Sailing to Norway on the Nieuw Statendam
This is blog post #9 from our tour of Europe. On Monday, June 30th, we spent the day at sea, sailing towards our first port, Aldalsnes, Norway. I started to write this post to be about both the sea and Aldalsnes days, but decided to make this a short post, just about the sea day.
We really enjoy sea days, particularly the one on the first day of a cruise that sort of gives us a re-set, as well as allowing for a gentle re-introduction to shipboard life.
Club Orange is an amenity package that sells out immediately, but Cathy got it this time. Among many other features, we have this tiny, quiet dining room – for breakfast to start this sea day well.
This is part of the real “crowded cruise ship” experience for us. While there are crowded places and times on the ship, most can be avoided or at least minimized. This was the Ocean Bar – a quiet place to watch the world go by.
Our usual day includes a visit to the spa after breakfast, to spend time in the therapy pool and on the warm ceramic loungers. This is the men’s changing room.
This is the spa waiting/relaxation room for when I sometimes wait for Cathy. This may be a good time to mention that I’m using photos I shot, not staged promotional photos, to show you our actual experience.
The therapy pool – ahhhhh…..
We occasionally meet other ships, and I like to go to MarineTraffic.com to identify them. The Sergey Bodrov is a general cargo freighter, and she was headed for Murmansk, Russia, port code RUMMK.
The heavily-laden Stella Virgo was bound for Oslo.
At 16°C/61°F it was still warm enough that afternoon to have the roof over the midship pool open.
There is a huge variety of things to do onboard, listed in a daily calendar delivered to your cabin, or on an app. You can stay very busy, do nothing at all, or choose your comfort level between those two extremes.
I decided to do a beer tasting, for which there was a $15 charge. I took a bottle of an excellent Belgian Trappist beer by Chimay back to the cabin to enjoy later.
As we neared Norway, the weather became more what we expected, strong winds and about 14°C.
Neither of us can remember exactly what this wonderful steak and shrimp plate in the Club Orange dining that evening was. I should be writing some things down…
Back at our cabin ready to call it a day, we were greeted by a towel animal 🙂
The next day, we would be docked at Aldalsnes, Norway, where we had reservations to ride the famous Golden Train route.
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