Tiddly Carvings?! - A Baltic Cruise: Day 3 - Oslo, Norway

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Index

Today’s Navigator



By the time we went to bed last night the ship had become more stable and there was no creaking at all in the cabin so after a good night’s sleep we were awake at 6:50. The ship was due to dock in Oslo at 8:00 and the view on the way in was supposed to be spectacular so we got up straight away. By the time I got washed and dressed we had already arrived - about an hour early! I wasn’t bothered too much though as I knew we were going out the same way and would be able to see the view then.

We went up to Topsiders to get some breakfast while we waited for the ship to be cleared but it seemed everybody else had had the same idea and there was a large queue so we just got a coffee from the drinks station outside and wandered around the deck taking photos.

As we were now officially in Viking country I changed some of the magnets on the door.

Continued in next post

 

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After finishing our coffee we went down to Deck 3 and had a look at our photos from last night at one of the kiosks - this was something I hadn’t read about before the cruise: there are several kiosks on decks 3 and 4 where you can swipe your room key and it will show you all of the photos that have been taken of you which you can then order prints of.

Pretty soon afterwards Brent, our cruise director, announced that the gangway was located at deck 1 aft so we went down there and walked off the ship and on to Norwegian soil. First stop was the Tourist Information Desk in the cruise terminal where we bought an Oslo Pass each, which would give us free admission to all the museums we intended going to plus free access to public transport.

We walked round from Pier 1, where the Magic docked, to Pier 3 from where the ferry to the Bygdoy Peninsula left. We were on the first ferry of the day which leaves at 8:45 and as it pulled away there was an opportunity to take a photo of the Magic from a different angle.

We were soon at the Bygdoy Peninsula and made our way up to the Viking Ship Museum - this was something else that caught us by surprise - I had expected the ferry to dock more or less right outside the museums but it was about a 3 minute walk up to the Viking Ship Museum and the other museums on the Peninsula are a further ferry stop away.

We showed our Oslo Passes at the ticket office, where we were given an entrance ticket and we wandered around the museum looking at the various exhibits and taking photos.

The museum contains relics of Viking ships and their contents that were found at three different Viking burial grounds.

Continued in next post

 

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We left the museum at 9:45 and there were already 10 coaches outside so if you are reading this and doing one of the other Baltic cruises my advice would be to get there early!! From the museum we walked around to the Kon-Tiki museum, which again was further than we expected and took about 15 minutes at strolling pace to get there.

The Kon-Tiki museum commemorates the adventures of Thor Heyerdal who sailed various reed rafts across the oceans to prove that they could have been used many years ago for people to travel between and discover new continents.

Continued in next post

 

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From the Kon-Tiki museum we walked across the road to the Fram museum, which houses the explorer ship Fram used by Roald Amundsen to travel further South than anybody had ever done before.

We left the Fram museum around 11:15 and decided to get the bus back to the City Centre rather than going back on the ferry. We were back on the ship at 12:00 where we decided to have lunch at Pluto’s Dog House:

I had a hot dog, Dad had a Cajun chicken burger and we both had fries - total cost $0.00 ;o)

Continued in next post

 

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At 12:45 we got back off the ship and, as luck would have it, a hop on-hop off sightseeing bus pulled up just as we got to the stop. Using our Oslo Passes the tickets were just 155 Krone each which worked out to £16 each.

We did a complete loop on the bus, although it didn’t go back to the cruise terminal so we walked the last little bit and we were back at the terminal at 2:20. We had a look around the shops in the cruise terminal, which were very small and very crowded, and bought a couple of trolls and a fridge magnet.

We were back on board the ship at 2:40 and after dropping everything off at our cabin that we didn’t need we headed up to deck 9 where we got a drink each and an ice cream from Goofy’s Galley - total cost $0.00 ;o)

At 3:45 it was time for the sail away party.

Continued in next post

 

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And just before 5:00 we were on our way again.

At 5:30 we went down to Shutters and looked through our formal night photos discarding the ones we didn’t like and adding the ones that we did to our credits package.

We then went back to our cabin where we sat on the verandah to admire the view. At 6:15 we went down for a pre-show cocktail where Dad had a Margarita and I had a Golden Delight, both of which we took into the theatre and took up what had become our regular seats. The show tonight was the ventriloquist Jimmy Tamley who was OK but the funniest part of the act for me was when everything ‘went wrong’ on his boxing character with one of the strings ‘breaking’ leading to a dangling right arm that was supposed to be in a right hook position and then the puppets shorts ‘falling down’ leading to a naked puppet. If it wasn’t scripted it certainly should have been because most of the rest of the act I had seen and heard before.

After the show we went back upstairs to change for dinner which tonight was in Animator’s Palate.

I started off with shrimp cheesecake while Dad had risotto, we both followed with Potato and Cheddar cheese soup (tasted just like the soup in Le Cellier) then I had the veal and Dad had pasta. Dad had ice cream sundae for dessert and I had nothing (although they never actually brought nothing out). Michael and Partow were in Palo tonight and Mattias never turned up so it was just the two of us. I have to say that after reading about Animators Palate I was quite disappointed with the reality of it - the pictures seemed to change from black and white to colour and then a different picture would come up that was black and white again and our pictures never seemed to get quite as rich a colour as the others did.

After dinner we bumped into TammyAlphabet as we came through Shutters and we had a quick chat with her during which I broke off and ordered the Photo CD. After the chat we had some lifestyle photos taken

And then went in to the Promenade Lounge where we had a large brandy each before retiring to bed at 11:45 ready for our next country tomorrow - Denmark.

Day 4

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Another great installment. Norway looks interesting. Beautiful scenery.

 

[Goofysmate]

The carving on the viking boat looks good. Hours must have been spent doing that & on the cart.
Oslo looks ok

 

[suzycute]

Looks like an interesting port of call.

I like your idea of coming back and having food on the ship for no cost (apart from the cost of the cruise of course!! )

I see that the bed in your first days picture was a double and now it's separated. I didn't know the bed in the Magic could do this - just assumed one of you would be on the pull out couch.

 

[wickesy]

I didn't know they split either but apparently Dad had read about it somewhere. Dad was on the pull out bed the first night but we saw our stateroom hostess (Glenlyss who was fantastic) on the second day and she said that she would split it for us so he would be more comfortable.

 

[Disney_Sarah]

Fab report x

 

[suzycute]

I didn't know they split either but apparently Dad had read about it somewhere. Dad was on the pull out bed the first night but we saw our stateroom hostess (Glenlyss who was fantastic) on the second day and she said that she would split it for us so he would be more comfortable.

That's great news! DD and I are on the Podcast cruise and I thought we would have to toss a coin to see who got the bed and who got the couch!

 

[mandymouse]

What a very interesting day David, I think I would've enjoyed the Viking museums too

More great pics too

 

[Chilly]

What a very interesting day David, I think I would've enjoyed the Viking museums too

More great pics too

me to

 

[jjk]

what a great day and fab piccies

 

[irongirlof12]

love the photo's, those viking boats are amazing. beautiful carvings.

 

[PJB71]

Oh David I loved your "Norway" Door magnets

I thought the pic of you and your dad holding "Tink" is lovely

 

[Pegasus928]

Some great pics of the viking ships - and your door magnets are pretty impressive to. I have to keep reading now to see if you change them every day

 

[florida sun]

Great day David and I love the lifestyle pics you had done. What was the weather like through-out the cruise, it looks pretty good on this days report??

 

[wickesy]

Great day David and I love the lifestyle pics you had done. What was the weather like through-out the cruise, it looks pretty good on this days report??

We were really lucky with the weather - other than Day 4 it was dry throughout and generally warm enough for T-shirts in the ports but a bit chilly on deck. There were a lot of people sitting up on deck with blankets wrapped round them - it looked like a boatload of Titanic survivors!