Day 9

Today brought us to our northernmost destination of Honningsvåg, Norway, which is the third northernmost city in Europe and the fifth northernmost in the world. It also brought us our first bad weather for the holiday, as it was pouring rain when we arrived.

We managed to sleep in okay, although this 24 hour sunlight is still playing havoc with our systems! Since we didn’t have any excursions booked for today, we were in no rush to disembark the ship when we arrived at 7:30am. From what we could tell on Google, there was nothing open at that early hour anyway, so the morning was far from busy.

We disembarked after breakfast with a handful of other passengers, and wandered around town. There was very little to see as everything was still closed, but we did still get some good photos of the waterfront as well as from an unofficial viewpoint we found. There was also nobody walking around so it almost felt like a ghost town. Considering how far north we were, the weather still wasn’t that cold although it did start raining again during our walk.

We went to the local Christmas Shop which specialised in decorations and Christmas themed items, so we bought a Christmas bauble to add to our collection. I did also want to see the statue of Bamse, a local hero dog who was commemorated and well remembered by the townspeople. Since we had pretty much seen everything we wanted to, and the weather was still rainy, we returned to the ship and it was only 10:30am!

After getting back onboard we warmed up in Café Latte-tudes, whilst the crew were practicing an emergency drill. Ted and I then relaxed in the Solarium, which was perfect because we virtually had the place to ourselves. These have been perfect opportunities to catch up on reading, Netflix and writing this travel blog.

When I looked at shore excursions for Honningsvåg, nothing really looked that interesting for the price paid and, after speaking to some of our fellow travellers, I’m glad we did our own thing. One excursion I considered was going to Nordkapp, but it sounded like it was very weather dependent and not overly interesting.

We joined Blaine, his mum Suzanne, and the boys from Reno for dinner in the Windjammer restaurant, before heading to the Schooner Bar for drinks and to enjoy the music and 24 hour sunlight. We also had plenty of whale and dolphin sightings through the huge windows, which would prompt all the passengers to run to one side of the ship each time! We then moved onto the Safari Bar next door which was quieter and more relaxed, although the service was a lot slower!

The Safari Bar then hosted a game show called “The Perfect Couple” which I’m glad we didn’t volunteer for because by this time (11:00pm), we were really tired. I felt somewhat silly leaving so early since so many other passengers were still up dancing and drinking in the daylight, but we couldn’t stay awake much longer. Tomorrow will be another ship day as we cruise the Arctic Circle, so I think I’ll make the most of the relaxing time.Läs mer