Princess’ "Land of the Midnight Sun" Cruise from 8/20/2022 - 9/3/2022

After almost 3 years long hiatus from Covid-19, we finally made out to Europe and went on a Princess’ "Land of the Midnight Sun" cruise.  We have 12 friends from Houston and 6 friends from Los Angles area attending this long waited cruise.  Originally it was planned for 2020 and we had to cancel it and rebook it in 2021.

This cruise itinerary was 

• Aug 20 Southampton - Embark Sky Princess
• Aug 21 At sea
• Aug 22 Haugesund - Åkrafjorden & Langfoss Waterfall excursion with Guide Companiet 
• Aug 23 Skjolden - Best Of Skjolden excursion with Princess
• Aug 24 Olden - Olden the Amazing Briksdal Glacier excursion with Norway Excursions
• Aug 25 Trondheim - Self walking tour
• Aug 26 At sea
• Aug 27 Honningsvåg - North Cape Sightseeing Tour excursion with Blue Puffin
• Aug 28 Tromsø - Self walking tour
• Aug 29 At sea
• Aug 30 At sea
• Aug 31 Ålesund - Ålesund from Fjords to Trolls excursion with Norway Excursions
• Sep 1 Bergen - Self walking tour
• Sep 2 At sea
• Sep 3 Southampton - Disembark Sky Princess

A map of the original itinerary was as the followed,

However, Princess changed the itinerary twice by replacing the port of Lofoten Islands with a "at sea" day.  Lofoten Islands was the highlight of our original itinerary and it was a disappointment to all of us.  We heard that it was caused by local authority changing the ship size requirements to enter the fjord near Lofoten Islands. Since Sky Princess is 20 ft wider than the new requirement, it prevented us to visit this magical destination port. 

August 19, 2022 - Travel from Houston (Los Angles) to London

The journey started from Houston or Los Angles. We all flew into London and embarked onto Sky Princess in Southampton, UK. 

In Houston, due to the IAH construction project, we had to arrive at the airport 3 hours ahead of our flight time to avoid any check-in issues.  United Club at IAH did help us to consume some of the waiting time.  However, the flight from Houston was delayed for 2.5 hours.  Luckily, our flight was scheduled to arrive at an early morning hour, so we still had plenty time to travel to the Southampton cruise port. 

August 20, 2022 - Arrived London, Heathrow Airport and Embarked Sky Princess

We arrived at Heathrow Airport around 8:30am. Most of us took the Princess shuttle to the Southampton cruise port.  It was a 2 hours bus ride to the port.  The embarking process was easy with the MedallionClass app.  However, this was our first time using the MedallionClass app and there were some confusion regarding what was exactly Princess' needs for the embarking process. Luckily, Princess had a lot of agents to help us on the embarking process.  It was pretty smooth overall.

After embarking, we have to wait for our luggages. So, we all went upstairs to enjoy our first buffet lunch on Sky Princess.

Then, we all got a much needed rest in the afternoon.  Corrina and Sophia worked on our dinner arrangements and got us 2 nice large tables for every night.  We were surprised to find out that they had soufflé as a desert option on the first night. 

After dinner, we all enjoyed the production show with a lot of signing and dancing to welcome us to the Sky Princess.  

August 21, 2022 - At Sea day

This was a relaxing "at sea" day for Sky Princess to sail from Southampton to Norway's coast.  Since we all had Princess cruise experiences before, there were not many daytime on board activities that attracted us.  Therefore, everyone went on their own to find different activities to do.  Some of us found cruise programs with dancing activities on the list.  Since we did not have the chance to dance due to Covid in the past 3 years, we were eagerly to attend these dancing programs.  As a matter of fact, some of us did dancing every night throughout the entire cruise.

Tonight, there was a Captain Circle event and some of us attended it.

This was the first formal night of this cruise.  We all dressed up and enjoyed our formal dinner and also got opportunities to take dressed-up photos.

August 22, 2022 - Haugesund, Norway

This was our first port with "Åkrafjorden & Langfossen Waterfall" excursion with GuideCompaniet.  Since Princess got into the port one hour later, the excursion company did adjust the schedule and started the tour one hour late.  It took some efforts to find our guide and the bus.  

The first stop was Haraldshaugen which was erected during the millennial celebration of Norway's unification into one kingdom under the rule of King Harald Fairhair. The monument consists of a large mound surrounded by a granite memorial stones with 29 smaller stones, one from each of the historic counties of Norway. At the top of the mound stands a 17m high granite main obelisk, with four bronze panels around the base. Each panel depicts important scenes from the life of King Harald.

From the monument location, you can access a variety of pathways leading you to spectacular views of the beach, seafront, and lighthouse. However, we only had 20 minutes to take photos at this monument. 

The next stop was the Langfossen waterfall. The waterfall is located about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) southwest of the village of Fjæra. The water falls down a towering mountain, a total distance of about 612 meters (2,008 ft) before the water leaps out into Åkrafjorden fjord at the base of the mountain.  This was definitely the Kodak moment for all of us.  It is a very impressive waterfall.

Then, we had lunch at Cafe Butikk with local produced favorite food including brown cheese and cognac marinaded salmon which were delicious. After lunch, we took many landscape photos including fjord around the cafe area.

Then we got back to Sky Princess around 4pm.

August 23, 2022 - Skjolden, Norway

Skjolden was not on the itinerary originally, then Princess changed the port and took us to Skjolden.  We couldn’t find any interesting local tours, therefore, we all booked "The Best Of Skjolden" excursion offered by Princess.

Skjolden is known as the gateway to the ruggedly beautiful Jotunheimen National Park. Covering 1,351 square miles, the park is home to a spectacular landscape of waterfalls, rivers, glaciers and some of the highest peaks in Europe north of the Alps. 

Our first photo stop offered splendid views of the majestic Hurrungane Mountains. Considered one of the finest mountain ranges in Scandinavia, the mountains' huge vertical walls jut almost 3,300 feet high above a massive glacier. 

Another photo stop at Sognefjell Mountain was the Stave Church in the tiny village of Lom. 

Then, we had lunch at Fossheim Hotel for a delicious lunch featuring Norwegian favorites.  It had salmon as main dish and a local desert.  They also served non-alcohol German beer Clausthaler.  

After lunch we had our final stop to visit the Norsk fjellsenter which is the Norwegian Mountain Center and it is a visitor center for the national parks Jotunheimen, Reinheimen and Breheimen.  The guide told us that they just received some new items found recently due to melting glaciers in these areas. It was interesting to see what were buried underneath of the glacier and just appeared recently due to global warming.

On the way back to the pier, we stopped by the Saga Column which is a 34 meter high column with sculpture and reliefs - designed by the sculptor Wilhelm Rasmussen in the 1920s.  The pictures on the statue shows Norway's history from the battle of Hafrsfjord until the country got its constitution at Eidsvoll in 1814. We took some photos here and then rushed back to the pier.

The tour guide was an older gentleman needing a lot of improvement on his tour guiding experiences.  He never told us about what we supposed to see and we had to press by asking him directly. 

August 24, 2022 - Olden, Norway

We had "Olden the Amazing Briksdal Glacier" excursion offered by Norway Excursions.  The bus left the pier at 10am along Lake Olden to Rustøen which is located all the way at the end of the fjord. 

Then we started the Walk to the Briksdal Glacier from the Briksdal Inn. Briksdal Glacier is an arm of Europe’s largest glacier of the Jostedal Glacier. It is a beautiful trail surrounded by waterfalls and mountains, and this trail leads us to the viewpoint at the glacier lake. From there, we were able to enjoy this amazing natural treasure. The walk to the viewpoint normally takes approximately 45-60 minutes. Some of us took the short cut which is more uphill hiking to the glacier lake viewpoint area to enjoy the glacier with more time.  Some of us take the more scenery route.  The viewpoint area was beautiful and impressive.  It was definitely the Kodak moment for us.  

Then, we all took the scenery route back and enjoyed the view.  At one spot you have to cross a bridge right next to a huge waterfall.  The misty air created by the waterfall did make us all wet, however, it was enjoyable.

On the way back, we stopped at a viewpoint by Oldevatnet which is a lake located in the valley of Oldedalen.  We took many photos at his viewpoint before heading back to the pier.

August 25, 2022 - Trondheim, Norway

We had a self walking tour to see the 3rd most populous municipality in Norway.  A beautiful walkway around the pier leads us to the city.   The attractions we intended to see were the Nidaros Cathedral, Archbishop’s Palace, Old Town Bridge, Bakklandet and Kristiansten Fortress.  Since this was the 1st time anyone of us ever visited this city, we had to depend on Google Map.  Unfortunately, for someone unfamiliar with Google Walking Map, we made mistakes of taking the driving route to visit the 1st attraction Nidaros Cathedral.  It took us 20 more minutes to get there.  Once we were there, the ticket line for seeing the inside of the cathedral was quite long, so we only look around the cathedral from the outside and took photos.  

The Archbishop’s Palace is right next to the cathedral, we looked a little bit from the outside and were not impressed by it. Therefore, we all just scanned through the outside and then headed to the Old Town Bridge.  

After a short walk, we got to the Old Town Bridge and then we were able to see Bakklandet, which is a neighborhood in the city of Trondheim and it is dominated by small, wooden houses and narrow streets. It is among the major tourist attractions in the city.

One look of Bakklandet from the Old Town Bridge, we immediately decided that we need a closer look and walked right into the center of Bakklandet.  There were benches by the river and we all decided to enjoy our lunch at this spot.  

We spent a lot of time there and took a lot of photos.

Then, we did an uphill short walk to the Kristiansten Fortress.  It was built after the city fire of Trondheim in 1681 to protect the city against attack from the east. Construction was finished in 1685. It fulfilled its purpose in 1718 when Swedish forces laid siege against Trondheim. The fortress was decommissioned in 1816 by king Charles XIV John.  It was an interesting fortress with a lot of old canons.  It is a higher spot of the city and from there we got a wonderful view of the whole city.

August 26, 2022 - At Sea day

It was a "at sea" day, and everyone went their own way to entertain themselves.  Several of us gathered on the 7th floor to play Mahjong.  

It was the 2nd formal night.  It was also the Captain Circle night to meet the Captain.  Some of us went to the party and had drinks, and listened to the Captain’s explanation of why Princess changed their itinerary again to skip the port of Hellesylt, Norway. 

We had nice dinner and tried portrait photos for everyone using iPhone portrait features.  It was a fun evening.

August 27, 2022 - Honningsvag, Norway

We had a "North Cape Sightseeing Tour" excursion with Blue Puffin.  The weather was supposedly to be raining.  Luckily, it did not rain. However, the fog was pretty thick.  Our tour took us on a scenic ride across Magerøya Island, in the extreme northern part of Norway. 

First, we stopped by 2 fishing villages to get to know about local life styles in the Arctic.  The first one was a cod fishing village.  Our tour guide Monika shown us how the fishermen there catch and process the cod. It was very interesting.  

Then we went to the next fishing village which is a King Crab fishing village.  On our way there, we spotted several reindeers. One of them even had red antlers.  She told us that both male and female reindeers have antlers.  They grow and fell off each year. Antlers begin to grow on male reindeers in March or April and on female reindeers in May or June. As the antlers grow, they are covered in thick velvet (fuzzy sheath of skin), filled with blood vessels and spongy in texture. When the antler growth is fully grown and hardened, the velvet is sheded or rubbed off.

At the King Crab fishing village, our tour guide picked up both male King Crab and female King Crab to show us the difference.  We got a very close look at these ugly and tasty sea animals.  

Then, we got to the North Cape.  North Cape is a cape on the northern coast of the island of Magerøya in Northern Norway. The cape includes a 307-metre-high cliff (1,007 ft) with a large flat plateau on top, unfortunately the fog was too thick to allow us to see the cliff.  There is a Globe and a Milestone at North Cape.  We took photos there in the thick fog.

After we got back to the pier, we wondered around this small town - Honningsvag and did souvenir shopping.  Some of us even tried the King Crab in one of the nearby restaurant.  There was a famous Ice Bar in town, however, due to pandemic, the Ice Bar was closed and it is a Christmas Shop now.  We took photos in front of the famous Bamse dog Statue and Troll Statue.

August 28, Tromso, Norway

We had a self walking tour in Tromso.  Due to the distance from where we docked and the town center, we took Princess’ shuttle to the town center.  Our goals were to visit Arctic Cathedral, Cable Car, and Polaria.  Some of us even want to visit the northernmost brewery in the world - Mack.

It was raining, therefore, we all put on our rain gear and walked toward Polaria.  On the way, we passed by Mack, unfortunately it was Sunday and they do not open on Sunday.  Therefore, we went to visit Polaria first.  Polaria has a strange building structure which looks like a falling book shelfs.  There was a very nice panoramic movie to show the animals in North Pole.  They also has an Arctic aquarium and a gift shop.

We also stopped by the Tromso Cathedral for photos.

Then, we walked across town and the Tromso Bridge to visit the Arctic Cathedral.  It has a dramatic design, which resembles triangular blocks of ice, and it was completed in 1965.  The Arctic Cathedral is a must-visit for those with an interest in Scandinavian architecture and design. We got rain and wind on the Tromso Bridge. It was an uncomfortable and a tough day to visit the cathedral.  However, judging from photos we took, it worths all of our efforts.

With the raining condition, none of us was interest to go to the Cable Car.  Therefore, we walked back to the shuttle pickup point in the rain again.

August 29 & 30, 2022 - At Sea day

These 2 consecutive "At Sea" days provided us opportunities of total relaxation.  Some of us did Mahjong and some did ping-pong.  Of course, we did not miss any chances of dancing.