The itinerary for this entire trip was quite a bit more intense than I had expected. I thought I would have a lot of downtime between activities to fill in the commentary for each day. But, instead, there was little free time between activities. For the entire trip we've been pretty busy from the time we'd get up until the time we'd go to bed. I think I'm going to try to plan in more "Sea Days" and downtime for future trips. Our entire trip is now completed. It is Tuesday, September 25, 2018, and I'm just now starting to catch up on adding commentary to these daily travel reports, two weeks after the day of the actual events. All the photos from this entire trip have already been posted and you can view them all by clicking on the links to "NEXT PAGE" or "PREVIOUS PAGE". All the titles of every day of our trip have also been posted. But what hasn't been posted yet is the captions to all the photos and my commentary about our experiences of each day. I'm going to try to finish adding commentary to at least one day every day. So please check back each day to read the newest commentary, or you can just skip ahead to view the photos from each day without my added commentary. |
Click on each photo below for a larger image.
This town features a locally operated single level enclosed "Hop On Hop Off" bus. The double decker open top "Hop On Hop Off" bus operated my major tour companies are not offered in this town. There are 3 TV monitors on the bus that show a continuous video with audio about each stop with an announcement for each stop. None of the bus stops are marked. If you get off at any of the stops you just have to remember to get back on at the same spot you got off. The complete round trip takes about 45 minutes. There is only one bus on the route. The cost of the tickets is $20 US per person and can be purchased in the Tourist Information Center & Shop at the exit from the cruise terminal. The bus does pick up and drop off right at the cruise terminal. If you instead want to walk to downtown Akureyi it is less than a half mile pleasant walk along the waterfront. |
We had dinner at the Moderno Churrascaria Brazilian Restaurant. The cost was $24.95 US per person. It was set up like any other Churrascaria starting off with a salad bar and followed by a large selection of meats on skewers being brought to your table. The salad bar had a lot of items but we tried to hold down how much we took as we wanted to leave room for the next course of numerous meats. The number of different kinds of meats and the quality of the food was excellent. We were able to try a bit of everything but had no room for a second round of anything. Food keeps coming to your table until you put up the red indicator to pause bringing any more food. The only thing we were disappointed about was the wine. The restaurant menu featured a Malbec from Argentina, but they were all out of it! Instead all they had available was the wines listed on the limited wine list at all of the ship bars. They didn't even offer wines from the extensive wine list of the main ship restaurant. So, we just purchased our favorite wine from that list. They also offered 3 specialty Brazilian Cocktails for $10.95 US each. My sister tried and liked one of those. Overall we enjoyed the food and thought the extra cost was well worth it. |
The Sugarcane Mojito Bar is actually located in the Moderno Churrascaria restaurant. Just follow the signs to Moderno and you will end up in the Sugarcane Mojito Bar before getting to the restaurant seating area. Again, the bar menu was the same as all the other bars on this ship. You can order any drink here that you can order in any other bar on the ship and can probably order the same Mojitos in any bar on the ship as you can order in this bar. |
The mid-ship elevators are the most busy and most slow since they are the only elevators that stop on every floor. The forward elevators stop on every floor other than 14. The aft elevators are the least busy as they only stop on floors 7 through 13. Our room was just a few steps from the aft elevators and stairways. This was very convenient for us as we only had to climb one set of stairs to get up to the Garden Cafe Buffet. That is a short journey that we made frequently on this cruise! It also allowed us quick and easy access to Level 7 where most of the onboard venues were located. It is enjoyable to walk Level 7 as there is always a lot going on at that level. Level 6 is not a through level. You have to go down the correct stairway or elevator to get to a Level 6 venue as they are not all connected to each other on Level 6. |