Saturday, June 28, 2014

Adventure of the Seas - Day 9 - Sailing In to Alesund, Norway (Videos)

This morning, we sail to the Norwegian town of Alesund.  Yesterday, we were in Trondheim.

For a start, let's look at some sail-in videos.

Part 1 - Sailing into Alesund, Norway

Part 2 - Sailing into Alesund, Norway

Part 3 - Sailing into Alesund


Part 4 - Sailing into Alesund


Part 5 - Sailing into Alesund


Part 6 - Sailing into Alesund (MS NordNorge)


We were in Alesund, Norway!  Head on to my next blog post on what we were going to do.

Adventure of the Seas Day 8 - Main Dining Room Dinner

Day 8 MDR Dinner.  This was the day in Trondheim, Norway.   Although the port of call was quite short, we had a good walk and good stretch of the legs, not to mention burning off many calories.  Thanks to the high prices in Norway for food and drink, we did not buy anything to eat or drink on the way.  Instead, we relied on our own water and snack supplies.

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21 Daring Dining Room Ideas - http://topreveal.com/daring-dining-room-ideas
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So, it was great to be back.  Here I was in the Diamond Lounge cocktail hour (before dinner), enjoying my Gin & Tonic and Budweiser Beer.  Yipppee.

A rum punch, after the drinks above.

This was in our aft balcony, after my drinks, feeling a bit tipsy.  Great way to enjoy the sunshine!

The sun is brighter now.

There is Trondheim city centre in the distance.

Main Dining Room Dinner - Day 8
Time for dinner.  This was the menu, called Celery.


Battered Cod Finger starter.

This must have been the cold soup. (sweet)

There is the cod, this time dipped in sauce.

Pepper?

Captain's table empty today.

I think this was the Shephard's Pie from the Classics menu.  As highlighted previously, the pies on the classic menu changes every night.

What was this?  Chicken Kiev.

The pasta - Lemon Tagaliette

The fish.


The beef, called Beef Wellington.

Another shot of the Chicken Kiev.

Quite a lot of pasta.  All those carbs!  Well, we try to avoid the carbs on a cruise.  So, I just ate the shrimp and maybe a mouthful of pasta to go along

Fish.  Sole Fillets.  It feels very healthy eating this.

Time for Desserts
I must remember to switch on the flash on my camera!

We are sailing out, as we dine.

This must be the Apple Phyllo Roll?

Sugar-free pear and apple pie.

Another view of the sugar free option.

Chocolate - Baked Chocolate Mousse Cake.

Banana and Blueberry Cake.

Creme Brulee.

Coffee Mousse.

Putting two together.

Good dinner.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Adventure of the Seas, Day 8, Trondheim, Part 4 (Sverresborg Trondelag Folkemuseum and back to City)

Part 4 - continued from Part 3.  We were at the Sverresborg Trondelag Folkemuseum.

Oooh, we were up there.  It took us no more than 10 minutes to get down.  Climbing up was a bit more tiring.  Coming down was a breeze.

Perfectly logical to build a castle up there, for the commanding views.

We reached back to the visitor's centre/entrance very quickly.  Overall,  we enjoyed the visit.  Even our kids found it fun.  A great place to stretch the legs and to view these very interesting historical homes.  Coming from Singapore, I've never seen a museum of this nature.  I thought the time was well spent

After a quick toilet break, it was time to head back to the city centre.  The museum is definitely too far to walk from the city centre.  And you had to go up a hill.  But there was a bus that we could take.   The bus-stop was right outside the museum, and the bus was number 18.  You can see the timetable for this bus.




I think these were the tour coach drivers having a drink.  We say the tour coaches lined up along the road.

Yups, those coaches.

This is the entrance to the museum.


The bus came as per timetable and we got on!  We asked the driver to let us off in the City Centre.  He spoke good english.  We paid in cash.   Now, we go downhill.


Now, here is the funny part.  We asked him how much for the 4 of us (2 adults and 2 kids) . He said 150NOK.  Oh wow, that costs almost as much as the cab ride.  150 NOK was 24USD.  Anyway, we just paid up and got on the bus.  Here was the receipt.  But this was not the end of the bus fare story.  Read on.


We sat in the front row.  Good views.


We were reaching the City Centre.  Along the way, we could talk to the bus driver.  We found out that he had been to Singapore!  He worked on an oil rig and Singapore yards produce many oil rigs.  So he was in Singapore which his company's oil rig was being built by one of our yards.   Very interesting.  The world is very small eh.

And then when we reached our stop, he asked us to hold on.  The bus driver took out some booklet and started flipping through.  Then he generated another receipt and gave us change.  He said sorry for overcharging, as he had made a mistake.  So the actual fare turned out to be only 74 NOK, which was half the price of 150NOK!  Cool.

So we got off the bus stop and started to slowly make our way back to the ship, going into shops along the way to check out the stuff (and prices!).

Here is one example of prices.  Snapple for 23.40 NOK or USD3.80




Apple Juice.

Ah ha, Pringles.  19.90NOK or USD 3.23

Raspberry Cheese Cake (top row, left) was 49NOK per slice or 8USD.

1 Fanta for 34.50 NOK or 5.61USD.

A bag of Doritos - 42 NOK or 6.83USD.

These sandwiches (to top row) were going for 60NOK or USD 9.75.  Suffice to say that we did not buy any food or drink.

We kept walking, back towards the ship.

And we stepped into a Burger King, just to check out the prices.
 A large Whopper Meal was 89 NOK, or 15 USD.

 How much does a large Whopper meal cost in the USA? It is about USD 6.50 in Singapore.


This was a hotel.




And we are back to the bridge, to cross the river.



And we have to go up these stairs, to get onto the foot bridge that would bring us across the railway tracks.

I figured that Heis means lifts or elevators.

There is the ship.  You can't miss it.


A very wide foot bridge, a very pleasant walk.


Adventure of the Seas, bringing us on so many adventures.

Oh, PwC had an office here.  I don't recognize the rest of the names.

This was a great place for photographs.  We stopped to take many.

A map of the city.

There was a long line to enter the ship.

But the line moved reasonably fast.  Looks like most people walked to town and back.

The weather was nice.  Nobody was complaining about the cold, unlike the situation we faced in Reykjavik.

And we made it back to the ship, in good time.

In summary, Trondheim is a walkable port.  You can easily walk to the city and access the major sights on foot.  However, if you wish to go to the Folk museum, you can either take the bus number 18 or take a cab. Or perhaps cab one way and take a bus back.

There was also a tram-like thing we saw, but didn't have time to explore it.

Anyway, this was a short and sweet port of call.  We would be headed to another port tomorrow.

Sailing away from Trondheim.