A short day in Amsterdam

A city that when I first went 10 years ago our tour guide called The "Dam"age

There is a lot to see and do in Amsterdam.  

Unfortunately it was a busy day, my replacement was coming on board, so all I had time for was a bit of basic sightseeing.

 Amsterdam Train Station

 Standard Canal

On our sail away the ship goes through a long canal called the North Sea Canal with ends in a lock similar to the panama canal.  

Rising up to the North Sea

Oslo, the Final Norway Port

After a series of tiny towns, we arrive in the capital, Oslo.

And another big change was the weather. Which was sunny, and quite hot.

I did a walk around the town.

Stopping at the Royal Palace, City Hall, Parliament, and passing through the old fortress on my way back to the ship.

Royal Palace

Hard Rock Cafe.

Norway's City Hall.  Also were you go to pickup your Nobel Peace Prize 

Norway's Parliament building

Sailaway from Oslo.

A modern Viking Ship

North Sea at Midnight

 It was a nice relaxing day, and I managed to have just enough Norwegian money left for a souvenir magnet and nothing else.

Norway is a beautiful country, to see.  Just don't come hungry, or you will leave poor.

The Path of the Trolls

The Path of the Trolls, is a section of road near the town of Alesund, Norway.  And it also connects to the Eagle Road I was on yesterday.

View of the town

Looking down to the valley from the lookout point

A view of the winding turns down to the valley floor

Our bus in a hairpin turn

At the bottom of the valley

Where we stopped for lunch

Our last stop.  That cliff face is the largest shear cliff in Europe, at over 100m.

Fjord Panorama. Geianger, Norway

I went on my first tour in Norway. Up to the top of a mountain.

Geirenger is a very small town in Norway.  Only 200 or so permanent residents.  But that grows to thousands in the summer as this small port can have up to 4 ships arriving each day.

Today we were lucky to be the only ship in port.

There is no dock in town, so all ships must tender in to shore.

Our first stop was half way up Eagle road, which is the newer road into town, and also offers great views of the seven sisters waterfall.

After our photo shop we went back down towards the town, and then back up the old road, that leads to the top of the mountain in the middle of the above picture.

At the top of the mountain.  The valley below is only 1/2 way to the sea level.

You can see some of the hairpin turns on the road to the top.

This was an tour full of amazing scenery,  that just demanded use of my cameras new panorama mode.

The unexpected trip to the Baltic.

After an early morning phone call, a quickly booked flight, and a mad scramble to get to the airport all in 5 hours, I found myself in Norway.

I agreed to do a short fill in contract on the Constellation, just a scant 2 cruises.  Almost like being a regular guest.

Here are a few pictures of Stavenger, Norway. The port I joined my ship in.

Small lake in the town

Their "Chinatown" consists of one restaurant.

One of Norways many navy hovercraft.

Old town Stavenger

Below are a few pictures of Olden, Norway

And finally Molde, Norway

The scenery in Norway has been amazing. And the next few ports I am going on tours,  so more to come.

Another contract completed

Well the final day is here.

Another contract completed.

This one took me from Istanbul to the Caribbean. With many interesting stops along the way.

Many great memories this time around with favorites being swimming in the Dead Sea, and drunkenly riding a donkey down the side of Santorini.

I will be back for Season 6 in the summer. With some amazing new ports, and some old favorites.

See you soon

Different ports, and different priorities

An interesting thing about working on ships, and going to many of the same ports each cruise, is how some ports become known for one thing or another.

Here are a few of the types a port could get put into:

Tour/Sightseeing port:

Any port that I only will go to one or twice I will always try and get on a tour to see as much as I can. Repositioning cruises will usually have ports that are often not visited, on the usual cruise.

I will always make the extra effort to do and see as much as I can in ports like this.

People that don't do this I always shake my head at.

Beach port:

Even though in the Caribbean there are great beaches in every island. Few of the ports will have the beaches very close to the ship.

So after taking a taxi to a beach in an island. It has to be a really good one to make the effort to come back.

The beach everyone goes to in Barbados is one of the only beaches I will always go to. And it also happens to be my favorite of all the islands.

Also St Maarten, as the beach is within easy walking distance, I will usually go into town for the beach.

Internet port:

The internet on the ship is very slow, and also very expensive. So when crew finds free internet in a port it is a treasured find. And if it happens to be fast internet, then even more so. And I will likely come back to whatever restaurant or random hotspot every week to get my fix.

Aruba was this port for me this contract. The restaurant I randomly went to the first time I got to the island turned out to have the fastest internet in the Caribbean, in my opinion. It even seems faster then at home at times.

Have lunch port:

Even when you can eat, upstairs in the guest buffet, it is easy to get bored of the ship food. And even more so when you are confined to the staff mess, for one reason or another.

So going to a restaurant on land is often a highlight of a day.

The Canadian Bar in St. Maarten for Poutine. And Tracy's King Crab Shack in Juneau are places I go back to week after week.

Crew discount port:

Many places in port will offer crew discounts. A good crew deal will keep us coming back week after week.

The Boatyard in Barbados has the best crew deal going. $5 rather then the $20 for guests, gets you use of all the beach chairs etc, a free drink, and a free ride back to the ship.

Also many restaurants will give food discounts to crew. The Shipwreck Bar in St. Thomas always gets me in for the crew burger deal.

Bank, mail, cell phone:

Depending on where you are from. Docking in a port in a home country happens on occasion.

When this occurs, many people will try and get to their bank to deposit money, rather then use the ship wire transfers.

Also their cell phones, which have been basically useless up to that point will work again. Many times you can see crew looking at their phones the night before as we sail toward the port, checking to see if they have reception yet.

Do nothing port:

Some islands, while nice, might just have nothing happening in the port area.

Some ports like this end up becoming a day to stay on the ship, take a nap, etc.

Visit home port:

While it hasn't happened yet, my next contract will include a stop in Vancouver. Allowing me to visit home while on my contract.

Something that is rare and I am looking forward to.

Traveling to Manhattan in style (late post from last contract)

This is a post I meant to do a long time ago, as the pictures are from near the end of my last contract. But here it is anyways

Our ship was docked in Bayonne New Jersey. And while the view from the ship while docked looked very close to the big city, it was actually a bit of a trek to get there.

If you were to take public transit you would take the port shuttle, the new jersey train, then a subway. Which would take about 1-1.5 hours depending on catching connections. And the same going back. Which is a problem as it leaves very little time to see the sights. And also requires knowing when and where to leave from so you don't miss the ship.

The one time I went into the city, we had a small group. Too big to fit into a taxi, but we also couldn't take transit because one of our group was going to a hotel with luggage.

So our chosen way into the city was... A limo.

Even though this got us into the city a lot faster, we still didn't have a lot of time as all aboard time was fairly early.

However we were able to see Times Square.

Rockefeller Center

I would have gone to the top but it was a bit cloudy that day.

After that we had some lunch.

Then did some shopping on 5th Avenue. ( I bought some socks)

Unfortunately there was no time to see a show. Even though it was a Sunday and Book of Mormon had a Matinee, we had to get back to the ship for all aboard time.

Getting a ride back to Bayonne turned out to a bit of a problem. Though it was a bit expected. Taxi drivers didn't want to go out of the city because they are not licenced to pickup fares in New Jersey.

After a few tries we ended up in a building where a doorman offered to call us a town-car to take up to the ship.

This ended up working out well, and possibly better then a random cab.

We passed by the Flatiron building on the way back as well.

It was a pretty fun, albeit short trip into Manhattan. Had I not signed off the ship a few weeks later, i'm sure I would have tried taking the transit option of getting into the city.

I guess I will have to leave that for another time.

Snorkeling between the Pitons

I recently went on a tour in St. Lucia, called: Snorkeling Between The Pitons

The location was really cool. The Pitons are huge mountains that rise from the sea, and were we went was a small resort between the two of them.

Overall the fish and coral we saw was not the best, interesting, but average. But the location was really cool.

This was the first tour that I did since we came over from Europe.

But I plan on doing a bunch more soon.

Randomly meeting friends on the ship

Over my few years on ship I have had a couple of friends come to the ship to cruise with me. And I have also had the ship sail into ports where friends and family have been at that time.

But this last cruise a interesting occurrence happened where a friend happened to be cruising on the ship I was on, and I didn't know about it until the second last day of the cruise, when we happened to randomly run into each other while I was heading to lunch.

It was a cool coincidence, and a good reason to get me out of the staff bar, and up into the Martini bar, which I haven't been to since I got on the ship.