Fjordland Wonders Cruise, Thomson Spirit, 3-10 August 2013

A series of articles about our one-week cruising the fjords of Norway. Perhaps a little bizarrely, it starts with a visit to Clacton-on-Sea. We were sailing from Harwich and got down there too early to board the ship!

Providing our transport for this trip will be the Thomson Spirit cruise ship. The actual cruise itinerary is Harwich, UK > Sailing the North Sea > Stavanger > Flam > Hellesylt and Geiranger > Bergen > Sailing the North Sea > Harwich, UK. Unusually for one of our cruises, it will include two days of rain - one of them very heavy rain.

Click each of the photos below for the corresponding article and more photographs of each day.

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Sailing Back to England

Friday 9 August 2013. We've done all our ports of call now on the Fjordland Wonders cruise and have said "Goodbye" to Norway. We are now on the North Sea again, the Danish coast just out of sight over the horizon.

Once again the North Sea is excelling itself to give us good weather, though it did turn a little overcast by the very end of the afternoon. There are a few demonstrations and bits of fun to watch on the Lido Deck to keep us amused as the afternoon wears on.

It starts with a bit of ice carving - a huge block of ice comes up from the galley. This would have been created from distilled water - ordinary water produces "white" ice as it contains lots of air bubbles as it freezes. This chap started hacking away at it and in a very short time...

...he created both a swan... and a mess on the deck which is being swept up in the background! The resulting carving was carefully loaded onto a trolley, popped back into the freezer and was on display in the restaurant that night.

A bit later the same chap was back but with a colleague and together they attacked bits of fruit and a cauliflower to great effect! Miss Franny thought I should pay attention so that I could whip something up for her next soiree...

The we settled back to listen to the vocal harmony group from the Horizons Bar. New Dimensions are Edgar on the left, Ronaldo and Cesar on the bass. They were on the Spirit on our last time onboard and remembered me as I walked in on the first night even though it was two years ago - I must be more troublesome than I thought, everyone seems to remember me!

As we went to our cabin to get ready for our evening meal we found that even the cabin stewardesses had been getting in on the act. Two bottle tops for eyes and a couple of towels and hey presto - a penguin!

Miss Franny with our two cabin stewardesses, Zhana and Tatyana. We have never had anything but perfect service on any of Thomson's ships. The staff work so hard.

And that brings this cruise to an end. On Saturday morning we wake up back at the berth in Harwich. We have to vacate the cabin by 7:30 in the morning as she is due to sail out again on a trip to the Baltic at 4:00pm and between now and then all the cabins must be cleaned, furnished with fresh linen and shown to their new temporary residents.

By a quarter past eight in the morning we are in the car and ready to set off for home. Sigh... too early to think about nipping into Clacton for that Wimpy I didn't have last week then...

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North Sea Sunshine

Sunday 4 August 2013. We expected to wake up to a rolling, bucking ship. But the North Sea was not only smooth, it was basking in sunshine!

We were onboard the Thomson Spirit cruise ship on our way to Norway for a 7-day cruise called Fjordland Wonders. Before we get to the fjords we need to negotiate Dogger Bank and a few other half-familiar sea areas mentioned on that strangely compelling 5 minutes on BBC Radio 4.

Miss Franny, pretending that the water is warm in the adult pool on Deck 7. I tried it... I screamed... There was a couple sitting up there who must spend all their lives in exotic places, judging from their tans. Either exotic places or Sonia's Tanning Centre...

We ended up a couple of decks down and watched the Spa demonstration and then a demonstration of towel folding. I failed to win a free massage but we were destined to have our towels folded later in the week...

There are a number of oil and gas platforms out on the North Sea. This is the South Arne platform. Actually we saw far more on our way back as it was night when we were going through the relevant bit of North Sea and the rigs were all lit up like Christmas trees. On our outward journey we were slightly further east off the English coast. In fact Felixtowe was the last bit of England we saw...

This is the Maersk Resolute platform. I reckon you would need to be fairly resolute to work on these things... I had been told there were minke whales in the North Sea. With our usual luck they managed to avoid us totally...

We were pleased to find a few past acquaintances onboard. The entertainers in the Horizons bar were New Dimensions and we found Pipit, our waiter from our last cruise on the Spirit waiting to welcome us to our table in the Compass Rose Restaurant. After the day at sea it was the Captain's formal night and a chance to get out the dinner suit again.

In the next entry we will actually arrive in Norway - hurray!!! In the rain - boo!!!

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