We planned to fly to NJ the night before the cruise and found some friends willing to take us to the Nashville airport so we wouldn’t have to pay for parking for 18 days. Unfortunately, once we were at the airport, our flight was canceled due to severe weather all along the east coast. Since there weren’t any other flights out that night and we didn’t want to risk flights being messed up the next day, we decided to do a one-way car rental and drove for 12.5 hours instead. We stopped around 10:30pm, about four hours away from the port, and finished the drive the next morning. We had to drop the car off at the Newark, NJ airport and take a Lyft to the cruise port, but made it there with plenty of time to spare. Later in the trip, we learned there were 39 other passengers who didn’t make it on board and had to meet the ship in Halifax, so we were happy we drove and had no other issues.
Cape Liberty, NJ. The captain did a couple of 360° turns in front of the Statue of Liberty, which was cool. We left the port just as a big storm was rolling into NY. Bon Voyage!!
Halifax, Nova Scotia. We walked up the steep Citadel Hill and spent most of our time at the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site to learn a bit of Nova Scotia’s history at the old fort, including lots of info about the 78th Highland Regiment. There were some nice views of the city from up there, too. From there, we walked through town and around the harbor area on our way back to the ship.
St. John’s, Newfoundland. We walked up a steep hill to get to The Rooms museum, since it seemed to be one of the top things to do in St. John’s. It was interesting enough, but it would have been ok to miss, too. Instead of walking several miles to our next destination, Signal Hill, we walked back down the hill and grabbed a taxi to the top of Signal Hill. That gave us plenty of time to roam around up there, enjoying the gorgeous 360° views before walking back to the ship (at least it was downhill!). Oh, and since the cruise director had raved a couple of times about Tim Hortons, we decided to stop by there and grab a couple of donuts, which were good but not really anything special. Perhaps it’s their coffee that’s extra special? Or perhaps just another cult following like the various burger joints in the U.S.?
I thought it was interesting that we were required to wait for a pilot boat to guide us through the narrow canal after leaving the port. Guess it worked, though, cause we made it through! Whew!
Qaqortoq, Greenland. We learned more about Qaqortoq (pronounced Kokkortok) than the previous places, since we did a guided tour. Unfortunately, it was chilly and drizzling rain, but we were told it was actually nicer than normal weather for them, so ok then! The tour guide was Danish and was super interesting and informative as we walked around the small town. “Qaqortoq” means “white”, so you’d guess it was named after the snow; but it was actually white because of all the bird poop, haha. It’s the largest town in Southern Greenland but you can only get to it by boat or helicopter. We saw a few of the popular Stone and Man art pieces that were carved into the stone around town (there are around 30 of them total). It’s interesting that they color code their public buildings, with hospitals being yellow and churches being red, etc. (People can choose whichever color they’d like for their homes.)
Randy and I walked to the Great Lake after the tour to enjoy some more beautiful scenery. A friendly 20ish-year-old Greenlander stopped to chat with us a bit and said that he had lived in Qaqortoq his whole life and wanted to raise his family there. It’s hard to imagine living someplace so cut off from the rest of the world and with such harsh weather; but I guess if that’s all you know, then it’s easier. It’s definitely beautiful and has some charm.
Akureyri, Iceland. Yay, we made it to Iceland, despite the 17-90 ft waves and 50 mph winds between here and Greenland — whee! They closed the outer upper decks, but the captain avoided the worst of the weather until after the main theater shows were over and most people were in bed. I didn’t mind the extra rolling movements at all, but the loud creaking noises our cabin made kept me from sleeping very much. Oh well! Also interesting, in order to cross the Arctic Waters, the ship had to allow a second captain on board with Arctic Water experience. Our captain spoke highly of him after charting through the storm, haha. We both received documentation certifying that we entered the Arctic Circle!
We found a 6-hour bus tour after we walked off the ship that took us to several popular tourist attractions:
Godafoss Waterfall – means Waterfall of the Gods. According to the Icelandic Sagas, it was named in 1000 AD, after the chieftain decided Icelandanders should adopt the Christian religion then threw his statues of pagan gods into the waterfall.
Skútustaðagígar Craters – an area with clusters of pseudo-craters, created when lava flows over water that then boils and explodes after pressure builds.
Dimmuborgir – nature reserve area with walking trails through lava formations. I’m not sure how real this is, but there is a good bit of signage talking about the Yule Lads, sons of trolls who supposedly live in Dimmuborgir. They are thirteen brothers who love to sing, tell funny stories and trick people. My guess is that there may be brothers who dress up and do that stuff occasionally, but we did not get to see them, unfortunately. Many scenes from “Game of Thrones” were filmed in this area.
Námafjall – a (stinky) geothermal area with fumaroles and mud pots.
Grjótagjá – a small lava cave (again, a scene from Game of Thrones was filmed here). There was a rift nearby where tectonic plates are shifting.
Isafjordur, Iceland. This was a super small fishing village that we decided to just walk around on our own. It didn’t take long, ha, then we walked back to the ship.
Reykjavik, Iceland. Our final port was in Reykjavik, where we were meeting Jeremy and staying for four nights before flying home. I created a separate post of what we did there. Below are some other pics of the fun times we had while at sea! There was a glass blowing studio that was cool (and warm!) to watch. Some passengers paid to create their own piece of art to take home with them, but we just watched them. We saw dolphins several times while waiting our turn for pickleball. I made it to the semi-finals of the “curling” competition, which was fun. The main theater shows were all really well done. We even liked the one with an opera singer, even though neither of us prefer opera music.
Also, I had a lot of fun participating in the choir. Evidently, it’s a thing on the longer cruises with more sea/practice days, which we had never done, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn about it. There were around 26 of us led by Jay, one of the Celebrity Performers. We sang Don’t Stop Believing, Imagine, and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You. I’m not sure if we ended up sounding very good, but we had a large crowd watching the performance in the Grand Foyer on our last sea day who gave us a very enthusiastic round of applause, so it wasn’t awful, at least!
Randy and I both joined in on the Flash Mob, which worked like the choir — practices on sea days and a performance in the Grand Foyer the evening of the last sea day. Again, we may not have been perfect, but Brook, the Activities Leader who was in charge, made us all feel like we were amazing and the crowd cheered loudly. Both activities were super fun and I’ll definitely participate again if we ever do another cruise with extra sea days!
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