May 9
We’re on our one-day cruise from Trondheim to Bergen. It’s another beautiful day but the deck gets cool when we’re out in the open, mainly from the strong wind. This is a very small ship, probably no more than a couple hundred people on board. It has absolutely no amenities other than a tiny shop, snack bar and dining room. We’ve spent most of the day in one of the forward lounges with very comfy chairs and a beautiful view. In fact, the view is what this cruise is all about. It’s really stunning. Here’s a video of us leaving port this morning.
This is the last day of a 12-day cruise that started in Bergen on the 1st and sailed north to Kirkenes, then headed back down. It stopped at 33 different ports on the trip north but most of them are only 30 minutes long. Seriously, what can you see in 30 minutes. Absolutely nothing but apparently people use that time to get off the ship and stretch their legs on land. Several of the biggest stops were 3-4 hours long but there were only a few of them. So, there may have been 5-6 port calls per day for a grand total of 2-3 hours on land but with only 30 minutes, there’s not much outside the dock you can visit. We already had one today, so Lynn used it to run out and grab a couple of beers and sandwiches for dinner. We didn’t know this but only breakfast was included in our ticket. We could have bought dinner, but it was $150 for the two of us and there were only a couple of dishes to pick from, so we decided we’d just wing it. We got on board early enough to grab stuff from the breakfast buffet for lunch and during our short stop in Kristiansund, Lynn ran off the ship and picked up a couple of sandwiches and beers. There isn’t much available in the snack shop but what is there is very expensive. We have another stop tonight from 9-9:30pm so we might run off again to find something else. We wouldn’t be really happy if we were staying for any length of time but for only 30 hours we’ll manage. We dock in Bergen tomorrow at 2:30pm then spend the rest of tomorrow and Friday sightseeing in that port town. Then it’s a full day trip back to Oslo.
