of stairs and onto the magic carpet.  From there it was an easy step to the tender.  Here’s a picture from the inside.  Noticed the nice seats?  I wanted to know if there was a beverage service.

 

 

It was a short tender ride to the pier.  The Norwegian Prima had the one dock, so hence we tendered.  

 

As we reached the tender dock, I saw a rib boat heading out.  

 

The first of three promised rib boat pictures.

 

Once on shore, we started to look for a sign for the HOHO bus.  We didn’t see one, but we did see an empty rib boat.

 

 

Not the orange one.

 

 We wandered around, but no mention of HoHo bus anywhere (I’d been told their ticket office was right at the pier entrance.  Maybe I should have got more info). We did see a sign for a Panorama bus, offering 1.5, 2 and 3 hour tours.  We thought we might do the 1.5 hour one, so we went to their ticket office.  The only one they had left was a 3 hour at 2pm. Since the last tender was at 5.15, we thought that was cutting it too close, so we decided to just walk around the town.

 

We soon saw a group going to their RIB tour.  Note:  One  this trip was plenty.  

 

 

Note the suits.  Ours were red.

 

We decided to walk to the end of the harbor area.  On the way, we passed a grocery store. 

 

 

We went in and looked around.  It was small, but fun.  

 

 

Typical architecture here.  Kind of a cute little house.

 

I stopped in a chocolate store/cafe and got some white chocolate vikings to take home, and then we headed back to the tenders.  By this time, it was raining.

 

As we pulled up, I noticed up at the top the dividers for the Edge Villas (we got a move up to one of those for the 8/27 cruise.  Glen knows we were moved up, but not to what).  

 

 

The 4 vertical things are the dividers, I think.

 

All told we were off the ship for just over an hour.

 

To my surprise, when we got back to the ship at noon, they were still calling numbers, and I think it was still single digit numbers.

 

We thought we’d go to Al Baccio, but it was a zoo - people were hanging out waiting for the number to be called.  So we headed to the lounge and sat and had coffee.  

 

Around 1pm we went back to the room, and I went to the solarium  to do my pool exercises and hot tub.  I finished at about 1:35, and they were still calling tender tickets.  (Over on social media people were having a fit.)

 

Our next stop was lunch in the buffet.  It was French day, so I had a salad.  For dressing they did not have regular French, they had a European version, and no blue cheese.  (Maybe someone from Britain can enlighten me - do you not have Blue Cheese dressing?).  A manager brought me blue cheese.   I also had beef bourguignon.  I wanted it over something, so I went to the pasta bar and got some plain shells, and put the beef over it.  It was pretty good.

 

After lunch I decided to go to the lounge and read for a bit, but I ran into Brian and Dustin, who we met on the Rib Boat yesterday.  We had a nice conversation until about 6 pm when they headed out.

 

After a drink we went back to the room to dress, and then went to the 7:30 show.  I was a little surprised that when we got there, the center section of deck 5 was reserved, with a couple of the butlers there.  Apparently, they now reserve it every night.  (I’m guessing that’s partly because people who buy the Premium pass thing get reserved seating every night).  The show was a group called Ukebox, and they were a British ukulele band.  They were a lot of fun and the songs were ones we know, but Glen says he can’t unhear “Bohemian Rhapsody” played on a ukuelele.  

 

They finished  right around 8:30, so we went to dinner.  Our strategy for the elevators tonight was to go up two flights on stairs to deck 7 and pick up one there.  It worked well, because as we got there an elevator opened and some people got out, so we got in.  

 

We were seated at one of our favorite tables and Umesha soon came.  I had the green asparagus starter, Roasted chicken with spaetzle.  It was all pretty good.

 

I finished with the blueberry mousse.  The not chocolate choices on tonight were the raspberry licorice thing or the mousse.  I’ve had the raspberry licorice before, but I’ve now been told there’s chocolate in it, so I skip it, since sometimes it’s noticeable, sometimes not.

 

 

After that, I decided to see about the casino, but it’s closed until after 11 pm, so I called it a night.

 

 

, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hcat]

liking your review very much.. the pics of the " fancy" tenders" were first we've seen of the interiors.  We have been on E Class ships, but never had those tenders...

[abbydancer2003]

On 8/21/2024 at 10:33 AM, hcat said:

liking your review very much.. the pics of the " fancy" tenders" were first we've seen of the interiors.  We have been on E Class ships, but never had those tenders...

I know that in the Caribbean they usually use port tenders, so the fact that these are small towns probably helped.

 

[abbydancer2003]

Day 5 Flam Tuesday 1

 

Today is Flam, and another scenic sail in.  We set the alarm for 8 again, and work up to more fjords.  No major waterfalls by name though.

 

Around 9, we arrived in Flam.

 

 

We went to breakfast and then back to the room to get ready.  Today, we have tickets for the Flam Myrdal train.  We bought our tickets through Rail Ninja, as the train site, and Celebrity were both sold out.  A friend on cruise critic pointed me to them, and we’re planning to go together.  

 

We agreed to meet a 11:15 at the Retreat Lounge.  We got there a couple minutes early, as did they, so we headed out.

 

It was a short walk to the train station, and we were there early.  There’s a gift shop there, so I looked around and got a magnet.  

 

At about 11:55 we decided to get in line.  The train arrived.  Here it is while we wait

 

 

 

At about 12:00 they started boarding.  We got seats facing each other.

 

 

 

The monitors do display information about the train as you go.

 

The purpose of the train for us (note that it’s also used as part of the rail network.  Several people had luggage and were probably catching a train to Bergen or Oslo) is the beautiful scenery.

 

 

 

This is a shot out the window on the lower part of the ride. 

 

A major highlight of the ride is the Kjosfossen waterfall.

 

 

 

The train stops at a platform here for viewing, and while you do that they play Norwegian folk music and dancers portraying Huldra, a forest spirit from mythology dances up on the rocks.   It does stop both ways.

 

At the stop just before Myrdal, there’s a hotel and a couple of Celebrity excursions got off.  Apparently Celebrity has reserved cars for their excursions, and the go to the hotel and have a waffle, and some time to wander around, and get on the next train.

 

There is also a point where two trains pass, and there’s a cutoff for that, but you wait a while for the down train to pass the up train.  The net result of all the stops was 10 minutes late.  Hopefully it’s the same train we came on.

 

And it was.  Most people actually got off, and we all switched to the other side of the train.  Then more people boarded.  

 

We saw a river on the other side.

 

 

And there’s an old church here somewhere.

 

 

 

At one of the stops a couple joined us on the outer two seats.  Apparently they’d been hiking and were taking the train back.  I’d say most people in our car were not from the ship.

 

The train did arrive on time at about 2:20.  We made our way back to the ship, and after dropping our stuff,  we headed to the buffet.  I had prime rib, because not much else appealed.

 

After lunch, I went out to the balcony to watch sailaway, which was supposed to be at 2:30.  Nothing much happened until about 2:45, when a train arrived.  I’m guess that was the train that people online were worried about, as it was supposed to arrive at 2:30, which was all aboard.  However,  Celebrity had an excursion on that train, so the ship wasn’t going to leave without the train coming in.  And of course they wouldn’t scan the key cards and say “oh, you’re late, but you weren’t on our excursion so you can’t get back on”.  

 

I wanted all the people saunter over from the train,   We were still waiting, and they called for a couple of people to contact guest services.  A few minutes later, two people came to the gangway, and we left.

 

The dock workers wished us farewell with big foam gloves.  You can kind of see them.

 

 

 

One final shot of Flam as we sailed away.

 

 

My next stop was the pool and hot tub.  I ended up talking to some people for quite a wile.  

 

After that I showered and we went to the lounge.  Glen told me that the new concierge remembers us from Beyond, and asked us to come to the silent disco tonight.    So we stayed for a bit of that, but were having trouble finding danceable songs, so we went to dinner.

 

At dinner Umesha offered me beef carpaccio.  I started with that, and then had the filet mignon.  It was on a bed of truffled mashed potatoes, and they were very truffle tasting.  I do like truffles, but in not that strong.  He offered a backed potato, so I had that and it was good, better than on the Beyond actually.

 

For dessert, I had carrot cake from Cosmopolitan dining roon.  Other than a lot of chocolate on the top it was good.

 

Dinner took a while, as service seemed slight off tonight, so it was room after that.

 

Tomorrow is Haugesund and our last port.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lena11033]

On 8/21/2024 at 11:49 AM, abbydancer2003 said:

(Maybe someone from Britain can enlighten me - do you not have Blue Cheese dressing?).

 

I've never seen French dressing with blue cheese in Europe or where I live in Canada.

[Merly]

On 8/21/2024 at 4:49 PM, abbydancer2003 said:

Maybe someone from Britain can enlighten me - do you not have Blue Cheese dressing?)

Yes we do.

[island lady]

Great job on the review...loving the pictures!  🙂 

[abbydancer2003]

Day 6 Haugesund. Wednesday 2

 

Today is Haugesund, our last port.  It is also the only port that doesn’t have a scenic sail in, so we slept a bit late.  At 8:40, he woke me up, and we were docked.  

 

 

 

 

 

Two views from our room.

 

We also had only 15 minutes to get to breakfast.  I sent Glen at 8:55 and I followed at about 9:10.  (The did seat a few people after me - I see that’s pretty common for breakfast).  I had grapefruit, bacon and cereal, since I thought that would be fairly quick.

 

In July, one of my friends said we should walk the coastal trail.  Stop number 2 is is the Jablom cupcake bakery (stop is just walking along the water).  We decided to gather our stuff and start the walk.

 

On the way out, we ran into another one of our butlers.  Tony was our head butler on the Connie in January (and part of the reason we didn’t miss a dedicated butler) and was also on the Infinity with us.  It was lovely to see him.  

 

We headed out.  It was almost a mile walk to the bakery, and you had to cross over a large bridge to get there (and to the city center).  Once across the bridge, there’s a pedestrian street with retail, and some interesting things to see.  

 

 

One of a couple of statues of animals.

 

As we approached the bakery, Glen said Google said it was closed (when we started) but the door was open and it was just after 11 am, so they had just opened.  

They had a lot of different choices.  I selected a wildberry (something my local favorite doesn’t have) with a berry jam filling.  Glen opted for red velvet.  We also ordered coffees.

The restaurant is beautiful.
 

 

And our cupcakes
 

 

We really enjoyed our visit there, but decided that was the end of the line for us.  So we saw the city, and that was enough for now.  We headed back.  Along the way, we noticed a few things.

 

A playground of some sort.  Glen’s comment was that it was a net for catching children. 

 

 

Notice statues and the ship in the background.  The water you see is what the bridge crosses.

 

 

 

Finally, no visit to a Norwegian town would be complete without a picture of a church.

 

 

 

 
This is a picture from the bridge.

 

We were back on the ship by 12:30, so after a brief rest, I went up to the pool to do my exercises and the hot tub.  I had a nice talk with some people.  On the Beyond, I was pretty much the only person in the tub.

 

From there, we went to the buffet for lunch.  Today’s special was Indian food, so that meant a lot of Indian food, because it was in addition to the normal Indian food in the Asian section..  So I had beef with Yorkshire pudding and salad again.  Once again, I had to wait for them to bring out blue cheese dressing.  At the dessert station I grabbed a couple of pieces of pineapple upside down cake.

 

At sailaway, I went down to deck 5 to watch.  About 15 minutes a bus rolled up, and a lot of people got off.  I did notice that they had shore excursion stickers on, so I assume it was a late bus.  After they got on, we left. 

 

Our plans for dinner tonight were to have dinner with Jack and Andrew.  They wanted to go to the show, so we agreed on 7:30.  At about 7:05 we headed to the lounge and texted that we were there and ready.  

 

We met them at Luminae, but since it’s lobster night, it was very busy (Yuvi, the hostess, said that the kitchen was backed up so she gave us a beeper.  We went back to the lounge, and as soon as our drinks arrived, we were called.

 

We had a table in the main area, but it was the 4 top, right by the wall to the alcove, so not in the center of things.  Turns out Umesha was still our waiter there.    I had tomato soup (kids menu) the rack of lamb and creme brûlée.  

 

After dinner, I went to the casino (first night in 3 days it opened before 11pm).  I cashed out when I was up 17.00, and able to cash out.  I then played my 5.00 free credit, and cashed that out at 9.00.  Not too bad.

 

After that we called it a night.

 

 

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

Day 7 Sea Day 2 Thursday 2

 

We decided to get up in time for breakfast.  Once awake, we called Kennith for our last coffee.  Butlers recently have been willing to bring us something from Al Baccio, but Kennith is leaving for vacation tomorrow so he’ll be out too early to do it.  (He’s heading home for his baby’s baptism).  So this is the last one.  

 

After a nice breakfast, I went to the pool to do my exercises.  It was very, very windy there,  so I went to the hot tub.  I was pretty much the only person up there.  A crew member did ask if I wanted a drink, but I didn’t think that would be a good idea.  

 

After the hot tub, I went to the Solarium to use the pool for my exercises.  It was very crowded.  The hot tubs were busy, there was not an open chair anywhere, but I was the only person in the pool.  

 

My next stop after that was the casino.  I was pleased that my favorite slot machines were available.    I put in my card, but between  cashing out last night and now, I was locked out.  Not sure how that happened, but maybe it was because I didn’t fully play out my 5.00 slot credit.  So I put Glen’s card in, and cashed out about half of the remaining credit.  I lost about 25.00 and after winning back 5, I quit and cashed out.

 

Our next stop was lunch.  I remembered to take a picture of dessert.  Today it was rice pudding or apricot basil, which is a curious thing.

 

 

It’s an apricot on top of a light cake with whipped cream.  Usually they put a slice of basil with the apricot.  Not today.

 

After lunch, I grabbed all my casino payout tickets (I cash them at the end of my casino time).  I put in the .10 cent one left over from the free play, and the 9.00 from the rest.  I played a few, and I was still locked out.  So I put in my smallest ticket, and played a few more.  Once I could transfer money, I transferred the rest of our OBC, played for a bit and cashed out when I was slightly over what I’d put in last.  I then cashed everything out.  I think we were down a few dollars.  (We have a lot more on our next one,  but we also have more sea days).

 

After cashing out, I went back to the room, and took care of end of cruise stuff.  I made out tip envelopes, and we did the dreaded packing.  At least we’re coming back. 

 

After that we decided to see the show Rockumentary.  It’s one we’ve never seen.

 

It was good, but not good enough to see twice in 2 weeks.  

 

The show mostly covered songs of the 50-70s with an emphasis on the Woodstock period.

 

 

The did do a Beatles song

 

Not sure what this was, maybe Pat Benater, but the set was cool

 

I’m sure you can figure out whose song this is.

 

 

Also not sure but nice stage.

 

After the show, we took an elevator down to 4 and then back up to 12 for dinner.  It was busy, but we noticed Brian and Dustin at a table for four, so we asked if we could join them.  They agreed so we sat down.  They were a course ahead of us, and had their own waiter, but it worked.  I started with Burrata, and then had the short ribs.  

 

 

We gave out our tips, and honestly, I think our wait team was surprised, since they know we’re back in 4 days, and were probably expecting iit at the end of both (I use the term expecting loosely here)

 

After that it was back to the room to put out the bags and go to bed early.  

 

 

[Scottishclover]

Enjoying your review so far. Enjoy your break in Lymington. We stayed there for 4 days before our Norway and Arctic Circle cruise this summer and loved it. Watch out for the seagulls down by the quay - they are vicious

(learned from bitter experience😩) 

[hcat]

Glad Part One has worked out..will look forward to the next parts of your review .

 

if you have time, can you go over what exercises you do at or in the pool?  thanks

[Norwaylady]

On 8/17/2024 at 1:08 AM, abbydancer2003 said:

The Marriott at Heathrow had washcloths.  We'll see about our Air B&B between the cruises and the Renaissance at the airport.  I guess I'll leave the ones that are left in the suitcase after the trip for our Portugal trip (Azamara) in November.

 

 

Our Air BnB has washcloths 🙃

[Norwaylady]

Seems like you had a great start of your b2b adventure!

 

Looking forward to waive you in to Oslo❤️

[abbydancer2003]

4 hours ago, Norwaylady said:

 

Our Air BnB has washcloths 🙃

Not this one.  Now down to 4 of 8, as we'll throw these out tomorrow. They were cheap.  (By the way, the local grocery does sell them).

[abbydancer2003]

5 hours ago, hcat said:

Glad Part One has worked out..will look forward to the next parts of your review .

 

if you have time, can you go over what exercises you do at or in the pool?  thanks

Since the issue some sort of nerve issue, my PT thinks my limp is due to weakness.  So here goes.

 

Stand at the side and alternate standing on toes and heels.  30 each.

Raise each leg 30 times each.

Do high knew marchs, 30 each leg.

Hope that makes sense.

[abbydancer2003]

Day 8 Disembarkation Friday 2

 

As we usually do, we got up for breakfast.  Why not, since we have to be out of the room at the time breakfast ends?  Recently, our butlers have been bringing us some kind of coffee (often Al Baccio) but Kennith said he couldn’t, and we understood.  He’s got to get to the airport, and is leaving at 8:30.   We did run into him in “civilian” clothes.  We found out the new baby is a girl.

 

We went to breakfast and were seated at a table next to Jack and Andrew, so we said our goodbyes again.  We’ll very likely see them again, since they live fairly near my sister.  

 

From there, we went to the lounge.  We waited with our other friends, Brian and Dustin.  They were heading to the train station to have a day in London.  They left around 9.  At about 9:15, they said that all luggage was called.  After we both did restroom visits, Rosanna escorted us to the gangway.  We said goodbye and see you soon!

 

I was surprised that we didn’tt do any sort of custom or immigration, just grabbed our luggage (which was very easy since there were only 4 bags left in the whole building) and headed to the cab line.  There wasn’t a line there either, so we went to the front of the area, and got in the first cab.

 

The driver was friendly, and at the end of the ride gave us his card, and said he would pick us up on Tuesday if we texted.  We’ll likely give it a shot. 

 

We got there an hour early, so the Avis person asked us to wait until 10:30.  So we went into the airport.  It is a very small airport.  At about 10:30 we headed back, and learned that, while we still have a small car, we did get an automatic.  It is small, since only one suitcase fit in the trunk (I thought I’d rented one that could take 2 bags and 4 people).  

 

We’re taking it to the town of Lymington, about 25 miles west of Southhampton.  It’s one of the towns in the New Forest.  (Named as a Kings forest by William I ie the Conqueror).  

 

Once we were on our way, we accidentally took the highway east instead of west.  We then made a second wrong turn getting of the next highway.  That one was OK, because we drove through the English countryside and a couple of places that might be interesting to visit.

 

It took about an hour, so we arrived at our cottage at about noon.  The only problem was that check in is at 4.  I was in touch with our host, and she was OK with us arriving early afternoon, but not that early.  

 

The view from the side of our car.

 

We decided to find somewhere for lunch.  Glen found a pub about .4 miles away, so we took off for it, leaving our stuff in the car.  Around 20 minutes later, we arrived.  We went in and took a table. After about 10 minutes, Glen went up to the bar to ask about lunch.  They told us that kitchen doesn’t open until 5.  They suggested that there were open places around the corner, but  we couldn’t find them.  We did find that High street wasn’t too far and there was a restaurant called High Street Kitchen there.  So we headed there.  We walked along a pathway, saw a very big bird.

 

 

Not quite sure what it is.

 

We finally made it to High street, and decided to have lunch at the High Street Kitchen.  It’s a fine dining establishment with a limited menu.  I had a nice steak with steak fries, small salad, and roasted tomato and onion.  We thought about dinner there one night, but they were full tonight, and only had early reservations tomorrow.  

 

We then waked down High Street towards our cottage.  We noticed that the main supermarket was along the route, so we decided to stop there and get some breakfast stuff.  Also, because our lunch was so big, we thought we’d pick up something frozen to make for dinner.

 

 

High street.  Apparently the squiggly lines mean slow down. 

 

We found the store, and it’s pretty big.  We got milk (low-fat for me, goat for Glen)), Rice Krispies, some frozen meat pies and a caesar salad kit.  We did have some trouble with the self checkout and using Glen’s cards, but he was able to use the staffed register with cash. 

 

During all this we got a text fro our host that the cottage was ready for us.  

 

Once we were back, we opened the lock box and settled in.  This is our first AirB&B, and I think I learned a lot about how to book. 

 

The cottage is nice, it has a small living room, which a TV with lots of steaming options,  a dining area and kitchen downstairs.  Upstairs are two bedrooms.  The only issue there is that the stairs are very steep.  On the last day, I’ll take some pictures and post.  It is nice having a full kitchen, etc.  

 

One of the streaming options is You Tube.  I watched the Democratic Convention, which ran in the middle of the night live.  While I did that, Glen cooked the meat pies, and we had that and salad.

 

One other thing I did was call the Shoreside Retreat team at Celebrity.  Monday before we left, 9.5 business days ago, we got our Move Up to the Edge Villa.  Usually you get a call or email about what you want.  Last move up we got it, this one, nada, nothing, zip.  Onc of the concierges reached out for us, and I sent an email yesterday am.  Still nothing. Now that its 1.5 business days til sailing, I thought I'd better call.   So I did.

 

The person I reached figured it out.  Apparently, there had been someone else who'd cancelled, and their information was still there.  That probably shouldn't have happened, but the person I spoke to blanked it out and I gave her our info.  She also helped me with why I don't get the email for sky suites any more.  I did get the survey afterwards, previously I got the reminder to do it, but not the first one.  We'll see what happens for January.

 

It was a good day, but early so off to bed.  Tomorrow, we’ll try one of the bus tours of the New Forest.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 26 by abbydancer2003

[hcat]

8 minutes ago, abbydancer2003 said:

Since the issue some sort of nerve issue, my PT thinks my limp is due to weakness.  So here goes.

 

Stand at the side and alternate standing on toes and heels.  30 each.

Raise each leg 30 times each.

Do high knew marchs, 30 each leg.

Hope that makes sense.

Hope it helps.

I  do toe  heel stretches on the door saddle of bthrm..good stretch. I have a nerve issue called Mortons Neuroma.. I also use Yoga Toes! ( no high heels anymore!)

[abbydancer2003]

Day 9 New Forest 1 Saturday 2

 

 

We woke up to rain today.  So the plan to take the buses is out.   

 

One thing we had to do was to cover the garden furniture.  Our host had taken the cover off and put all the pillows on yesterday when the weather was nice, but she asked us to put the pillows in their storage box and cover the furniture if it rains.  Of course we missed the start of the rain, so Glen covered everything.  Later, when the weather improved, he dried the towels and put them away.  They will stay there, and the furniture will stay covered.

 

Glen found a French Press, so he went to the store to buy some ground coffee.  He also figured out how to park the car in the parking slot, which he prefers to the street.

 

After breakfast and morning coffee, we eventually decided to go to a nearby restaurant (across the street from the store) called the Sail Inn.  I had a chili cheese baked potato.  I also ordered a salad, not knowing that it came with one (apparently almost everything here does).  

 

Along the way we saw a British mailbox.

 

 

Both yesterday and today we saw posters for an exhibit at a museum and art gallery.  It’s called Cabaret Mechanical Marvels, and appears to be a collection of mechanical objects (ie things that work by turning a crank, etc).  I looked at google maps, and determined it was about 1/2 mile away.  That gave us something to do today.

 

The walk took us along a path parallel to High Street.  We saw blackberries (we think) growing.

 

 

At the end of the path we found the museum, a small gift shop and a coffee shop.  Apparently it’s the town history museum as well.  They had both adult prices and consession prices.  Apparently the concession price is the senior citizen prices.  And we qualified (glen by about a week or so).   

 

For our whopping 5lbs, we can visit both exhibits.  We started with the mechanical.

 

 

I’m going to try to put a couple of movies of the mechanical items here.

 

 

 

 

And a still example.

 

 

One more movie.

 

 

 

 

And a profile of one of the contemporary artists working in this medium.

 

 

The exhibit covered 3 rooms.  In the middle room, there are parts to make your own mechanical item, along with instructions.  I think they take them apart every night.  By the time we got there they were pretty picked over, and not enough pieces left to actually make one.  

 

After visiting that, we went to the history museum.  I’m not quite sure it was organized, but there was a lot of information there.  Below is one of the many display cases.

 

 

After the museum we headed to High street and decided to walk to the Quay (other way from our cottage).  We saw lots of stores and restaurants.  I also saw a candy store, but didn’t buy anything.  As we approached the end of the street, it started raining hard again, so we turned around.  We walked back to the cottage and we were soaked.  

 

We took shelter in a covered walkway for a few minutes.  Once the rain slowed down, we waked back.  

 

Once back, we figured out dinner.  The manual for the cottage lists some restaurants.  First I looked at a page from the BBC website, three New Forest Restaurants that were recommended by some guys with a show.  None really appealed, so I went to the hosts recommendation.  One was the Beach House at Milford by the Sea, about 5 miles away.  

 

We ended up leaving a couple minutes later than we should have, so arrived a few minutes late, but the staff was welcoming.  We started with their sourdough bread, because we were curious, and it was pretty good.  I had a 28 day aged sirloin with garlic butter, watercress and fries.  It was good.  We split a toffee for dessert.  

 

After that it was back to the cottage.  Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow.

 

 

 

[MACruisers]

3 hours ago, abbydancer2003 said:

Along the way we saw a British mailbox.

 

Interesting the mailbox still has the cypher of King George the VI and not Queen Elizabeth II or King Charles III

[Mark.Jules]

Thank you for posting, I am enjoying following along.

[JackE]

On 8/23/2024 at 11:08 PM, abbydancer2003 said:

Day 5 Flam Tuesday 1

 

Today is Flam, and another scenic sail in.  We set the alarm for 8 again, and work up to more fjords.  No major waterfalls by name though.

 

Around 9, we arrived in Flam.

 

 

We went to breakfast and then back to the room to get ready.  Today, we have tickets for the Flam Myrdal train.  We bought our tickets through Rail Ninja, as the train site, and Celebrity were both sold out.  A friend on cruise critic pointed me to them, and we’re planning to go together.  

 

We agreed to meet a 11:15 at the Retreat Lounge.  We got there a couple minutes early, as did they, so we headed out.

 

It was a short walk to the train station, and we were there early.  There’s a gift shop there, so I looked around and got a magnet.  

 

At about 11:55 we decided to get in line.  The train arrived.  Here it is while we wait

 

 

 

At about 12:00 they started boarding.  We got seats facing each other.

 

 

 

The monitors do display information about the train as you go.

 

The purpose of the train for us (note that it’s also used as part of the rail network.  Several people had luggage and were probably catching a train to Bergen or Oslo) is the beautiful scenery.

 

 

 

This is a shot out the window on the lower part of the ride. 

 

A major highlight of the ride is the Kjosfossen waterfall.

 

 

 

The train stops at a platform here for viewing, and while you do that they play Norwegian folk music and dancers portraying Huldra, a forest spirit from mythology dances up on the rocks.   It does stop both ways.

 

At the stop just before Myrdal, there’s a hotel and a couple of Celebrity excursions got off.  Apparently Celebrity has reserved cars for their excursions, and the go to the hotel and have a waffle, and some time to wander around, and get on the next train.

 

There is also a point where two trains pass, and there’s a cutoff for that, but you wait a while for the down train to pass the up train.  The net result of all the stops was 10 minutes late.  Hopefully it’s the same train we came on.

 

And it was.  Most people actually got off, and we all switched to the other side of the train.  Then more people boarded.  

 

We saw a river on the other side.

 

 

And there’s an old church here somewhere.

 

 

 

At one of the stops a couple joined us on the outer two seats.  Apparently they’d been hiking and were taking the train back.  I’d say most people in our car were not from the ship.

 

The train did arrive on time at about 2:20.  We made our way back to the ship, and after dropping our stuff,  we headed to the buffet.  I had prime rib, because not much else appealed.

 

After lunch, I went out to the balcony to watch sailaway, which was supposed to be at 2:30.  Nothing much happened until about 2:45, when a train arrived.  I’m guess that was the train that people online were worried about, as it was supposed to arrive at 2:30, which was all aboard.  However,  Celebrity had an excursion on that train, so the ship wasn’t going to leave without the train coming in.  And of course they wouldn’t scan the key cards and say “oh, you’re late, but you weren’t on our excursion so you can’t get back on”.  

 

I wanted all the people saunter over from the train,   We were still waiting, and they called for a couple of people to contact guest services.  A few minutes later, two people came to the gangway, and we left.

 

The dock workers wished us farewell with big foam gloves.  You can kind of see them.

 

 

 

One final shot of Flam as we sailed away.

 

 

My next stop was the pool and hot tub.  I ended up talking to some people for quite a wile.  

 

After that I showered and we went to the lounge.  Glen told me that the new concierge remembers us from Beyond, and asked us to come to the silent disco tonight.    So we stayed for a bit of that, but were having trouble finding danceable songs, so we went to dinner.

 

At dinner Umesha offered me beef carpaccio.  I started with that, and then had the filet mignon.  It was on a bed of truffled mashed potatoes, and they were very truffle tasting.  I do like truffles, but in not that strong.  He offered a backed potato, so I had that and it was good, better than on the Beyond actually.

 

For dessert, I had carrot cake from Cosmopolitan dining roon.  Other than a lot of chocolate on the top it was good.

 

Dinner took a while, as service seemed slight off tonight, so it was room after that.

 

Tomorrow is Haugesund and our last port.

 

 

 

 

 

The train was great fun! 

[JackE]

We are off the ship and in London! Enjoy your Scandinavian cruise! Safe travels!

[abbydancer2003]

On 8/27/2024 at 10:31 AM, JackE said:

We are off the ship and in London! Enjoy your Scandinavian cruise! Safe travels!

Thanks.  I hope your bus trip was good.