DREAMing of the Fjords: 8/19/23-8/26/23 (Completed)

[Geomom]

8/20/23: Rotterdam, part 7:

We came inside to do a meet and greet with Donald

And I took a pic of Goofy while in line.

We went up to deck 11 hoping to get olives from Cove Cafe…and they had already emptied the case (apparently they empty it at 9:30PM before they start drink tastings.). Instead we got fries, pizza, and crudites.


We went back to deck 4 promenade to watch more of the sail out…and people were still lining the shore and waving their phone flashlights at us!


Eventually we went up to bed, after moving our "dinosaur".

 

[justafigment27]

So excited to see this report! You hooked me with your Alaskan report (I booked Chilkoot Charters on our July 2019 Alaskan based on your TR) and I’ve read all the others as well. I love the details you provide.

It’s so nice that you were able to fit this trip in before your youngest had to head back to school! My girls are both college students and it’s getting more and more difficult to plan trips around their schedules.

 

[Geomom]

So excited to see this report! You hooked me with your Alaskan report (I booked Chilkoot Charters on our July 2019 Alaskan based on your TR) and I’ve read all the others as well. I love the details you provide.

It’s so nice that you were able to fit this trip in before your youngest had to head back to school! My girls are both college students and it’s getting more and more difficult to plan trips around their schedules.

Thank you for reading! I'm glad my trip reports have been helpful and informative.

Yes, it worked out really well, other years Norway never worked as my oldest would start college (early for music camp) before the cruise ended. It's been really nice cruising as all adults the past 2 years. I hope you're able to have a couple more trips with your college kids. It is both good and bad that my oldest was available... she's still looking for a job after college, but this was her dream itinerary. Hopefully she'll figure out something soon, even just a temp job to get out of the house.

 

[Flossbolna]

Following along! We did Norway in 2015 on the Magic and loved it. Looking forward to read about an experience on the Dream now.

 

[KGmomoftwins]

I love your trs! My girls would have loved you Rotterdam excursion me not so much! I really want to do Norway at some point but I think our girls would have to be teens to really appreciate it.

 

[Geomom]

Following along! We did Norway in 2015 on the Magic and loved it. Looking forward to read about an experience on the Dream now.

Thank you for reading! I enjoyed reading your Dream Med report this year.

 

[Geomom]

I love your trs! My girls would have loved you Rotterdam excursion me not so much! I really want to do Norway at some point but I think our girls would have to be teens to really appreciate it.

Thanks for reading! My husband enjoyed the tour part of our Rotterdam excursion, but not the crafting part. I would have liked more free time in Delft or an actual walking tour there, but at least it was a beautiful day. We started cruising with Alaska when my youngest was 12. I think 12+ are good ages for exploring other countries, basically middle school and high school ages will get the most out of those trips, but you can certainly take any age on them!

 

[Flossbolna]

Thank you for reading! I enjoyed reading your Dream Med report this year.

The next update will hopefully be up soon! We are slow trip report writers…

 

[OADad]

Hi Geomom - we also are a MA family, and doing the fjords cruise next August. I am looking at Southampton hotels now and wondering what you thought of the Moxy? Online reviews are fairly mixed.

Looking forward to the rest of your review, though I think our ports are mostly different.

 

[Geomom]

Hi Geomom - we also are a MA family, and doing the fjords cruise next August. I am looking at Southampton hotels now and wondering what you thought of the Moxy? Online reviews are fairly mixed.
Looking forward to the rest of your review, though I think our ports are mostly different.

We loved the Moxy! It depends on the makeup of your group. It can be hard finding a room for 4 in Europe. Our kids are adults, so I had no issues putting them in their own room, and they did give us adjoining rooms. The rooms are on the smaller side, but we had stayed in a much smaller room in Copenhagen. There is no place to store clothes, other than some hangers. The toiletries are all pump bottles vs individual ones. I was pleasantly surprised to have a kettle in the room with instant coffee and tea bags. We didn't buy breakfast, so I can't comment on that. The lobby/bar has a fun vibe, probably best for people in their 20s/30s, but we enjoyed it and it wasn't overly loud the days we were there. Lots of board games, etc that you could use, and you could order food at the bar and eat it anywhere on that floor. We got a great price for it, the rates had doubled closer to the sailing date. It's in easy walking distance of the West Quay Mall, and pretty much everything around there.

 

[OADad]

We loved the Moxy! It depends on the makeup of your group. It can be hard finding a room for 4 in Europe. Our kids are adults, so I had no issues putting them in their own room, and they did give us adjoining rooms. The rooms are on the smaller side, but we had stayed in a much smaller room in Copenhagen. There is no place to store clothes, other than some hangers. The toiletries are all pump bottles vs individual ones. I was pleasantly surprised to have a kettle in the room with instant coffee and tea bags. We didn't buy breakfast, so I can't comment on that. The lobby/bar has a fun vibe, probably best for people in their 20s/30s, but we enjoyed it and it wasn't overly loud the days we were there. Lots of board games, etc that you could use, and you could order food at the bar and eat it anywhere on that floor. We got a great price for it, the rates had doubled closer to the sailing date. It's in easy walking distance of the West Quay Mall, and pretty much everything around there.

Thanks! Very helpful.

 

[Geomom]

8/21/23 At Sea, part 1

We got coffee from the beverage station and pastries from Cove Cafe. Then DH and I did the morning adult only "Art of the Theme Show" tour from Meridian with Rebecca. I love doing this tour on all the ships as you learn about various ship design elements. It was an open house time in the Oceaneer Club, so our tour group went in, using the hand wash station as we entered. We played a game in there as well.

DH went to do a workout. The kids got the free pirate ship charm from White Caps and went to the Enchanted Garden Buffet. (They saw our server Ricardo there who said 'hi' to them.)

I went to the Adult Only Anyone Can Cook: Lobster Ravioli class in D Lounge and had free samples of lobster ravioli and old world Chardonnay.

Next 19 and 23 joined me for the adult only Napkin Folding class.

The kids went to the shopping thing at White Caps to get the free charm bracelet and watched Jack Jack's Diaper Dash in the atrium.

DH and I had lunch at Royal Palace (there are 7 different daily menus, you can see them on the app to decide what day you might want a sit down lunch...there was a dessert today that I wanted.)
DH had Portobello Mushroom Carpaccio

I had Roasted olives, feta, cacciatore, and peppers

I had the mild chicken curry

DH had the southwest black bean burger

I had the warm cherry crepes

DH had the Gold Rush sundae

 

[Geomom]

8/21/23 At Sea, part 2

DH and I went to see "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" in the Buena Vista theater. I enjoyed it, it was much better than Crystal Skull. The kids did the 2pm adult only "Art of the Theme Show" tour with Dominique and saw some things we didn't see on ours. They went to the Door Hanger craft and just grabbed supplies to go since it was just a paper craft vs foam as 23 had hoped. The kids started the Muppets Detective Agency game (and never finished it…but they did all 3 mysteries on the Fantasy in June 2022.). We went shopping. The 25th anniversary merch was basically down to Loungefly bags, ears, and an expensive ship sculpture. I would have loved a pin or magnet, but they never make enough of the "cheap" merchandise. I finally got sunglasses to replace the broken ones, and chose the pink long sleeve Dream Europe shirt. We got 3 Dream Europe pins. 19 got a DCL spirit jersey and the XL girl Pirate costume.

23 got a Dream spirit jersey. We used our 10% DVC discount and some Disney gift cards. At some point DH did a load of laundry on deck 6 as it had 2x as many machines as deck 7. (After doing 2 loads sometime yesterday…maybe in the AM?) The dryer didn't work well today and we were trying to hang the clothes in the room/get them off the bed before going to dinner so Mark could do turn down service easily. Tonight was formal night, so we got dressed up.

Dinner was in Enchanted Garden with their main menu. We were seated right near the fountain, a fantastic table location!


I had the Golden Leafs

19 had the non alcoholic drink of the day.

I had the cucumber garden roll

DH had the Ahi Tuna and avocado tower

23 had the apple wood smoked bacon wild mushroom tart

19 had lobster ravioli

23 and DH had the Romaine wedge

19 and I had the spinach and raspberry salad

 

[Geomom]

8/21/23 At Sea, part 3

I had the seared pork tenderloin medallions

DH had the 'lighter note' baked Salmon

19 had the marjoram scented roast chicken

23 had prime rib

Ratna handed us dessert menus and Ricardo took them away saying, "I've got you!", much to Ratna's confusion. Ricardo came back with ALL the desserts. He definitely knew us by day 3! He started joking that he makes all the desserts. We had a great time with Ricardo and Ratna.

Southern style pecan tart (2!)

Warm sticky date pudding

Chocolate garden torte

Chocolate brownie sundae

Orange almond cake

Lemon raspberry mousse bomb.

 

[Geomom]

8/21/23 At Sea, part 4

Ratna made origami flowers for the kids and we took photos in front of the fountain as we left.


We got out of dinner too late for the Shimmering Seas Soiree, but the Captain's reception was right after and I grabbed a free alcoholic 'spritzy' type drink, drank it and grabbed a second to take into the theater show. Tonight was "Beauty and the Beast", we went into the balcony again…saw the theater box on the right was empty, so we sat there! So much fun, and a great view of the fantastic show!

After the show we went back to the room, and changed back out of our fancy clothes.
Our towel animal: snake

And our framed 25th anniversary print.

19 and I headed up to deck 11 to sit in the adult area and have snacks, including soft serve ice cream. Around 10:30PM a letter was put in our fish, DH and 23 came up to join us with the disappointing news that our excursion for tomorrow was cancelled and we would be refunded. (Norwegian Mountain World: picture stops, a Stave church, lunch, and a glacier museum at $239/adult.)

DH and I went down to guest services to see if they had maps for Skjolden as I hadn't done any research on the town since we had booked an all day excursion. Guest services had no info, other than saying the town is small. Since it was late, and the ship was basically empty, DH and I took some pics.
DH laid down on the atrium carpet to take this pic:



A fancy bathroom pic...funny story...a woman had a conversation with me in the District restroom about how beautiful all the bathrooms are on the ship, and I told her that supposedly the ones near Meridian are the best according to our tour guide.

As we went back to the room, we noticed all the letters in people's fish…there were going to be a lot of angry and disappointed people in the morning…. While we were not happy about the situation, we were glad we knew about it before we went to bed.

 

[Geomom]

8/22/23: Skjolden, part 1
Last night they mentioned that we'd be entering the fjord/meeting the pilot boat at 2:45AM and it would take 8 hrs to get to Skjolden at the end of Sognefjord. DH and I woke up at 6AM and headed to deck 11 to get coffee and take pics from the upper decks (and deck 4 promenade ). Grabbed a few pastries from Cove Cafe as well.

 

[Geomom]

8/22/23: Skjolden, part 2
More Fjords pics:

 

[Geomom]

8/22/23: Skjolden, part 3
At 8AM, I stopped by the Port Adventures desk to get more info about Skjolden. They didn't have maps either, but there should be some at port. I asked if there were ANY port adventures available since ours was canceled…turns out only the RIB part of RIB and hike was happening…the other 6 excursions were completely canceled. No one was saying why, other than not enough tour guides. (Rumors going around the ship later on said tour guides were doing a quiet protest…either due to poor working conditions with the tour company DCL used or due to diesel ships in the Fjords). I wish DCL had been more transparent about the reason. I know other people on our cruise had many other issues, but thankfully 1 canceled excursion is all we had to deal with. We docked at 10am, but it took a while before people were allowed off the ship and there was a huge line. (People who booked the private excursions still had those–like the Llama Farm.). We were in no hurry, we just planned to catch the free DCL shuttle to the 'scenic spot' before Noon, because it was a beautiful sunny day in Norway.

DH and I had a very early lunch from Fillmore's Favorites when it opened, eating in the adult area. I had a Quinoa salad, fruit, and a turkey cranberry sandwich. DH had a bunch of sandwiches and fruit?


We got a map as we left the cruise terminal:


There was a long line for the free shuttles…only those with canceled excursions could go on the bus before Noon…and there were a lot of us. The bus ride was 10 minutes and dropped us off at Vassbakken campground. The Asafossen waterfall was across the street. We did about half of the narrow steep Sherpa built trail next to the waterfall, took some pics at a view spot, then went back down.

 

[Geomom]

8/22/23: Skjolden, part 4
There was another trail/gravel/dirt road across the Fortun River, past a farm with sheep that led to Wittgenstein's Hus. We didn't go as far as the hut. We stopped once we had a view of the lake.








We took the shuttle back to town, DH and I got off and the kids continued on the shuttle back to the ship.

 

[Geomom]

8/22/23: Skjolden, part 5
DH and I walked to the Tourist center first to use the restroom…long line for the women (what a shock!). A sign said 'more stalls downstairs'...there was 1 stall downstairs…so I was in line for a long time. We took pics in town (population 300 vs the Dream's 3800 passengers plus crew.).







Then we stood in line (they counted us as we went in/out) for the Coop grocery store to buy Norwegian snacks/sweets. Our haul:

We walked back to the ship vs waiting for a shuttle and encountered a long line to get back on.

We were on by 2:30PM and had some food from Flo's