UnDisney Family in denial about Gold Status -Norwegian Fjords - August 16-26 2018

[bcwife76]

Wow, I've always wondered how it worked at the Blue Lagoon (organized chaos or what) so thank you for the detailed description.

 

[Conorama]

Day 7 - Wrapping up Iceland - Day 2

This is a pretty quick update.

Once we got back on board, we chilled out a bit, in a thrilling fashion.

It was an early day to leave port, so we could actually just enjoy our verandah. It doesn't look like DH or I had any energy to take photos, but it was nice to just hang out and watch the world go by.

It appears that after supper, we got our prizes for our Anna/Elsa/whatever her name is scavenger hunt. I now remember that we did this with friends on our first day at sea- it took about, um, 15 minutes, because we are all "We know DCL" (and we had friends who actually knew Frozen).

We handed in our sheet... but then didn't get our gifts. I felt we needed our gifts. DH asked our cabin attendant, and ... voila. At least this time, there was CHOCOLATE. (Vs. those hideous white-chocolate covered rice-krispie treats from our Alaskan cruise).





Otherwise, Conor thought deep thoughts about what to buy in the gift shops. I retreated to the Cove Café to read and drink hot chocolate (I tell you - I AM WILD). DH tried out some martinis, I think.

But really... we went to bed, and thought deep thoughts about how this unbelievable, bucket-list, amaze-balls 2 days had been.

Next up- day at sea!

 

[tink1970]

This either is of no interest to you, or, if you know much about figure skating, you will understand how MIND BLOWING this was. We needed a bit of time to recover.)

Because I love Jeopardy! "Um, a figure skater, maybe?" Apparently I was correct. Glad your DS got to meet someone exciting (sort of like when I met my college football team's coach the day I graduated medical school...and meeting him was the high point---I get it!).

I don't remember freezing, if that helps!

Um, to most of us Floridians 55 IS freezing but thanks so much for the insight on how to do the Blue Lagoon. I want to do that on my very short trip to Iceland and now I know what to expect. Your step by step explanation is very helpful!

 

[Conorama]

Day 8 - Day at Sea

As you can imagine, we were well ready for a day at sea at this point. We had to move the clocks forward an hour, per our Navigator, so we had done that the night before, but, no biggie, we had nowhere to be!

Interestingly, we got a notice that morning saying that the Scottish powers that be had decided that we needed to present, in person, to the Walt Disney Theatre (the whole party), with passports in hand to be checked.

This was a bit unexpected- and you could tell that from the message. We secretly figured that some Scottish immigration folks wanted to hang out on a cruise ship for a day... but, whatever. I am pretty sure we had an assigned window of time in which to attend.

We assembled our passports after breakfast and headed off to join the line- when we got there, it was outside the theatre. Happily (see title), it was a day at sea and we had nowhere to go. Conor started recounting everything he had read, in minute detail, in his first Percy Jackson book, much to the amusement of the couple in their late 50s/early 60s ahead of us. Turns out the gentleman was a big Percy Jackson and Harry Potter fan, and he was impressed at Conor's level of detail (it's nice that new people find it charming... it does wear a bit over time, I assure you!)

So, the line-up passed quickly, and we got stamped, and all was well.

With that, we sorted out some kind of plan for Conor (get early lunch on deck 9 and then club I think), while DH and I went and got ready for our Palo brunch.

We arrived a few minutes early, and happily waited. Meanwhile, some folks showed up looking for the Art of Design or whatever it's called tour. The Palo manager politely informed them it had left an hour ago... oops! Missed the time change.

So- DH and I were seated, assuming that DCL Queen would show up shortly.

And she didn't. I tried to message her via the app- no reply. We thought they might be stuck in the line-up... but then DH decided to use the actual phone to call her cabin.

And... OOPS... They had not received their navigator, nor the little card telling them their clock was turned back, and their clock had NOT been turned back. When you travel with 2 teenagers, it appears they are not helpful in this regard ... as they sleep in.

However, Queen that she is, she arrived in about 10 minutes, and we were off to the races.

It was lovely. As usual. All good.

After brunch, we had plans to venture into the land of... Towel Folding. Yep. We Are Wild.

Voila!




Having achieved towel art perfection (or something), Conor decided he needed to review the real reason for towels and asked to go swimming. It was, at this point, about 10 degrees Celsius.

However, I am a lovely parent, so... he swam....



And I huddled under a blanket in the sprinkling rain and read my book. Coffee was involved.



Fortunately, this didn't last super-long (like 20 minutes or so) - largely because we had to get ready for supper and (I think) for Tangled? I was well behaved so I didn't take any photos.

Regardless... we saw Tangled, (the musical) at some point (even if it wasn't that night), and it was great. Flynn Rider at one point is running away from someone or other, and he ran up the aisle, and we were in the front row of the back section, so he threw his bag at Conor to catch, and landed on the floor at our feet - grabbed the bag back from Conor - stated "Stay in school!" and ran away. All in all - thrilling, despite Conor's concern of "too much romance" (that would be any romance).

For sure (this I know- I have photos!), we had Officer Pin Trading. Dude loves this.



Up until this point, Conor had not really wanted to see characters. For some reason, he decided he did today. And, really, how could you not with Goofy wearing this sort of finery in anticipation of our next port?




Finally, we made our way to bed. This photo was taken off our verandah at 9:00 p.m. - just to show you how much daylight there still is! (Seas were quite nice this time.)




But.... we still fell asleep quickly!



Okey dokey- only one more port to go.

More later!

 

[Conorama]

Because I love Jeopardy! "Um, a figure skater, maybe?" Apparently I was correct. Glad your DS got to meet someone exciting (sort of like when I met my college football team's coach the day I graduated medical school...and meeting him was the high point---I get it!).



Um, to most of us Floridians 55 IS freezing but thanks so much for the insight on how to do the Blue Lagoon. I want to do that on my very short trip to Iceland and now I know what to expect. Your step by step explanation is very helpful!

Well done on the figure skater reference! Ironically- there is a high powered figure skating club in Florida- currently the training spot of some top skaters.

Well, I suppose yes, but the last time I was in Florida (2 years ago), it was under 55 (and i had no socks). I have already packed my socks for this upcoming trip... but feel free to warm up the place for me, as we have almost 24 hours of freezing rain here in this delightful corner of Canada.

 

[tink1970]

. Conor started recounting everything he had read, in minute detail, in his first Percy Jackson book, much to the amusement of the couple in their late 50s/early 60s ahead of us

Love Percy Jackson! I've read all of them more than once AND prefer his series to HP. DD got to meet Rick Riordan when she was 11 or 12 and she was super excited!

When you travel with 2 teenagers, it appears they are not helpful in this regard ... as they sleep in.

Or even one. Teenage daughters do not know mornings on vacation.

Ironically- there is a high powered figure skating club in Florida- currently the training spot of some top skaters.

That is ironic. Of course our city has a minor league hockey team that wins pretty regularly which is odd to me too (of course the majority of the players are Canadian so that makes some sense).

feel free to warm up the place for me,

Here it''s 19-21 C for next week and Orlando it's more like 25-27 C so hopefully that will work!

Can't wait to hear about Scotland-it's my favorite place pretty much ever and I've been 6 times in the past 5 years

 

[Conorama]

Day 8 - Scotland

(It feels very weird to say day 8 for a cruise - this was officially the longest for us at this point.)

We were due in port at 11:00 a.m., so we had lots of time to organize, eat, and, per Conor's request, do origami in the promenade lounge. We were actually ready early (well, he and I were) so we went down and did a drawing class (badly in my case) and stayed for origami.

The class comprised of 3 teenaged girls and Conor, who is an origami fiend. Being the good parent that day, I joined in. After the CM showed the kids 2 different origami pieces, Conor revealed that he could make really awesome foxes (his specialty). Since the class was small and we were done early- he proceeded to teach the class. Because that's my kid.

(Showing the final product)



With that done (he got lots of praise), we met up in the atrium with the rest of our crew and ventured into Scotland... well, specifically- Invergordon.

It was a very short walk from port to our meeting place for our private tour - again, arranged without any rodent help. DH and DCL Queen had sourced out a local organization, and we knew we were to meet up with Johnny (of course), who worked with Nigel. We had been instructed to have envelopes of British currency ready in specific envelopes (all pre-arranged) to facilitate entry to our various stops. This had caused a few raised eyebrows, but honestly, it was a really good idea, as we just handed it all off to Johnny, who then made sure everything was great for us for the whole day. (Honestly- it was legit!)

Nigel is the man who coordinates a rather awesomely motley crew of locals to do these tours. He took this very seriously, meeting up with each group individually. We got buttons.




Anyhow- I had no strong opinions about what we did in Scotland, except I did want to see Loch Ness - but so did everyone else, so that was easy.

Johnny piled us into a van (not as exciting as our Icelandic conveyance, but more comfortable to be honest), and we drove on the Scottish side of the road. He provided us with a bit of a running commentary, which was great. (Conor emerged with a bit of a Scottish accent after the day... particularly because he had been listening to Wizards of Once with David Tennant as his audiobook of choice for the last week).

On our way to stop #1, we got a short tour of Invergordon (it's not a big place) and then we stopped briefly to say hello to these locals.



If we did not feel like we were officially in Scotland before, we did now.

We drove for about 30 minutes, enjoying totally rural roads, (and horses, and sheep), complete with these lovely amenities- including Scotch mints.



And, our first stop was DH's choice. A distillery. Well, THE distillery of his dreams. His first single-malt scotch love. I kind of figured I'd just be tolerating this stop, but it was actually really cool, and all the kids enjoyed the tour too.

Anyhow- Scotland was wanting to keep up with Iceland in the "yeah, it rains most of the time here, but we cleared that for you today" front.



Distilleries are also not hard to look at.



We were a bit early for our tour, so we explored the, um, 'souvenir' shop - we did NOT buy this.



But DH did get what he wanted - a nice bottle of something that was 18 years old, and some smaller bottles of a few other vintages.

In case you're wondering how to pronounce said glorious scotch- they help you.



Photos were not permitted during the tour - but it was really well done. A lovely young woman with a chemistry degree or 2 took us through all the steps of making scotch- and it was fascinating. We toured the various bits of the distillery- following the different stages (it's not quick to make scotch) - ending up in the area where they cask the stuff for ages.

The boys were all engaged- our tour guide was great- and she attended to the science part of things well, so lots of happy kids.

I'll stop here for now... next up ... Did we find Nessie?????

 

[keighttf]

Thanks for posting your trip report. I’m enjoying reading it and have read your prior trip reports.
We are planning on going on a Norway cruise this coming September.
I love that you bring your own maple syrup. I’m from Pennsylvania but my family makes maple syrup, multiple thousand gallons a year, and my cousins and I even had our own mini operation when we were growing up. So I refuse to eat the fake stuff. My husband and I have talked about taking our own on vacation or to restaurants but never have. I just eat them plain if I have too.

 

[FSU Girl]

OMG these cows are the cutest! I'm going to Scotland in May I'm really hoping I see some of these, but we aren't going as high as this place.

 

[Conorama]

Love Percy Jackson! I've read all of them more than once AND prefer his series to HP. DD got to meet Rick Riordan when she was 11 or 12 and she was super excited!

Or even one. Teenage daughters do not know mornings on vacation.

That is ironic. Of course our city has a minor league hockey team that wins pretty regularly which is odd to me too (of course the majority of the players are Canadian so that makes some sense).

Here it''s 19-21 C for next week and Orlando it's more like 25-27 C so hopefully that will work!

Can't wait to hear about Scotland-it's my favorite place pretty much ever and I've been 6 times in the past 5 years

We have saved a bunch of Percy for our next trip, but HP is his (and our) true love.

Your top figure skaters are generally French.

Re: weather- We will take anything that isn't freezing rain (lots of that), or minus 25.

Scotland was another highlight for sure. More to come after a certain figure skating competition tomorrow.

Thanks for posting your trip report. I’m enjoying reading it and have read your prior trip reports.
We are planning on going on a Norway cruise this coming September.
I love that you bring your own maple syrup. I’m from Pennsylvania but my family makes maple syrup, multiple thousand gallons a year, and my cousins and I even had our own mini operation when we were growing up. So I refuse to eat the fake stuff. My husband and I have talked about taking our own on vacation or to restaurants but never have. I just eat them plain if I have too.

We find it easy to use maple syrup on the cruise. We brought some to one of the dining rooms on our Alaskan cruise when we went for breakfast. Our servers - from Thailand and Jamaica, I think were intrigued, so they all got some to try. They were delighted, of course! Mostly we bring it to Cabanas, where we just haul it out when we get to our table after we've raided the buffet.

You should definitely bring some of your own on your Norwegian cruise!

OMG these cows are the cutest! I'm going to Scotland in May I'm really hoping I see some of these, but we aren't going as high as this place.

They were quite cute!

 

[Lesley Wake]

So I just got off the Wonder on my first cruise and I loved it! Your itinerary is one of the ones at the top of my wishlist! Though I may end up doing SWDAS and Alaskan next year and save Northern Europe for 2021!

 

[Conorama]

Day 8 - Scotland - belatedly continued

Well that was a bit of a long gap. Oops!

I honestly thought that I had finished this TR. I have no idea why I thought that, but I did. However, recently Conor had a questions about this trip, so I went back to look and had to admit that, nope, this TR is NOT done.

So- now that none of us are travelling anytime soon... I figured I'd finish.

Anyhow.... I left us in Scotland, having just finished our tour of the distillery.

Before we hit the road, there was a tasting at the end, for all grown-ups anyway. We tasted. DH and DCL Queen enjoyed tasting, I did not, but this is hardly news. I hate scotch. I'm pretty sure the boys were given something else to drink while we tasted.

Having recovered from the tasting, We piled back into the van, and headed off to the required trip to Loch Ness. Fortunately for restless kiddos, we were a bit early. This meant we got to peruse the gift shop first, and a) snacks and b) souvenirs were procured. Some running around happened. This was good.

Eventually, Johnny shepherded us down to get in line and sorted out our tickets for our Loch Ness boat tour. We somehow again ended up near the front of the line (SCORE) so we nabbed lovely seats together around a table, near a door for quick easy access for those who love being outside on ships (cue: Conor).

And, we were off (by which I mean our rears were firmly planted in our seats, but the boat moved...) It was intermittently rainy but then really cleared up again. There was, to my ears, just the perfect amount of talk from our guides- highlighting key things but not carrying on the whole time.

Mostly- this was just lovely. Not as jaw-dropping as the fjord tour but just a beautiful trip on water with lovely scenery... here you go!








This lasted... say 45 minutes or so, I think?

We then approached Urquhart Castle (remember- DH got his distillery and Conor wanted a castle). Excitement was high in 10 year old land. This is a glorious ruin that you can mostly just explore on your own, including a place where you can climb up (and then down...) incredibly scary narrow steps. (Yes, I was forced to do this). It was drizzling again, but being Canadian folk, we were prepared with rain gear as you'll see...



Much climbing and wandering and exploring ensued. Dude LOVES anything old.














We were finally able to extricate the child once we pointed this out...



Yes, that is a trebuchet, and this is a source of great excitement. It was duly inspected.

From the photo above, you can see that you walk a bit from the castle to the trebuchet, and then there is about as much walking again to the modern guest centre. I am pretty sure you can eat there, but we didn't. It was mostly a bathroom stop, plus more souvenir shopping. I know it involved standing in quite a few lines, but it wasn't that bad.

If you've lost track as to what time of day this was (I had!) it was about 4:00 p.m. All ashore was 11:00 a.m. so between travel time, scotch, floating on Loch Ness, and exploring castles, 5 hours had passed.

As you can imagine, folks were hungry and we wanted some more shopping time. For simplicity's sake we had decided to just head to Inverness, and fend for ourselves downtown. I have no pictures at all of this time, which is not at all surprising since this was the time of peak grumpiness... no need to preserve that for posterity.

Suffice it to say, we got some more souvenirs and post cards in downtown shops. We then headed to the mall where we were to meet Johnny to find some quick food (no time for a real sit-down meal) and ate some sort of mall fried food (clearly, I've blanked this out of my mind).

What I remember here is that I didn't know what was happening next, and it was one of the more lovely parts of the trip, albeit totally unexpected.

And with that, my friends, I will leave you to wait for my next instalment which will not take (ahem) 13 months. It will be more like this afternoon as it is now bothering me more than you can know that this isn't finished!!! I do have to work to day so off to do that.

Up next - the last part of Scotland.

 

[Conorama]

Day 8 - Scotland - last part of the day

See? Not a 16 month delay. A few hours.

Anyhow- Johnny drove us to a new spot, seemingly truly in the middle of nowhere. Now, the middle of nowhere is one of my favourite places, so this was fine with me. It was basically a forested area. We hopped out of the van and Johnny strode purposefully off into the forest. Obediently, we followed.

Mostly, it felt like walking through the woods at home- and as this is a favourite past-time for us, this was happy-making especially after our experiences in a not-very-thrilling mall.

We ambled along until we arrived at Black Rock Gorge. We like gorges in general, but then we learned this one is particularly awesome (warning: Non-Disney reference to appear now)...

It was a site where they filmed some of the Dragon scenes from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire!



Voila Conor's thoughts on this:



Once we recovered from this and admired the gorge (it's really cool), we ambled back through the woods.

We encountered some reindeer as well, which I will freely admit I was not expecting in Scotland.




When we got back to the van, we all climbed in while Johnny sorted something out in the back. He then apologized but asked us to all get out again as he forgot to show us something.

We headed back (still while in the woods) and found that he had set up a another scotch tasting (from a distillery from his home town), along with shortbread (on a silver tray, because his wife told him that would be a good idea), and ginger ale for the boys.

This was truly one of those completely lovely little moments you don't forget. I actually disliked this scotch a lot less than the Glenmorangie. (High praise from me.) To this day, Conor raves about the ginger ale. I don't know that it was all that special, but having it in the woods after a great day just made it taste great. Here he is, enjoying himself immensely.



And Johnny's wife's required silver trays (love the Ikea shot glasses...)



What was really the best part of all of this was how much Johnny truly loved doing this job. He was very keen to share information with us, and had individualized the whole trip to meet our needs.

Having enjoyed our treat, we drove back to Invergordon with enough time to pick up a few last souvenirs at a local shop, and we walked back to the ship, Johnny following along to chat some more.

Just before we got to the port, he pulled DH aside... unbeknownst to me, DCL Queen had spoken to Johnny about DH's milestone birthday, so Johnny had put a wee dram of scotch into a little flask (complete with Loch Ness graphics) for Brian to take back on board. (Yes, we know this is not allowed.) That about sums up Johnny.

Finally, we organized ourselves to get back on board- which meant rearranging our gear into different backpacks for convenience of carrying. Conor had our small back pack, and DH had the big one. I had random bits of stuff (you know- that stuff you always have- souvenirs, coats, etc.)

So, we lined up to get back on board. If you've not done this, you need to know that you still have to go through security as you board, and they are supposed to take your alcohol and stash it away until the day you disembark. DH and I completely forgot (honestly) that there was a fair bit of Scotch in Conor's back pack. For whatever reason, Conor sailed through security, and picked up the back pack on the other side, and kept going without anyone stopping him. DCL Queen did not have this level of success....



OK. We didn't really feel guilty! DH still didn't drink any of it until we got home except for Johnny's flask which was somehow also missed as we boarded.

For those who care (I don't) this is what arrived back in Canada:



Anyhow... back to Scotland. We were surprisingly not exhausted as we got back to our cabin, and the next day was a day at sea again, so we had agreed with DCL Queen's suggestion to ask to attend late dining, which was apparently easy to grant.

Big Boy Conor wanted to dress up again (of course) - and there is nothing that makes this kid happier than a good charcuterie platter, so here he is, awake and eating after 9:00 p.m. Of note (probably a bigger note), I *also* stayed awake and did not fall asleep in my food. It helped it was still basically daylight. Oh, and that this was one of the dinners with a show- which one, I can't recall. Tangled was definitely involved though! .

After this, I know we all collapsed into bed.



I will leave Scotland with a one last photo from our verandah as we sailed off ... truly a magical place for us.




And up next .... a rather short description of a day at sea, which was blissfully relaxed (except for packing).... and I may actually get this thing done this weekend!

 

[mmmears]

I'm so glad you are finishing up your TR! It brings back great memories of an incredible vacation at a time when we cannot travel. Looking forward to hearing more about your final day aboard the Magic.

 

[bcwife76]

So happy to see you come back to complete this TR! Wonderful time in Scotland indeed!!

 

[Gilland18]

Absolutely thrilled that you are back! I really enjoy reading your TRs.

 

[braysmommy]

Love your trip reports! Brings a little joy to my day.

 

[Conorama]

Day 9 - Day at Sea

While we loved the trip, we were well and truly DONE and ready to just chill out for the most part, except when packing. We thus embarked on ensuring we had a very chill day 9.

I started out the way I like to start out - with latte, Kobo, and peace.



We did have one goal. I know I mentioned up front that the Frozen character meet was booked early on, with a plan to do what we did in Alaska: skip the princesses, do NOT listen to the music, and head straight to Olaf.

Imagine the consternation when they told us that there would be no Olaf. We handed our tickets back, and I'm sure someone was able to use them.... eek!!!

However, astute DCL-ers that we are, we noted that there was an Olaf meet on the last day at sea that popped up at some point in the Navigator. Sneaky. Anyhow - we discussed with DCL Queen and we planned to have the boys meet up with the frosty one. The usual non-thrill of standing around happened. We waited. We people watched. Some of our favourite passengers to people-watch were there, happily. We waited some more. Whining occurred, because day 9 on the cruise was also day 12-ish of travelling. And, well, tired.

Finally... we got this absolutely useless photo of Conor and Olaf. Oh well. We didn't pay for one from DCL either- not worth it.




After that thrilling adventure, we moved on to the main plan of the day: me getting a facial, DH reconnecting with a few of his favourite cocktails, Conor hanging out. Oh, and all of us packing.

We had a bit of a break to visit with this lady, who for some reason got selected as Conor's final character to visit.



As for me... I don't generally mind packing days like this- only rarely have we had a day at sea as the day before disembarking, so this was far less rushed than usual. I quite enjoy my peaceful time in the cabin, with my iced latte, listening to an audiobook, packing without people bugging me. Generally at the end of a cruise I am pretty 'peopled out' and this was no different. Somewhere in there I did get my facial too. So, if you're wondering ... did I ignore my family for much of the day? YEP.

Packing to go home was not quite as complicated as to fly to Europe, but I did need to plan a bit for having clothing for our marathon travel day, stuff to sleep in when we arrived at our hotel, and then clothes for a super-hot return to summer humidity in Ontario.

See? (I love how my weather app still reports on the likelihood of snow ... in August...) - this is what the first day of school forecast was. Fun, huh?



Fortunately, our usual approach worked- put the heavy, dense stuff in the small duffle bag (most of the shoes), which frees up weight and room in main suitcases. (Pause here to appreciate the beauty of luggage scales.) We had actually been very well behaved- the vast majority of what we bought was nice and small, so easy to pack.

I'm about 90% sure we ended up deciding that we had time to do our usual disembarkation process- as in, we put the bags out the night before. (Can I truly remember though? Nope.) Our flight wasn't until 1:10 p.m. at Gatwick, and we were supposed to dock at 7:00 a.m. so even if there were some delays, we figured we'd be OK. (And we were...).

Anyhow... we tidied up in the end for one final meal in a main dining room since we avoid disembarkation day breakfasts with others like the plague.

Happy, tired boy contemplating crayons.



The evening was spent in our usual way- avidly avoiding Shutters and the shops, and crowds; while walking around the rest of the ship. We did our usual ordering from room service before they closed (for breakfast-y items) so that we could eat in our room the next morning.

And with that, we were mostly ready to head home.

 

[Conorama]

I'm so glad you are finishing up your TR! It brings back great memories of an incredible vacation at a time when we cannot travel. Looking forward to hearing more about your final day aboard the Magic.

Thanks! And yes, it's mostly nice to look back, though a bit (a lot?) bittersweet right now.

So happy to see you come back to complete this TR! Wonderful time in Scotland indeed!!

Thanks!

Absolutely thrilled that you are back! I really enjoy reading your TRs.

Thanks!

Love your trip reports! Brings a little joy to my day.

Thanks! And I'm glad.

 

[bcwife76]

Haha, sounds like a perfect sea/last day to me