Norway - Part 6

Shipboard Life ; Tromso

We spent about 5.5 days aboard our ship, Polarlys. It was the largest ship we had ever sailed on and the most time we had ever spent aboard a ship. Since the ship was our home for several days, we became well acquainted with its layout and services. Here's the corridor leading to our room on deck 5.

Our room was small, but comfortable. The shower worked. Hot water was always quickly available. We could drink tap water. Room service would empty trash, make beds, and change towels daily. There was TV and shipboard WiFi. The bathroom door is on the right.

Small room size was really only a minor inconvenience. For example, I frequently banged my elbow against a bathroom shelf while shaving or combing my hair. There was a fairly narrow gap between the foot of our bed and the wall. But, overall, it was a modern, clean, nice, comfortable, private room.

One deck below us, on deck 4, there were meeting rooms like the one pictured next where we heard a talk about the northern lights. The ship's staff also offered several talks about arctic life and available excursions.

Deck 4 also had a gift shop where items ranging from travel necessities to expensive clothing and jewelry were on sale.

Near the gift store was an information desk where helpful crew members would answer questions about schedules, excursions, and daily itineraries.

Deck 4 also contained the dining room where we had all our meals. Here is the hallway leading to the dining room.

The dining room was quite nice. For some meals we had assigned seats and were served by waiters, but many meals, including breakfasts, were buffets. One typical buffet spread is shown in the second picture below.

The food was good. Dinners of salmon, arctic char, lamb and chicken were served. Rich, thick soups were offered. It was hard to resist bacon and eggs every morning, though I tried to balance it with fruit. I couldn't comprehend the heavy, cheesy breakfasts some passengers heaped on their plates. I did miss my usual breakfast cereal. One morning I tried a mix of corn flakes with several other muesli type offerings. I sprinkled what looked like coconut shavings on top. That was a disaster. Apparently, what I thought was coconut was actually some kind of foul dairy product that completely ruined the cereal bowl for me.

Passengers could also order a meal in the Brygga Bistro instead of eating in the main dining room.

Check out the menu items and prices above. Roughly convert from krone to dollars by dividing by eight. The hamburger and the shrimp sandwich cost $23.63 each. The sirloin is $36.88. A cup of coffee is $4. Also on offer at the Brygga Bistro were enormous king crabs which passengers could view in all their alien monster beauty.

Deck 7 had a very nice indoor observation lounge where passengers could comfortably watch passing scenery. I might have spent more time here, but, unfortunately, I have a strong personal dislike for loathsome, inescapable background music which continually played almost everywhere on deck 7. For some reason, background music drives me crazy! The three pictures below show a complete walk around the observation lounge. The view from the front windows was distorted by raindrops.

Deck 7 also had a snack bar offering sandwiches, pastries, cakes, ice cream, and cookies. The snack bar had its own nice lounge area featuring a puzzle table, and a bin containing books and magazines. Annoying, gratuitous background music also ruined this attractive lounge for me.

Finally, I have to mention motion sickness. Ship motion was relatively gentle most of the time, but it was definitely noticeable. There were two periods of time when it was particularly bad. Then I needed to lie in bed with eyes closed. I never actually felt like throwing up, but the swaying and rocking definitely took away my appetite, made me vaguely unsettled, and gave me a slight headache. Thank goodness I never had to use one of these bags!

Overnight and through the following morning we sailed further north along the coast toward our next destination, Tromso. Here's a panoramic scene from along the way. Click on the image to enlarge it.

We reached Tromso (pronounced Tromsa) in the afternoon. Although Tromso, at north latitude 69.7 degrees, may be the aurora capital of the world, we would see no auroras there on our visit. Once again, it was dreary, dark, drizzly, and completely overcast, though not overly cold or windy, with temperature at about 40 degrees F. On the bright side, we were set gloriously free for four hours to wander around on our own!

We first walked to Polaria, an aquarium/museum about arctic wildlife. It was a modest exhibit where we saw seals being trained. We also saw a strange suction fish.

We left Polaria fairly quickly and walked around town. Our journey took us up this path lined with birch trees.

The Tromso library had a unique modern look.

These copper lamps were interesting. Notice the reflection from Burger King in the lamp shop window. Yes, even Tromso has a Burger King at 69.7 degrees north! Could this be the world's northern most Burger King?

One of the cozy shops had reindeer pelts for sale at $175 per pelt. They also offered some interesting reindeer snacks.

The gloomy weather continued as we kept exploring.

Eventually, we ran out of energy and headed back to the ship. Tromso seemed like a modern, friendly place. It had lots of hotels, a university, and an airport. If I ever wanted to view more auroras in the future, I would need to come directly here and stay long enough to wait for clear skies and ongoing geomagnetic storms.

After Tromso, our ship continued sailing north during the night to bring us to the tour's most northern location at Nordkapp.