the_princess

I'm going to round up this trip report since I haven't got any pictures to show you from our last days. Day 7 was a sea day were it really felt like the trip was coming to an end. I kind of had this feeling when you are going to the airport to fly back home after a vacation and you just want to go home because there is no more fun left. It was a strange day!

The theme of the evening was Galla (again). The show was a little longer then normal because there was a presentation of the crew, the animation team did a little show and the kids club presented a dance. At dinner we said goodbye to our amazing waiters and out table mates. It was truly a sad day. You meet people, share an experience with them and then you leave, knowing that you'll never see them again.

Soooo, what did I think of my first cruise? I LOVED it!!! Having your hotel moving around with you is the best idea ever. Being able to relax, enjoy good food and experience new places all at the same time makes this the perfect kind of vacation.

And how about MSC? Like many others, I was very concerned about MSC after reading about them here on CC. But if this is what people consider a bad cruise, then I don't mind bad cruises. I think MSC was amazing. The ship was beautiful and so well maintained. The food was fantastic, the crew was service minded. I couldn't have asked for a better cruise! Even our stateroom host Sara needs a shout out. This girl was always happy and smiling at any time of the day.

I would cruise with MSC again, no doubt about that!

This is it, thank you everyone for reading along. Feel free to ask any questions or comments, then I'll do my best to answer :)

One last picture of the beautiful sisters before it was time for pre-dinner cocktails. Have I said how much I enjoyed the drink package? These cocktails were amazing and you could get as many as you wanted. Which meant two for me because they were strong and I get tipsy very easy!

I got this delicious plate with my cocktail. Even though I don’t eat meat there was still plenty to fill me up. (And this was right before dinner, ups!)

The theme of the night was White Night. For dinner I had a salad and salmon, which it turned out not to be salmon, like it said in the menu but trout instead. For dinner I had both coffee cake and ice cream. Once again great food!

The view of the days-picture is from Dalsnibba

Come back tomorrow for the final installment of the review.

Back on the ship this little guy was waiting for me.

While sailing out of Geiranger I went up on deck to watch the last must see-attraction in the area. We went past the Seven Sister waterfall. Named like that because there are 7 waterfalls next to each other.

The captain announced in several languages that we were passing the Seven Sisters and the ship blew the horn. And as always I was having a little party on deck. A waterfall party! I’m saying I because I had to spend this day alone. My partner in crime (my mom) had to stay in bed with a flu. Even if she was missing out on a whole day, she did enjoy the fact that she could get whatever she wanted without having to do anything herself.

More pictures from the highland lake.

We also made a quick stop at a little road with a bridge. It was really nice and quiet.

One the way down we made two stops. One at this beautiful highland lake. Does it get anymore beautiful then this!!!!

The hight light of our excursion was the top of the Dalsnibba mountain. 1500 meters over sea level! The ride up was beautiful, but it got more and more foggy as we went up. At the top of the mountain it was below 0 degrees celsius and it was impossible to see anything. I can’t even imagine how the view would have been on a clear day. Instead the whole place looked like something taken out of a fairytale or a movie. It was still an amazing experience.

Today we made it to our last stop on this trip. Geiranger which is at the end of Geiranger Fjord. The town only has about 250 residents, but every year more then 700.000 people visit the place. We did a private excursion with our group and our tour guide told us that he was married to a girl who grew up in Geiranger. They live here now with their children who attend the small school with only 28 students and 7 teachers. Geiranger is very busy in the summertime but in the winter time it’s completely covered in snow and no one can come or leave the town because all roads are blocked.

The stories about the life in the town sounded a lot like a fairytale and the place sure did look like one as well.

If anyone has been to Epcot in Walt Disney World, you might recognize this guy. As you can see I’m wearing full on winter clothes. It was cold, very cold. You could feel that you were getting up north and the higher up we got, the colder it got!

The theme of the night was Italy ( I wonder why?!?) Our table was beautifully decorated and the food was once again amazing. I had a salad and the vegetarian lasagna and then ice cream and tiramisu for dessert. I ended up dancing around the restaurant with all the waiters while singing a song which all the italian guests knew. What a party :-)

I will finish with the view of the day picture.

Tune in tomorrow for more beautiful pictures from Norway.

Finally we left and suddenly it started to rain… a lot!

A few more pictures from the train ride to Myrdal

Back on the ship, we decided to watch the sail away. We left port very late because all the excursion busses were late. I think there had been a mix up between MSC and the agent because all the busses got back long after we were suppose to leave.

But Flåm is so beautiful, so we didn’t mind staying longer.

More pictures from Kjosfossen

More pictures from the train ride from Flåm to Myrdal

We made a stop at Kjosfossen where we had the pleasure of meeting Huldra, who is a forrest spirit in the Scandinavian folklore. She is known to shift into the body of a beautiful woman and while she dances in the forrest, she attracts young men, lead them into the forrest and hold them captured there.

If you want to see Huldra dance at the Kjosfossen, I shot this video of her.

And even more pictures of Flåm before we board the train.

While waiting for the train we spoke to a few of our table mates. They went to the train station about an hour later then us and everything was sold out. So the tip of the day must be to go to the train station early. I know you can buy tickets online but they are 600 NOK and I read that you aren’t sure to get a seat with those tickets. We paid 400 NOK for ours.

It takes about an hour to get from Flåm to Myrdal. The ride is 20 km long and the train stops along the way.

The trip is really beautiful.

More pictures of Flåm

Flåm is amazing with or without cruise ships

More pictures of the ship in port

Day 5

We decided to get up early today for two reasons. We wanted to see the ship sail into Flåm and we wanted to disembark as early as possible and get to the train station to get tickets for the Flåm Railway which is suppose to be the most beautiful train ride in the world.

The view from the ship was breathtaking. I have never seen anything that beautiful (And I have been many places!) The fjord was absolutely amazing. Words or pictures can’t describe it. I could (and did) spend hours just looking out from the ship.

Here are a few picture.

We left the ship right after it was cleared and basically had all of Flåm to ourself. We went straight to the train station and got tickets for the 11 o’clock train. We still had a few hours so we took a walk around the beautiful little town.

I noticed several places had signs up showing their dissatisfaction with the cruise ships. I do understand why some hotels might not like the cruise ships. We come in huge groups in the morning, disturb the peace, don’t spend any money on food and hotels and leave in the evening. I think a lot of hotels has lost a lot of business in places like Flåm because if you don’t like the look of a cruise ship. It takes a lot of the beauty away from this place when one or two huge floating cities come in.

I think cruise ships are amazing and I love the look of them, so seeing my hotel there in the middle of the fjord was a beautiful view, but I understand why some people wouldn’t agree with me.

Bergen also had quite a lot of street art.

I really like this one!

Back on the ship we got ready for dinner. I don’t remember the theme of the show this evening, we didn’t go. At dinner I had risotto again, this time with pumpkin which was just as good as the one last night.

I completely forgot to take a view of the day-photo, so I’ll finish this day with this guy who was waiting for us when we got back.

Make sure you come back tomorrow for the most beautiful scenery. You haven’t seen Norway until you’ve seen Flåm!!!!

And just to make it clear to everyone, this is not a live report. It’s a trip review from our cruise back in August 2014.

And even more pictures of Bergen.

More Pictures of Bergen.

Down at the harbor we decided to take a look at Bergen’s most famous shopping area. What I liked most about Bergen was all the different colors of the houses. Back in the old days, the color indicated the wealth of the people living there, but today I think it’s more decoration then anything else.

We also passed Ludwig Holberg’s old school and lots of small streets and houses.

Day 4

So we are finally getting somewhere. I started the day at the gym with this view.

Today we arrived at Bergen in Norway. To get into Bergen we had to take a shuttle bus provided by MSC. It is’t possible to walk because the harbor is closed of, but there were plenty of buses going in to the city and back, so we didn’t have to wait for a bus.

As I said in the beginning, we were part of a group tour and today was our first excursion with the group. It was a little walk around the old part of Bergen which took us to the St. Jørgen Hospital which used to be a monastery and a hospital up until 1946.

Day 3

This day was our first day at sea. I started the day in the gym together with everyone else at the ship. It felt like that anyway!

The weather was nice, the sun was shining and the sea was calm. We had a nice long breakfast and just went around the ship, looked at shops and relaxed a lot.

In the afternoon something happen to the weather, it got so windy that they had to close off all the outdoor areas. It got worse and lots of people looked as if they would rather be home in their bed then at sea. One of the waitresses at Zebra Bar tried so hard to hide that she didn’t feel well. I felt so sorry for her.

I found a window seat were I sat with my book most of the day and looked out at sea. It was so beautiful. Especially when the wind picked up.

As you can see from the book I’m reading I’m very obsessed with sailing.

I don’t suffer from seasickness at all, I’m used to do day sailings and have been out in some bad weather, so I have to confess that I really enjoyed the rough sea. The waves makes the sea look even more beautiful and feeling how the ship moved through the storm and the rain was amazing. Yes, I know I’m strange! So when everyone else were talking about how awful this was, I found peace in looking out the windows. We found out after worth that this had been quite a big storm but I’m sure The Poesia had seen worse.

At night it was the first Galla evening. We all had fun dressing up for this. The show this evening was a casino inspired show, which was pretty good. We had a few games in the casino before we went to dinner. I decided to have risotto with spinach which was a good choice. This is were you can feel that you are on an Italian ship. The pasta, pizza and risotto was out of this world!

I’m sorry I haven’t got that many pictures to show you but sea days are not that interesting when it comes to pictures. But here is the view of the day. As you can see… Very windy. This was before they closed off the outdoor areas.

Stay tuned for tomorrow were we are entering the Norwegian fjords…. This is were the pictures get interesting!!!

I just realized that the youtube video from the bridge party doesn't work, so if you still want to see watch a very dark sailing under a bridge, you can find the video here: