I woke up early this morning to enjoy the scenic sailing through the Geirangerfjord before arriving in Geiranger, Norway.
I set up my GoPro for video on my balcony and enjoyed the view from my room. I obviously took a lot of pictures as well.
Last night the Captain announced that we would be sailing past the Seven Sisters waterfall at around 7:15 AM, but we went past it much earlier. I was still able to see it. He also mentioned that we would be tendering to shore due to port congestion.
Because of my Elite status (thanks to being Diamond on Royal Caribbean) I was able to take advantage of priority tendering service.
I took a few more pictures from the ship.
There only one other ship in the port and they too were tendering because the port’s adjustable dock wasn’t functioning in the morning.
I was able to disembark quite early in the morning, the tender boat was an actual tender boat (luxurious even), not just a simple life boat which is normally used for tendering on ships.
On the way in we saw some rich person’s yacht and a second ship which is used to transport all of the rich person’s toys that don’t fit on a yacht – like a helicopter. I could see the helicopter, I am not sure what other treasures it holds.
I took a few long exposure pictures from the dock of the fjords and the ship.
I walked down the road between the dock and the ship to an isolated area away from people and flew my UAS (drone). I got some nice photos and videos of the ship with the fjords in the background.
I had a noon meeting time for my kayaking tour, and I didn’t want to be late so I took an earlier than necessary tender back to the ship.
I went back to the room to organize my gear for the kayaking trip and then went to the theater (meeting point for the tour).
Unfortunately I was waiting about 45 minutes in the theater before we were ushered out to the tender boat.
After taking the tender to shore everyone needed to sign their life away on the waiver which wasted a bit more time. After everyone signed the waiver we walked briskly to the kayaking launch location. It was a good 15 minute brisk walk. They gave us some information, a life vest and a skirt to try and keep the water out of the kayak.
As we were about to launch a helicopter came flying through the fjord (glad I wasn’t flying then…) and landed right next to the kayak launch. The wind from the helicopter was quite forceful, I did manage to get a picture of it, although the shutter speed on the phone was so fast the blades appear to be stationary despite the chopper being 15 feet in the air.
We kayaked past the private yacht, it’s toy boat and our ship. We didn’t quite make it around the corner to see the Seven Sisters as I had hoped. I’m not sure if it is because we ran out of time or because it was windy.
On the way back I don’t know if someone hit the kayak rudder, but there was nothing we could do to keep it going straight. For half the distance back I was paddling only on my left side and the kayak was still turning left.
Eventually I got back to land (with soggy pants from the water the skirt didn’t keep out). The tour was back well after the all aboard time, nevermind the last tender time. I walked back at a normal pace since the ship tours are not supposed to be left behind. I took a few pictures of the waterfall, although it is hard to see with the trees. I took pictures of it back in 2016 though. I wasn’t going to risk missing the ship for a photo.
Back on the ship I set up my GoPro for another video and walked up to the top deck to get some more photos and videos. It was very scenic and the weather had dramatically improved with a lot of blue skies.
At 6 PM I had a cocktail party to attend at Eden. Unfortunately it wasn’t too close to a window. The canapes were pretty good.
I took a few more photos as the ship exited the Geirangerfjord.
I took a picture of an interesting chair on the ship.
For dinner tonight I ate at the Tuscan main dining room.
I had the escargot and the broiled lobster tail. The server was nice enough to remove the lobster meat from the shell. I also tried the Carbonara, but was disappointed as it wasn’t anything like what I had in Firenze (Florence), Italy in September.
For dessert I couldn’t refuse the Baked Alaska, it is one of my favorites.
