Iceland, Fjords and AaD (Adventures AFTER Disney)

[ChuckElias]

My family recently completed the 11-day Norwegian Fjords and Iceland Disney cruise (June 29 - July 10) and a 3 night post-cruise visit to Paris. Our traveling party consisted of myself, my wife and daughter, my sister, her husband and their younger son.

Day 1 -- Copenhagen

Cool, overcast. Upper 60s.

Day 1 actually started around 5 pm the evening before as we flew out of Logan Airport in Boston at 7:10. The only reason I start at the airport is that the security screening process was unique. When we got to the x-ray machine and metal detectors, the TSA people were telling us to put our stuff through the machine without taking out liquids or laptops; and to walk through the metal detectors without removing our shoes or belts. It was so nice not to undress and not to have to repack all of my carry-on stuff. I think it was because they knew that WE knew that the TSA had recently failed to detect 95% of the dangerous materials in a recent test. (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...s-us-airports-allowed-weapons-through-n367851) And so they figured just letting us through was as effective as whatever they had been doing before that.

The flight was fairly uneventful and after a stop in Amsterdam, we arrived in Copenhagen around 11 am. We couldn't find the driver for the shuttle that we'd arranged, but the baggage claim area was crawling with Disney people and one of them helped us find our driver, even though we were not using Disney transport or hotel. Our first bit of Disney magic!

Once we found our shuttle, we checked into the Imperial Hotel, and grabbed some lunch. Here's a couple shots of the hotel:









I liked the hotel very much (with one exception, which I'll show you in a minute). The rooms were small, as we expected, but I liked the decor much better than at the hotel where we stayed in London (the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge) before our 2010 Baltic cruise. That room had a giant picture of an Asian woman's face right next to the bed. Creepy. The Imperial's decor was more subdued.







This last picture is my one complaint about our room. The shower has no curtain. It has only half of a "door". There's no way to keep the shower water completely inside the tub. The bathroom near the basin was soaked after each shower. Using a bath mat was pointless; it just got soaked and then I'd have to use a bath towel to dry the floor. Very odd by American standards. But as we found out when we arrived in Paris, it seems to be standard in European hotels.

So after checking into the hotel and getting some lunch, we decided to explore the city on foot. We walked through a local square, visited the famous Church of our Lady. Unfortunately, we arrived just as they were about to start a service, so we didn't get to explore as much as we would've liked. The statue of Jesus at the front of the church is rather famous, but we only got to see it from afar.







We decided to do a city tour on a canal boat. And this was a terrific excursion. It was about $14 per person and we only waited about 10 minutes. The cruise lasted just over an hour. The guide was very good, pointing out several places of interest with good historical stories about them. We saw several things that we remembered from our 2010 visit, and one that was missing the last time we were in Copenhagen: The Little Mermaid!!



She was on loan to China in 2010, so we were happy to see her this time around. We also saw Hans Christian Anderson's home, which made my wife happy:



Here we are on the boat (my wife and daughter in the front, and my brother-in-law with the beard and my sister to his right), and a picture to give you an idea of how low the bridges are over the water:





I have 1,000 pictures from the canal cruise and the city, but I won't put them all in the report. Maybe I'll share them in separate posts after the report is all finished. Anyway, after the boat tour, we walked back to our hotel and found an Applebys-type of restaurant for dinner. We walked past Tivoli Gardens, which was (of course) one of Walt's major inspirations for Disneyland. Nobody slept all that much on the plane ride, so we didn't try to go in, but here's a picture:



After dinner, we were all exhausted. So we headed to our rooms and I think I was asleep by 9:30.

 

[Bolna]

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Nice. I'm looking forward to seeing more!

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 2 -- Copenhagen

Cloudy, early drizzle. About 70 degrees.

After going to bed pretty early, we were up at a pretty decent hour. I was hoping to climb the spiral staircase of the steeple at the Church of Our Savior. However, since I was the only one who really wanted to do this, and there was a good chance that it was closed anyway due to the drizzle, I decided not to try it. Here's the steeple. Not sure why I couldn't take a straight picture of it. . .





Instead, we enjoyed our complimentary breakfast buffet, which was actually excellent. I was very impressed with the eggs (not wet, blech) and the selection of breads. One of the better hotel breakfasts I've had. We debated walking around the city a little bit more, but we all agreed that at that point, we were all just really excited to get to the ship. So we finished packing up around 11, grabbed a cab at 11:30 and arrived at the terminal about 20 minutes later. There was nothing particularly exciting about the ship terminal, certainly not nearly as beautiful as Port Canaveral; but there was live music and of course, Minnie was there to pose for pictures. But we didn't get any pictures with her in the terminal, because after arriving at 11:50, we were on board at 12:10. It was a very quick process, even though there were some minor technical difficulties in processing our passports at check-in. But that didn't take too long (obviously). We boarded on Deck 1 Forward, with no family introduction. But as we crammed into the elevator, a crew member leaned in and swiped her card; and we got an "express" to Deck 9, where we headed straight to the buffet at Topsider's; er, I mean Cabanas.

Our ride for the next few days:



Our traditional first lunch picture:



I like Cabanas on the Magic even more than on the new ships. On the Dream and Fantasy, people wander aimlessly around Cabanas, because they're not sure where to get into line. On the Magic, it's still similar to the old single-file line for the most part. So you're not bumping into people who are lost. The lunch itself was pretty normal for Embarkation at Cabanas: shrimp, crab legs, lamb chops, kid food (chicken tenders and mac & cheese), etc. But there were some items that I don't remember seeing before, like ham-wrapped salmon (which was good) and baked swordfish. Dessert for me was a brownie with coconut/pineapple ice cream on top. Another nice addition was that Coke Zero was available at the drink station.

After lunch, we headed to our staterooms. We had connecting rooms on Deck 8 Forward. Our verandahs also connected, and we had them open the divider to make it bigger. We unpacked, took some pictures and relaxed a bit until the lifeboat drill.

Our room:





A picture of the terminal from our verandah. Grass and flowers on the roof:



After the Sail Away Party, I walked around the ship, just to see some of the changes since the re-imagineering. Most of the changes, I liked. But there are a few that were very disappointing. The Mickey Pool is no longer Mickey's head. Boo. Pluto's Dog House is now Pete's Boiler Bites. Boo. And the gorgeous floor on Deck 4 midships (at the shops) is now carpeted. HORRIBLE!

Outside the shops on Deck 4:





Pete's on Deck 9:





The Not-So-Mickey Pool:



After walking the ship for a while, I worked up quite an appetite, so I naturally headed to Deck 9 for some chicken fingers and fries before dinner. No honey-mustard sauce for dipping on this cruise, for some reason. I had to settle for BBQ sauce all week. While enjoying my appetizers, The Dreamers were performing next to the Goofy pool. I really enjoyed these guys a lot. I liked their song selections, and most of the time, it was just the guitar with no electronic soundtrack in the background. We sought them out before dinners throughout the cruise.

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 2 -- continued


After relaxing for a long time on Deck 9, with very few other people around, it was pretty much time for dinner. After a quick change of clothes, we headed to Lumiere's. In the lobby, we found Captain Mickey, with almost no line! So we grabbed a few pictures.

Our group, on the way to Lumiere's:



Dinner menu!



And napkin art:



My wife, Kathryn, had the steak rare; my daughter Molly and I had the pork tenderloin wrapped in pastry with chopped mushrooms. Both were very good. The pork may have been a little overdone, but the pastry shell and mushrooms were really good. Served with au gratin potato stack, which was delicious. And the three of us shared the Arctic Char, which was amazing! Dessert was a wierd ice cream sundae -- mint chocolate chip ice cream, over bananas and caramel, with a small pecan brittle on top. It was an odd combo, but I liked it a lot.

Pierogies appetizer -- yum! And calamari, also very good (you can see that I ate most of them before I remembered to take the picture).





The steak (RARE!) and the pork.





And dessert:



After dinner, we walked through the shops a little bit and then went to the Sail Away show. It's the usual show in which Jeremy dreams of becoming the captain of the Magic. Pretty good performance. The variety portion of the show was "Hector is Magic". He was not terrible, but he got very little response from the audience for some reason. He had some really good illusions, but to me, the theatrics and grand flourishes distracted (which is probably the idea) from the performance overall. He had Chinese rings, which levitated and then unhooked themselves; and then his assistant disappeared from the "folding Chinese box". The magic was impressive, but the showmanship didn't add anything to it, in my opinion. Then the "Jeremy" portion of the show continued and then. . . it was over. Very abruptly. Mickey comes out on stage to say "believe in your dreams", big final chorus, and then that was it. No "let's hear it for the great cast of the Walt Disney Theater"; no cruise director to tell us what will be happening tomorrow; nothing. It felt really odd. But the show itself was pretty good.

After the show, we all went to O'Gills for Team Trivia. After kicking butt and taking names on our last cruise (I think we won 3 trivia sessions and tied for first in another one), we figured we were going to win this thing easily. But we only got 13 out of 25 right!! Humiliating. But one of my big fears turned out to have been for nothing. I was afraid that the new O'Gills would be cramped and dark, and thankfully, it was NOT. It kept the basic structure of Diversions and just added the O'Gills theming. That was a big relief to me.

This is the only picture I have of O'Gills??? Sorry!



After trivia, we walked through the shops and I bought the pins that were released just for our itinerary. Once again, DCL had a pin for the itinerary, but didn't make pins for each port of call. This makes me nuts. As a pin collector, the pins I got on the '07 Med Cruise are some of my favorites; a different pin for each port. But in 2010 and again this year -- their first EVER visit to Iceland -- they don't produce port-specific pins. Crazy. And they had only one -- ONE!! -- item of clothing that even had the word "Iceland" on it. It was a gray t-shirt. Come on! It sold out on the first night, meaning that for the entire remainder of the cruise, including the 3 days that were IN ICELAND, there was no merchandise that had anything to do with Iceland on the ship. I was not happy, Bob. Not. Happy.

Anyway, while we were in the shops that night, somebody asked me a question, thinking that I was a crew member. This is a regular occurrence in the parks at WDW (because I wear nice shorts, a collared shirt and a lanyard with pins), but I was not dressed as a crew member. Just wierd.

So after that odd exchange, we headed back to the room around 11, and it was still light outside. I read Harry Potter 7 until about midnight, and then turned in.

 

[MotherofaPrincessLover]

Love the trip report so far!

 

[ChuckElias]

Love the trip report so far!

And we're only 2 days in!! I have like 14 more days to type up!!! (Seriously, though, thanks! I love writing these up. )

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 3 -- Oslo

Mostly cloudy, 70 degrees

This was our first morning on the ship, and so I got up a little early (around 7ish) to hit the gym, and intended to join the Ab Workout session. But by the time I got there, it was pretty crowded, and rather than try to sneak in, I power-walked a couple miles on the treadmill. The treadmill became my morning routine from that point on. The gym, as a whole, is not very impressive. It's one room, and not very large. It has treadmills, elliptical machines, stationary bikes, and weights all in the same space. The fitness classes are held in the same place, so as you can imagine, it can get cramped. The plus-side is that the locker room is pretty spacious and the showers are really nice.

After working out, I got back to the stateroom to find that room service had delivered coffee and croissants. This is one of those little luxuries that we love about DCL. Coffee on the verandah to start the morning? Ahhhhhhh. This was our view from the verandah: Akershus fortress:



Well, I don't drink coffee, and a croissant (even a yummy chocolate croissant) isn't enough breakfast. So around 9:30, I hit Cabanas. Had some scrambled eggs. I don't know why I still bother trying scrambled eggs on the cruise. They're always so wet; I hate them. But I got some bacon and corned beef hash with it. There a big meat-carving station, waffles and pancakes, and great assortment of fruit. But I wasn't quite that hungry.

Our excursion for the day was the Walking Tour of Oslo. We've been to Oslo previously with DCL in 2010. (You can read about it in the trip report I did -- the link is in my "tagline".) We did the Viking Museum, the sculpture park and an open-air museum. So this time, we decided to stay in the city itself and see what we could. The walking tour was scheduled for 2 1/2 hours but went almost 3 hours with no break for rest or refreshments. We visited the City Hall, the royal palace, the University, the main theater, and ended up at Akershus. Our guide was pretty good. He had very good local knowledge, and liked to talk about his high school history teacher. He was NOT good, however, at keeping the group together. He walked and just expected that we were all together.

One of my favorite parts of this tour was seeing a statue of King Haakon VII. He was the Norwegian king during WWII. He had been "imported" from Denmark when Norway was without a king. He agreed to become their king and ended up becoming a war hero for his staunch refusal to capitulate to the Nazis. The reason I liked this so much was that we had heard the same story about King Haakon's selection as king when we were in Copenhagen in 2010. And now, we'd heard the Norwegian side of that story; and I just thought it was cool to get both perspectives of those events. Here's the king:



City Hall:





A mural of Norway's history. This portion details the end of WWII (war prisoners being released):



Kathryn and Molly in front of the royal palace:



This is Gunnar Sønsteby. There's a famous picture of a young man (presumed to be Sønsteby) standing next to his bike across from the University, watching the Nazis march through Oslo. He later became an important figure in Norway's resistance movement during WWII. So this statue was erected on the spot from the photograph.



And this is Henrick Ibsen, one of Norway's most famous authors. The statue is placed in front of the apartment where he lived. The tour guide told some funny stories about him: how he always walked at exactly the same time, ate in the same place, how the local boys would tease him about it and sometimes he would joke with them about it.



One of the main streets we walked. The palace is in the background. By sheer coincidence, we happened to meet former President Bill Clinton while strolling this street. There was Bill with two Secret Service guys (and probably more that we didn't see). We called out to say hello and got a small wave in reply.



This is Olso's new Opera House. It's designed to mirror the city itself. It starts at the water, the building represents the city and then it continues up to the mountains behind the city:



Here's a couple of Akershus:







There was a formal event commemorating the anniversary of Norway's High Court going on inside the fortress, so we weren't allowed to get a real tour. We were only allowed to walk around the grounds. Our tour pretty much ended there and then the guide was going to walk us back to the ship. But we were told by the security people that the King was gong to be arriving for the event, and if we stayed, we would get to see him. So we stayed!

People in traditional garb for the commemoration:





The Prime Minister!



Sadly, all we got to see of the King was his car. He drove directly into the inner courtyard of the fortress:



Once we saw the King's car pull in, we headed back to the ship. And I took these next two pictures. When we were in Oslo in 2010, it was a foggy, rainy day. One of the sites we visited was a ski jump that was used for international competition. It was so foggy that when we were at its base, we couldn't see the top of it. But I took these pictures of it from Deck 10 while in port. So you can tell how much better our weather was on this trip!

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 3 -- Oslo, continued

After our walking tour, we got back to the ship around 3:30. We'd missed lunch, but we didn't want to spoil dinner, so we grabbed a couple of small things from Pete's and Pinocchio's. After a little time to rest our feet and clean up after our 3 hour walk, dinner was in Animator's Palate.

I really like the re-imagineered Animator's. The video screens are very much like the Dream and Fantasy, and as much as I loved the old Animator's, I do think they've improved it. Some shots of the artwork in the new entry to the restaurant:







At dinner, I had black truffle pasta stuffed with cheese and mushrooms for my appetizer, which was ok but not great.



Kathryn had a cheese and carrot souffle (a mix of 4 cheeses and shredded carrots) which she loved, but I hated.



And Molly had a prosciutto plate, which she liked but was too big to finish.



Molly had the pasta bolognase, which was delicious. I thought it could have used a little more sauce, but its flavor was excellent.



One of the things that was new about the menus on this cruise was that each night there 2 or 3 "Local Selections", which changed for each port. This night it was a lemon chicken that Kathryn ordered. It was ok, but not great and a little dry for her taste.



I ordered the pork cordon bleu, which was excellent. I liked this meal a lot. It had great flavor and was not greasy at all. And the cheese kept it nice and moist. The only problem with this meal was that it was too big. I could only eat half of it.



For dessert, I got the trio selection, which was a mango mousse, a blueberry crumble and a cheesecake. I don't really like cheesecake, but the other too were excellent. Kath and Molly both got the chocolate mousse on walnut cake, which they both said was excellent. I think the walnut cake was bigger than the last time I ordered it on a cruise.





And this is the full-sized blueberry crumble when ordered by itself, instead of part of the trio:



The main show in the Walt Disney Theater was the Comedy and Juggling of Pete Matthews. Nobody was interested. I know we're spoiled, but how many times can you watch a funny juggler? We skipped the show and did some shopping. I bought the limited edition pins for the cruise and found out that the Iceland shirt was already sold out. They had started a waiting list in case people returned some of their purchases. I checked back several times, but the only returns were XLs or larger.

After that, we headed to Keys (formerly Sessions) to listen to the pianist Clara Oman. She was also supposed to sing, apparently, but was under the weather. She played a bunch of medleys. I didn't think she great, but everybody else really liked her a lot. She cancelled her performance the next night, so she must have really been sick.









After our pathetic performance in our previous attempt at Team Trivia, we decided to skip it and we called it a night. It was 10:30, but still bright sunlight. I read for a while and then took this picture at midnight:

 

[smk]

I read another report from a blogger on allears.net and your weather was significantly better than theirs, at least from the pictures that I have seen. It seems they had a lot of colder weather and a lot of fog. I am enjoying this report, looking forward to more!

 

[ChuckElias]

I read another report from a blogger on allears.net and your weather was significantly better than theirs, at least from the pictures that I have seen. It seems they had a lot of colder weather and a lot of fog. I am enjoying this report, looking forward to more!

There's no question about that, @smk . Almost every port we were in, our tour guides thanked us for bringing the best weather of the summer. I'll talk a little more about this in my next entry for Kristianstan. Hopefully, the people who followed us on the next cruise got the benefit of our weather, too.

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 4 -- Kristiansand Sunny, low 70s



Once again, I was up early to hit the treadmill. For some reason, the gym was very crowded this morning. There was only one treadmill available, so I grabbed it. I mentioned the locker room earlier in the report, and I'm just going to describe it a little more for people who have never used it. The locker room itself is not huge, but lockers line 3 walls and there is a square padded seat in the middle, so you can sit down and face the locker. There's no charge to use the lockers, and you input your own combination electronically, so you don't need a padlock or anything like that. (In fact, you couldn't use it even if you wanted to.) There are two basins with soap, shaving cream and disposable razors available. There are also towels and shower shoes available to use for free, although you're supposed to leave them in the "dirty" bins before you leave. There's also a separate restroom just outside the locker area, and just after the restroom is the shower and sauna room. There are two shower stalls and each shower has three settings: an overhead, oversized "rain forest" shower head, a section that sprays the water horizontally from directly in front of you to shower your torso, and a hand-held shower head to spray any specific area you want. There is also shampoo, conditioner and body gel supplied so you don't have to bring soap from your stateroom. Next to the shower stalls, there's a sauna room (which I never used) and outside the sauna are several padded reclining chairs. I apologize for not having pictures of any of this, but it seemed a little wierd, even for me, to bring a camera into the locker and shower areas.

After working out, I came back to the stateroom to find the usual coffee and croissants on the verandah. I nibbled a little and relaxed while the girls got ready for the day. Around 10:15, we all headed to Cabanas for a late breakfast because we knew that we were going to miss lunch due to our shore excursion, which was scheduled for 11:45. I'm a pretty boring eater at breakfast, so I had my usual stuff. Although they did have biscuits and gravy, which I usually like. I actually wasn't crazy about it on this cruise. It's always a little bit different; maybe because of the different chefs or maybe because on different itineraries, they're restricted to different ingredients -- I don't know. But I didn't like this gravy at all. It was much thicker than I like and too peppery. So I had a chocolate-frosted doughnut to make up for it.

Our excursion was the Kristiansand by Segway tour. We met at 11:45 (I think in Fathoms) and the Port Adventures host told us that we would be done by 1:00 p.m. This upset me because I know from doing similar tours in other places, the first half hour or so is used to train the tourists about how to ride the Segway. That would leave us only a half hour for the actual tour. As it turned out, the tour went from noon until about 2:30 (including the 2-minute walk from the ship to where the Segways were parked), so I was worried for nothing. It was a terrific experience. The training was good with very patient staff. It was the first time for both Molly and Kathryn, so they were a little nervous; but they did great and both enjoyed it a lot.

Training. . .



And after training:



Our guide was good, but not great. He didn't give us as much historical information on some of the important sites (in particular, the Kristiansand Cathedral) as I would've liked, but he was VERY good with the group and the nervous riders. We rode to the shore and a big park with several cool fountains. As was mentioned, we had GREAT weather in Norway and it seemed like this town had been waiting for summer for 10 years. Everybody was outside. We must've seen 100 moms pushing baby carriages; kids swimming in the fountains; people laying out on the grass just soaking up the sun.

People happy to be able to wear shorts (remember, it's only about 70 degrees):





The cool fountains at the park:





The tour then took us through the Old Town, to the city's highest point, an old defensive fort, and eventually ended at a fish market where they gave us samples of smoked and fresh fish. The fish market was part of a wonderful little market complex with outdoor seating for a few restaurants and access to the water, so there were lots of boats parked nearby.

Some outdoor art that we passed:



The Cathedral:







Another statue of King Haakon VII, near the cathedral:



The fort:





The fish market:





After the fish market, we dropped the Segways back at the starting point and Molly headed back to the ship. Kath and I and my sister and brother-in-law walked back to the market and soaked in the sun with some fish and chips.

And a cold drink. . .

@Disneyfalcon and her family were unable to do their Norwegian Fjords cruise, so I took this picture for her. It's a Norwegian Coke Zero. Molly thought it might be rubbing salt in the wound to share it, but I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you guys!!



After our snack, we walked back up through the park with the fountains and to the shopping district. We wandered through some shops. There were several places that seemed to have good deals, but we didn't buy much. We got back to the ship just before the all-aboard time of 4:30. After that, we took some time to relax and read before getting ready for dinner.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Norwegian Coke Zero!! That's so awesome! It's painful to see some of these pictures (although we'll make up for it next summer) but I love that you thought of me when you saw that! Lol!

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 4 -- Kristiansand, continued.

This was scheduled as Formal Night, and we were supposed to be in Carioca's for dinner. But we had dinner reservations for Palo! So we dressed in our formal wear and headed to Deck 10. To make it even more special, it was Molly's first Palo dinner!

Dressed up for Formal Night:





Before we get to the meal, just a note for the real DCL geeks out there. Palo has new menus. More specifically, new menu holders. They used to have really cool copper folders that the menus were inserted into. I can't tell you how many times I begged for them to let me buy one. But now, they're a more traditional menu holder:



And here are a couple shots of the restaurant:





We were served the antipasto plate, of course. I think this is pretty much the same as the last time we had dinner. There are meats, cheese, red peppers and olives with some balsamic vinegar drizzled over the top. But then we ordered the calamari, grilled shrimp and caprese salad for our appetizers. All were excellent. I love the calamari. I thought there used to be pizza on the dinner menu, but there was no pizza option this night. They did provide some seasoned flatbread with the antipasto, but it was not a menu option.







For our entrees, I ordered the lasagna. This was excellent, with great depth of flavor to the sauce. It was a little more moist than I would have expected, but I really enjoyed it. I also ordered a side portion of the beef ravioli in wine sauce. It was also very good, both the meat and the wine sauce, but I was glad that I ordered the lasagna as my "real" meal. I liked it better than the ravioli.



Kathryn ordered the Osso buco and it was amazing. She loved it. Cooked wonderfully and the sauce had fantastic flavor.



Molly got the steak with red wine reduction. It was also amazing. She loved it. One of the great things about Palo is that when you ask for your meat to be cooked "rare", they actually do it! Most restaurants either can't do it right or they assume that you don't really know what rare is, so it comes out medium rare. But Molly got it rare!



The ladies also split an order of the lamb chops, just to try them and they agreed that they were also awesome. For some reason, I don't have a picture. Sorry!

During dinner, we were treated to a wandering minstrel. This was one of the guest performers, who did the main show in the Walt Disney Theater one evening later in the cruise. During her stage show, she played the violin and also sang; but in Palo, it was just the violin. This is something that we'd never experienced at Palo and we all really enjoyed it.



Our server brought some sorbet with prosecco between courses:



And then, dessert! Most people swear by the chocolate souffle, but I love the Amaretto Indulgence. Next time you're at Palo, even if you think you want the souffle, get the Amaretto Indulgence. You can thank me later. Kath got the souffle; Molly and I got the Indulgence. Mmmmmmm!





Steve's birthday was in two days, so he also get a special plate with his dessert:



Three final comments about our evening at Palo.

1) We had to wait about 10-15 minutes to be taken to our table. This is unusual in my experience, but it wasn't horrible. We waited in the comfortable chairs between the check-in desk and the piano. The ship's photographer came out to us there and took several pictures for us by the masks and with the restaurant in the background. I really liked this better than being interrupted during my meal, rearranging the table so the glasses don't get in the picture, etc. You'll notice, however, that I'm not sharing any of those pictures with you. That's because they all came out terrible! With the sun pouring into the room directly behind us, all those pictures either have us squinting (facing the sun) or completely in shadow (sun behind us). So we have no good pictures of us in Palo. But if they could figure how to make them come out well, I would gladly have pictures taken while we wait to be seated, instead of during the meal.

2) They had a special order available, if you really like steak. It's a step up from Kobe beef, but I can't remember the name (from my Google search, maybe it was Wagyu?). It was a mere $55 for a 2 oz. portion, or the bargain price of $100 for a 4 oz. portion. I like a good steak as much as anybody, but come on. That's crazy expensive.

3) Kathryn asked the server to walk her through her wine choices to go with her meal. He went over some of the items on the wine list, and recommended one, which is what Kathryn ordered. The price wasn't noted on the wine list, but when we got the bill, her one glass of wine was $25. I think I would've liked a heads-up from the server about that. If you're going to recommend a selection that's almost twice as much as most of the comparable choices in other venues, I think the server should let you know that it's not your "typical" glass of wine.

Our dinner started at 7 pm and we didn't leave the restaurant until about 9:00. So we missed both performances of Villians Tonight. It's not my favorite show, but I had actually wanted to see it. Sometimes it's really good and I wanted to give it a shot. I have to say, though, that Villains Tonight does not seem like a show that you'd want to schedule for Formal Night. The best show for Formal Night is Golden Mickeys; which is, of course, the best show period. But it's no longer showing on the Magic. Not that I'm bitter. . .

Instead, we all went up to the D Lounge (formerly Studio Sea) to see The Dreamers. I had liked them a lot when we heard them earlier in the cruise and I was looking forward to good songs done with good acoustic guitar arrangements. (Can you sense a "but" coming. . .?) BUT they were doing a family dance party with lots of electronic background tracks. There were kids everywhere, of course. It was crazy and not what we were in the mood for after Palo, so we didn't stay. We spent some quiet time walking Deck 4, which was still bathed in bright sunlight well after 10:30 p.m. Great night.

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 5 -- Stavanger Mostly sunny, high 80

First things first. It rhymes with "anger". This was the third stop in Norway and the shortest, by far. The all-aboard time was 12:45 p.m. So most of the excursions were pretty early in the morning. Ours met around 7:30 or 7:45, so I skipped the gym because I just didn't want to get up quite that early. We had an early breakfast at Cabanas and then went straight to our meeting spot.

We did the Lysenfjord Cruise, which was simply a boat ride up the fjord and back. It was beautiful, but the guide said that she expected to see wildlife and we didn't actually see any. There's a section of the fjord where goats live wild, but they've become accustomed to the boats because people feed them. We expected them to come out to see us, but they didn't. The environment looks a lot like Alaska, I think, with lots of trees, although the fjord seemed more open, with wider spaces for fields along some stretches. Here are a few pictures:









There were even a few waterfalls along the way. In fact, our boat pulled up very close to the side of the fjord so that our guide took a big bucket, filled it from the waterfall and gave us all a bit of the water to drink. That was kind of cool, I have to admit.





About halfway through the sailing, we stopped at a little clearing with a small building and some bathrooms. The gave us waffles with strawberries as a snack, then we headed back to port. In all, the excursion lasted about 3.5 hours.



After getting back to the port, we decided to walk through some of the shops near the pier and look at the area a little bit. I felt it was a gorgeous little town. (I say "little", but it's Norway's 4th largest city.) But the shops were absolutely mobbed. We walked through one store and had to fight our way out. I would've loved to walk around the town a little bit, maybe go see the church, but nobody else was up for it, and the line to get back on the ship was very long. The local port security people were taking forever to let people into the port area. It was pretty much time for lunch, so we decided to get back on board the ship, rather than wander the streets.

Some pictures of the town:











While we were waiting in line to re-board the Magic, it was hot. It was 80, or maybe a little warmer. And now that I'm home in New England and the temperature has been over 90 for the last three days, 80 doesn't seem so bad. But standing in the sun on the first really hot day of our trip, people were feeling the heat. So the cruise staff, including Natalie, our Cruise Director, was walking up and down the line, handing out cool towels and water for anybody who wanted them. It was a nice touch!

Once we got back on board, we headed to Cabanas for lunch. Honestly, nothing really appealed to me. I probably ended up with chicken fingers and fries. After lunch, we did nothing. It was an awesome, completely relaxing afternoon. The girls found a spot in Quiet Cove and I headed to Deck 4 to read (and maybe nap) for a couple hours.

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 5 -- Stavanger, continued

On our fjord cruise, our guide mentioned that Stavanger has grown because of the oil industry's growth there. And sure enough, as we left port, we passed a few oil rigs.





For dinner, we were back in Lumiere's. For appetizers, Kath had the escargot, which she always loves. I had the shrimp and lobster. The shrimp were good sized and there was a "medallion" of lobster. There was a tiny bit sauce, but most of the flavor was just the seafood, which was good. I also tried the ham and cheese croquettes, which were kind of like long tater tots with some ham and cheese in them. They were ok, but I didn't love them.





For the second course, I had the French Onion soup, which was not overly salty and I liked it a lot. Kathryn and Molly had the cucumber salad with dill and sour cream. This was really odd to me. There a pile of shredded lettuce, another pile of what looked like cabbage, and a little pile of cucumbers with dill sauce all in one bowl. It looked like you were supposed to mix it all together, but they really just wanted the cucumbers and dill.

Soup:



And the wierd salad:



For my entree, I had the Chateaubriand roasted filet steak, which was delicious, but was huge! It was way too much for one portion. I also had a small side portion of the roast duck, which was very moist and I enjoyed it a lot. Kathryn had the Conchiglia pasta with bits of lobster in it. The red pasta sauce was not very flavorful. It was just ok. She also shared a side order of the roasted rack of lamb with Molly. The menu said it was prepared "medium", but Kath asked for it rare, and they were able to do that for her. Molly's main entree was the evening's regional item, which was mini potato dumplings. Very similar to gnocchi, as you might guess. It was a disappointing dish, however. There was not much flavor to the dumplings or sauce and no color in the dish. It wasn't terrible; it just wasn't interesting at all.

The duck:



Potato dumplings:



Rack of lamb:



My filet (it doesn't look big, but it was!):



For dessert Molly and I had the peanut butter mousse, which was excellent! Loved it. Kath had the Grand Marnier souffle. It was delicious, but our server did NOT pour the sauce over the souffle for her. We were literally stunned. I later asked a different server if the policy had changed, and he said no, the server is definitely still supposed to pour the sauce.

Mousse:



The show in the Walt Disney Theater was "Hector Is Magic!" We passed. Looking back on it, I probably should have gone to these shows, just so I could give a decent report on them. But honestly, nobody in group was interested at all. So we sat up on Deck 9, because it was still really warm in the evening. After some soft serve for our second dessert, I headed back to the cabin to finish reading Harry Potter 7 on the verandah.

Side note about the soft serve: they provided a nice variety of flavors over the course of the cruise. There was always vanilla and chocolate, of course. But they also served banana, mango, strawberry, and blueberry at various times. I really liked the chocolate/blueberry twist.

 

[Sans Souci]

I've been following along. We're going on the Magic out of Barcelona next month and I've only been on the Dream thus far. I loved the Palo photos. We have reservations for dinner and the awesomeness that is brunch.

 

[ChuckElias]

I think you'll like Palo on the Magic even better than on the Dream. They still have the handmade masks as part of the decor, and the Dream never had them.

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 6 -- At Sea, Low 50s, mostly sunny

Up early to hit the gym. Seemed like people might be sleeping in, as it wasn't as crowded as usual. I really enjoyed having the showers there at the gym. It was much better than getting back to the room sweaty, and also made for fewer dirty towels lying around the stateroom shower room.

I went to Cabanas for a typical breakfast, but because the temperature fell so dramatically overnight, it was packed. I was lucky to find a table right next to the window. Breakfast was blueberry pancakes with a strawberry compote, with a side of bacon.

After breakfast, I attended the Art of the Theme Show tour. This is a walking tour of the ship, which is offered several times over the course of a 7+ night cruise. The tour focuses on theming throughout the ship, pointing out elements of the decor and design of various public spaces. This is NOT a "behind-the-scenes" type of tour. The guide talks about carpet designs, Disney elements in the "background" of the Atrium, etc. I've done this tour on all four ships (and multiple times on the Magic). On all four ships, the tour starts at Palo, and ends in the Atrium. This was a pretty typical tour, but I did learn a few interesting things on this tour:

1) The new centerpiece of the Atrium (which pretty much nobody likes) represents the Sun and carpets on Deck 5, 4, and 3 around the Atrium represent different layers of the ocean. So the carpet on Deck 5 is sea green, with "wave" patterns to reflect the ocean's surface; Deck 4 is a light blue, with seashells, to represent the water just below the surface; and Deck 3 is a darker blue, with patterns that look like seaweed and the brownish marble surrounding the carpet to represent the sandy ocean floor.

2) The artwork in the Aft stairwells from Decks 5-8 show animation cels in various stages of completion. Deck 5 exhibits sketches, and as you walk up the stairs, the artwork becomes more polished until you get to Deck 8 where you'll see finished versions of animation frames. While I've seen these displays many times, I had never realized that there was a deliberate pattern to the artwork that was chosen.

3) One of the things that I disliked most about O'Gills on the Dream is that it was too dark and I couldn't really see the decorations and pictures around the lounge, so I couldn't figure out what story the space was supposed to be telling. And even more frustrating, nobody who worked in O'Gills could tell me the story, either. But our tour guide was able to tell us the Legend of O'Gills. The short version is that a leprechaun was walking by a river, when he was pulled into the water by a rogue crab. Just as the leprechaun feared he was going to drown, he was saved by O'Gill the fish. In his gratitude, the leprechaun offered to grant one wish to O'Gill, whose only wish was to have a hometown pub where he could share a pint with his friends. And that's how O'Gills came to be. Since its founding, it has sponsored a football team that had a modicum of success and also inspired a song. (If you don't want to take the tour, there is a display near the entrance to the pub that tells the basic story.)

The Atrium's chandelier and the themed carpets of the decks below it:











Kathryn went to the Anyone Can Cook demonstration in D-Lounge. She said that although the chef who did the demonstration was from Greece, he looked just like Gousteau from Ratatouille. The demonstration was how to make lobster ravioli. Over the last couple of cruises, these demonstrations have moved from interesting "tutorials" about how the chef cooks a dish to more of an entertainment venue with the chef cooking and just sort of chatting with the audience. It was not easy to get a good view of what was doing, as the camera didn't do a good job of showing the whole cooking surface. But it's still kind of fun and at then end, everybody gets a sample of the dish that was prepared.

As soon as I was done with the Art of the Theme Show tour, I ran (yes, ran) to the Buena Vista Theater for the guest lecturer/historian who was speaking about Reykjavik. I got there just as the lecture was about to start and the theater was packed. All the seats were filled, and people were even sitting on the stairs along the walls. It was literally standing room only, and I found a small space at the back of the theater. The speaker was Dr. Jeffrey Morton and he was very good. The lecture was about 50 minutes and covered the historical and political significance of Iceland, rather than places to visit. On our 2010 Baltic cruise, I attended every lecture that was offered. Unfortunately, this was the only lecture I was able to attend with Dr. Morton, simply due to when he was scheduled to speak. I wish I could've seen more of him, but it just didn't work out that way.

After the lecture, I ran up to Deck 9 to grab some pizza and chicken fingers and then met the rest of my group in the Promenade Lounge on Deck 3 for Family Feud. (For anybody unfamiliar with the layout of the Magic, this was very easy to do as the Buena Vista Theater, the quick service food and the Promenade Lounge are all at the ship's aft. So it was just a quick run up the stairs and then down the same stairs.) Family Feud was just plain silly, but it was fun. They divide the room into two groups and then the game is played on a Wii system and projected on the big screen in the lounge. It was a goofy way to pass a half hour, but we laughed a lot.

After Family Feud, our whole group moved to O'Gills for Movie Quote Trivia. You had to identify the movie that the quote was from and the actor (not the character) who said it. We did better than our first attempt at trivia, but we still didn't win. But it was definitely fun and they picked a good selection of movie quotes.

As you can tell, there's no shortage of things to do during a Sea Day. At this point, it's only mid-afternoon, and at 3:00 there was a one-time-only Matinee performance by Donovan and Rebecca (http://www.donovanandrebecca.com/) in the Walt Disney Theater. Donovan and Rebecca are a married couple who developed their act just so they could perform together professionally. They currently hold 4 Guinness World Records. Their act is a mixture of acrobatics and balance/strength demonstrations and Donovan's singing. It's a really cool act, although I personally thought it would've been better without the live vocals. He's ok, and it's amazing that he can sing at all while doing some of the strenuous parts of the act. But nobody goes to this show to hear him sing, to be honest. It's the acrobatics that really carry the show. It was very good and I enjoyed it a lot.

We had about an hour until it was time to get ready for dinner, so I took some time to relax in the stateroom and read a bit. After finishing Harry Potter, I went with a Disney-related title: Mary Poppins.

Once dinnertime rolled around, we were back in Animator's Palate for the Prince and Princess menu. For appetizers, Molly and I both had the shrimp with jambalaya rice. The shrimp were good, but the rice was kind of a throw-away. Kathryn had the duck tureen, which is like a pate. She liked it a lot, but I don't think I would have liked it, so I didn't try it. Kath had the mixed leaf salad, which was good but really big; and Molly had the potato soup with knockwurst (which was half a slice of hot dog), which was ok, but not good enough to finish.

For entrees, Molly and I ordered the Baked Turbot. It was ok, but not great. I've definitely had better fish on DCL. I actually liked the mashed potatoes better than the fish. Kathryn ordered the Rosemary Crusted Pork Chop, which was delicious, but overdone.

For dessert, Kath and Molly had the flourless chocolate cake, which they both liked. I've had it before on DCL, and been disappointed because it was dry; but they both said it was very good. I had the rocky road ice cream sundae (because I wasn't eating enough soft serve. . .).

For some reason, I only have pictures of the entrees. The Turbot:



And Pork Chop:



The evening's show in the Walt Disney Theater was Twice Charmed. Molly loves this show, but it's not my favorite. So the girls went to the show, which they said was excellent (despite a couple technical difficulties) and I went to the Buena Vista Theater to watch Tomorrowland. I know it didn't get great reviews, but I really liked it. It wasn't at all what I expected, and the girl resolved the crisis much too easily. But up to the last 15 minutes or so, I thought it was very good.

After the show, we hung out in the Promenade lounge with The Dreamers. They had yummy fried dumplings for snacks, and we stayed until midnight. Just a really nice, relaxing evening.

Before we went to bed, though, we had to do a couple of things. We had to turn the clocks back another hour, as we continued to sail west. No big deal. But we also had to turn in our passports to Guest Services for Iceland's Customs service. Everybody had to surrender his/her passport, which was then held by the Iceland authorities for the duration of our stay in the country. I've never had to do this before and it was kind of unsettling. Nobody in our party felt good about surrendering our passport for a prolonged period of time. As far as I can recall, nobody ever explained to us exactly why Iceland was using this procedure.

But we did it. Then we went to bed.

 

[ChuckElias]

Day 7 -- Reykjavik Mostly cloudy, mid-60's

Fourth of July!!



As usual, I got up to work out in the fitness center. We were still too far from port to have any real view of Iceland. Back at the stateroom, we had croissants, but I wasn't really hungry, so I skipped any real breakfast.

It was a lazy morning for me, and I took the opportunity to sit in Fathoms and catch up on the notes I'd been taking for the trip report. Unfortunately, I practically cracked my skull when I sat down and leaned back, without realizing how close behind me the elevated shelf was. Ouch.

Around 11 that morning, there was a big Fourth of July party in the Atrium. A couple of the members of the Walt Disney Theater cast sang The Star Spangled Banner and "Proud to Be an American". After the "ceremony", there was a dance party and Mickey and Co. were all there in patriotic outfits.







We had lunch at Lumiere's right around noon. That's also just about the time that we docked, so we could look out our window and see the pier as we approached. (The wierd thing about this was that there was ONE woman in traditional dress throwing flowers into the water to greet us as we pulled into port. It was really odd, but sweet, I guess.) I had sliced pork tenderloin in a mushroom sauce, which was really good.

All-ashore was 1:15, and that was when we met for our excursion to the Blue Lagoon Spa. This was an awesome excursion. It was a 45 minute bus ride to the spa and then two hours in the hot spring. This is a geyser-fed pool, and the water has high levels of minerals in it, which is supposed to be really good for the skin. They had people in the spring that were handing out silicon mud to spread on your skin, so most of the people had white goop spread all over their faces and arms. One thing you should know if you ever plan to visit is that they require you to shower (without the bathing suit) before you enter the spring. They made it sound like this was just going to be a public shower where everybody was showering together, and this actually caused a few people to cancel their reservation for this excursion. But as it turned out, there were shower stalls, so it really wasn't a big deal at all. Everybody in our group loved being in the hot springs. It was terrific.







The blue wristband that you see me wearing is like a low-budget Magic Band. It allows you to lock and unlike your locker and also to make purchases at the bar that's located in the spring. It doesn't charge directly to a credit card on file; instead you turn it in at the end of your visit and you have to pay at that point. If you conveniently lose the wristband, there's a fine, of course.

Our guide on the bus told us that the we would all have to really wash our hair thoroughly after getting out of the springs. She said that if we didn't, the high mineral content of the water would give us troll hair: stiff and wiry, like helmet hair. Well, I purposely didn't wash my hair just to see what troll hair looked like and it was very disappointing. My hair didn't really get very stiff at all. I was kind of hoping to look like a troll doll at dinner, but it wasn't to be.

We got back to the ship just after 5:00, so we had just enough time to get ready for dinner. Dinner was in Carioca's and it was our first time eating here (after missing our last chance because we dinner at Palo instead). It's still very similar to Parrot Cay, in my opinion. You can still see a lot of the decor from before the re-imagineering of the restaurant. But I liked the changes that they did make. I particularly liked the colorful doors along the back wall.



The light fixtures are also colorful.



Here's an example of being able to see details from the old decor. These columns have the sliding panels that hide the parrots underneath them.



For appetizers, Molly had a duck prosciutto. It looked exactly like a "normal" pork prosciutto. It was ok, but she didn't love it. Kathryn had the chicken liver pate, which was really big; and she liked it. I had the cheese and bacon tartlet, which I've had many times before and I liked it a lot. It's always good.

None of the soup or salad options appealed to me, so I skipped them. Kathryn had the Orange and Beetroot salad. The greens had a lot of bitter flavors and I guess the oranges were supposed to balance the flavors, but Kath said it was just ok.

For entrees, Molly and I both had the veal medallions with shredded potato cake. The veal and the mushroom cognac sauce were awesome; but I wasn't crazy about the potato cake. Molly liked it better than I did, but I thought it had a bit of a flavor that I just didn't like. Kathryn had the trout and liked it but didn't think it was great. I couldn't have ordered it because it was served in an ocean of peas! There was also a steak on the menu, which my sister ordered. He liked it a lot. Because it was the Fourth of July, there were a few "All-American" items on a separate menu, and my brother-in-law got the fried chicken and corn-on-the-cob. It was kind of fun, and he enjoyed it a lot.

The steak:



The fried chicken:



The veal medallions (AWESOME!!):



And the trout:



The show in the Walt Disney Theater was a showing of the Pixar movie "Inside Out" in 3-D. The theater was packed. I won't do a full review of the movie, but I really loved it. I thought it was really terrific. Inside Out was released just before our sailing, but my family purposely didn't go to see it until we were onboard. It was like our very own Prem-ear at Sea.

In the evening, a lot of people left the ship to go back into Reykjavik, but we decided to relax in the lounges. We split out time between Keys to listen to Clara Oman and the Promenade lounge to hear The Dreamers. We just spent the rest of our night relaxing with great music. It was still light out when we finally went to bed just after midnight.