UnDisney Family in denial about Gold Status -Norwegian Fjords - August 16-26 2018

The LONG Day of Travel Home

And thus, our "we just have to get through this" day of travel was upon us- featuring one ship, 1 taxi, 2 planes, one bus, 3 countries, 3 very tired humans, and way, way, way too many hours...

Can you see how much we were looking forward to this?

Anyhow- we got up at our usual time (6:30 or 7:00) and muddled through showers, etc.

Even though we didn't have a fancy MDR breakfast, we did have fancy plating...

IMG_7568.jpg

(We supplement this with some yogurt that we get either that morning from Cabanas or that we've saved from the night before, plus coffee from the Cove Cafe- so now you know how to have a nice breakfast in your room before your busy morning.)

Decked out in our now famous layers, we did the usual last day shuffle. We avoided elevators like plagues. We had left tip envelopes with appropriate folk the day before. We handed in our comment card. We lined up. We got off. We found our luggage - all of this before 9:00 a.m.

We also then found our taxi... which was very nice to find (remember the beginning of this trip in Copenhagen)?

(DCL Queen and her boys were heading off to a day and a bit in London... so we parted ways with them for now.)

The taxi ride to Gatwick was about 1 hour and a half, I think? It wasn't that thrilling. We were all pretty quiet. We plugged Conor into an audiobook, which always helps.

Gatwick was very nice, actually, and we were very excited to find out we had a special place to go through security due to our Saga status with Iceland Air. I'm not sure why we were excited, though I'm guessing the line ups were shorter, as the security aspect is still the same.

We finally found our lounge, and (remember we were never even in a lounge prior to the beginning of this trip), we were kind of disappointed. It was crowded, noisy and not that exciting. We finally found a spot to sit and squish in to eat some lunch. I sent Conor and DH out to peruse things and they found a lovely Ravenclaw keychain for his souvenir collection, which helped with the crowded/noisy part of things.

Anyhow- it was nice to get OUT of the lounge and onto our airplane... because, we were once again reunited with Saga class. (Happiness.)

Conor was SOOO excited to be back on Saga class, this happened shortly after takeoff at 1:30 p.m.

IMG_7572.jpg

Fortunately, he woke up from his nap in time to eat. I must have decided to showcase the food we ate, so I'll share these now.

Do I remember what this was? NOPE. Do I know it was very yummy? YEP.

IMG_7573.jpg

Flight segment number 1 took us back to Iceland (3rd time!) and we celebrated the occasion by taking a photo of the plane in the background.

IMG_7580.jpg


Bound and determined to make the most of Saga class, we decided to still go and visit the Saga lounge, to recover from the disappointment of the Gatwick lounge. Now, if you remember back to the beginning of this (ha!) you may recall that this means you have to leave passport control. We did this, had a nice stretch/walk to get there, had a bit of a snack (because on days like this you have no idea what mealtime it is at any given time... if there is food, you eat). And then, thinking we had left plenty of time, we headed back out to our gate... to find a VERY LONG line for passport control. EEK.

I'm reasonably certain we all died a few deaths in that line, but fortunately it started to move quickly after a while so we heaved great sighs of relief, made it to our gate, boarded, and collapsed in our seats. PHEW.

Fortunately, Iceland Air wanted me to feel better, so they gave me this:

IMG_7585.jpg

(Again- I don't remember what it was except for yummy sparkling wine of some variety with a cool water bottle).

And then they gave me this:

IMG_7586.jpg

Fear not- Conor got some of this yumminess too. He was a big fan of this:

IMG_7587.jpg

Then, after a bit, we had some supper- Conor had the salmon, and I had whatever that other thing is that was very nice.IMG_7590.jpg


IMG_7593.jpg

After that, we mostly just sat, watched stuff, and finished winging across the Atlantic until we landed in Toronto. You know - living the vacation dream.

We landed. Yippee! Or wait. No yippee. We wait. A long time. Like... 1 hour from when we landed until when we could get off. Keep in mind that it was 7:00 p.m. Ontario time, which meant it was for us, about 1:00 a.m. London time, which meant that we were all GRUMPY. And I'm pretty sure everyone needed to pee. I know I did.

This is us waiting... or the back of my kid waiting anyway.

IMG_7598.jpg

FINALLY, we were allowed off. We found bathrooms. We grumped. We headed to the place where you have to scan your passports and have your photos done... and people were generally also tired, grumpy and confused. We finally got to a kiosk and do you THINK we could actually figure out how to do what they were asking? Nope. Finally, I realized what we were doing wrong, and things got better after that.

Fortunately at this point we knew what to do- we cleared the rest of the hurdles to get to our luggage, which was all there for us, and we trekked to our airport hotel room. We were smart enough to know to mostly just collapse (with the cleverly packed PJs easy to find in the luggage because I am SMART). We hit bed at about 1:30 a.m. or so.

And now... I'm going to bed soon. Good night!
 
Welcome back! You absolutely made my day. I love your style of “tongue in cheek” writing. Your son is adorable. He very much seems to enjoy life and adventures.

middle of nowhere is one of my favourite places

I love middle of nowhere places, along with hole-n-de-wall eateries. I would have enjoyed this part of the excursion. In fact, I think I would have enjoyed all of your excursion.

We headed back (still while in the woods) and found that he had set up a another scotch tasting (from a distillery from his home town), along with shortbread (on a silver tray, because his wife told him that would be a good idea), and ginger ale for the boys.

This was truly one of those completely lovely little moments you don't forget.

How sweet that Johnny took the time to create a special treat for youse and that he gave your husband a birthday present/memory.

We did our usual ordering from room service before they closed (for breakfast-y items) so that we could eat in our room the next morning.

Us also, we tend to order BLTs the night before disembarking and then eat in our room. We bring an Aeropress and one of us will run up to the beverage station for hot water to make coffee.
 
Always happy to see you updating your trip reports. Hope everyone in your house is happy and healthy.
 
Thanks for posting. I always enjoy your cruise reports. Any new Disney cruises in your future?
 


Haha, sounds like a perfect sea/last day to me 😍

Yep. I can conclusively say after much study now that I definitely like the last day on the cruise to be a day at sea.

Always happy to see you updating your trip reports. Hope everyone in your house is happy and healthy.

Thanks! And yes, healthy for sure. Happy mostly... lots of changes for sure. I hope you're well too.

Thanks for posting. I always enjoy your cruise reports. Any new Disney cruises in your future?

Thanks, and, well, since you asked... stay tuned. I need to get us home from this one first.
 
Final steps home and final words

I'd love to say we leapt out of bed the next day, but, well, nope. I actually was up early and meandered down to the airport to hang out at Starbucks for some primo people watching until the men got up.

In the end, they did wake up, and fed (all 3) and caffeinated (adults only) we packed up and hit the road. The drive home was uneventful and then I cajoled (bullied) everyone into getting out as soon as we got home to try to fight the jet lag - because, remember, I was back at work the next day but also it was Conor's first day of school for the year. Fortunately, groceries had to be purchased and other stuff needed to be procured so we stayed out for the duration of the afternoon.

While the next day at school/work probably was not one that would have won any awards, we did in fact get through it and, as I recall, the jet lag from West to East was much easier to manage, as usual.

What were our thoughts about our longest cruise ever?

Honest- this was a really remarkably problem-free trip. Really - the only issue was our mix-up at the airport in Copenhagen with our taxi. Beyond that- no real problems at all. And, beyond that, it really lived up to our expectations.

We were happy with our mix of booking things/not booking things at the different ports, and did not in any way miss doing any Mickey-sponsored excursions. The 3 port days in a row in Norway was a bit much... but as we had very little planned at Alesund, that balanced things out (as in... NOTHING).

Iceland was amazing- truly a unique place on this planet, and we'd love to go back some day. We liked having the 2 days and the private tour was perfect for us.

Scotland was an unexpected (for me anyway) real treat- I've always wanted to go, but we really lucked out with Johnny and that really helped. We definitely want to go back without a cruise ... on hold for now, of course.

I don't think I can do more than 10 days on a cruise though. Much as I love my family... it's a LOT of time in one room together. We are not folks who are out and about on the ship 24/7 so that's relevant.

Anyhow- at this point, we had no cruises booked. Honest. We talked about it but did not book a placeholder. We looked, and nothing really appealed. We figured we would decide on something smaller for the winter for this year (this is NOT a budget cruise), and then we would move on to other things.

But.... as you'll see shortly, we have since done not 1, but 2 other cruises. (Oops). Stay tuned for the next TR. I'll put both trips in one report.

And with that, and leaving anyone who is actually reading this far in suspense, you'll just have to wait to see what we did. I should start it soon, as it's not like I'm going anywhere this summer.... but I need to organize my photos first.

Good bye- and thanks for reading! Stay safe, and take care.
 


Great report, thank you! I have contemplated longer cruises, my longest is 8 nights, and appreciate your perspective. After reading your report, Norwegian Fjords is high on my list. I'm looking forward to your next reports.
 
This has literally been a lockdown delight. Thank you for filling a morning for me. I’ve read and enjoyed all your reports. So pleased to find this one. And I may not be heading for my planned 50th birthday cruise to Kristensaand and Copenhagen but I managed it vicariously!
 
Not to spoil anything for those looking forward to two trip reports, but you may have already started one of them ... Out of a certain substantial metropolis associated with a fruit... ;)
 
Great report! It brought back many memories of our 3 days in Iceland on the way home from our first DCL - Northern Europe Cruise back in 2016. We too would like to return someday. But our next trip once a vaccine is available will be back to Scotland. We spent 10 days there in 2019 on our own -- mostly in Edinburgh -- and absolutely loved every minute of it.
 
Last edited:
So glad I found your report - it made great reading (and fab photos too). I really want to do the Norwegian/Icelandic cruise but DH is not convinced. We're from Scotland so I would appreciate doing a cruise without the long flights. It's a long time since we were in Iceland (20+ years) so I'm sure a lot has changed - the cubicles at the Blue Lagoon are one of them as it was a communal affair when we were there last (although there were separate male & female changing rooms).

Looking forward to reading your other TR's.
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!







Top