Oslo in the rear view mirror - July 13, 2024

SUMMARY Leisurely morning in Oslo. Boarded the Azamara Onward ship with our bags and were able to completely unpack and get settled quickly (the beauty of cruising and carry-on luggage)! Left port in the late afternoon, sailing through the beautiful Oslo archipelago. Dinner in the main dining room followed by the evening’s entertainment in the Cabaret Lounge.  - Karen

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DETAIL We wake and I check a free app to see where our ship is. The cruise company was fairly noncommittal about that. “Here’s where we think we’ll be, but these ports can change their minds so best to check with the port where our ship is… here’s a link to their site… good luck”. What the actual F.

I have a free app that shows where all the ships in the world are, and thankfully our ship is where we expect it to be.

It turns out we get an amazing breakfast included with our room. Brown sweet cheese (Gjetost), pre-sliced! Yogurt and nuts. No flax seed but they do have linseed. Like linseed oil?? It’s fine. And caviar (in small toothpaste style tubes). The range of different crackers (like sailor’s hardtack of old) and hearty bread is amazing. There are lots of guests also having breakfast. Most seem to be Scandinavian and the children are very well behaved.

On previous cruises we got the super duper liquor package that’s a bit pricey and encourages excessive drinking. Not this time. So… I check to see how many bottles of wine (and/or beer and/or hard liquor) we can bring aboard. It’s funny to look at YouTube and Amazon for the various ways to get around these limits. Anyway… Azamara’s limit? They have none. Bring all you want. Free to drink in you room. 10€ a bottle if you bring it to dinner. Hm. So we go buy six or so bottles of wine (and a small bottle of vodka).

We finish packing (including all our wine) and do more city walking. It’s the weekend so there are even more protests, marches and chanting. We ask the desk clerk what they’re saying. He paraphrases: “Not all [middle easterners/arabs/Iranians] are terrorists.

We stop into the Steen & Strøm department store, where my mom took us shopping 56 years ago. We buy prunes, salted liquorish and water. I don’t recognize much, which is no surprise. We check out by the noon deadline and hang out in the lobby til closer to our 2pm boarding time.

In front of the hotel, OsloTaxi cabs come and go. It’s a 23 minute walk to the port… maybe… if we know where we’re going. With all our wine now we’re really weighed down. We decide to take an OsloTaxi (we’re told they’re trustworthy). We stand at the curb (at a taxi stand) and lots of taxis from OTHER companies pull up. “No, thanks”. Finally we take an off-brand cab. It was a seven day old, all-electric BMW. Very nice. But it wasn’t cheap, for such a short ride. We realize we should have waited for the OsloTaxi (but the new-smelling BMW was nice).

We check in and haul our liquor-laden suitcases to our cabin. “May I help you with that, sir?” Groan… “Oh no, I got it” I gasp.

We sign up for our specialty restaurant dinners. We thought we’d paid for twelve dinners, it turns out we only paid for three. Long story. We didn’t know there’d be math.

We unpack and head up to the “crow’s nest” (called The Living Room on Azamara ships). It’s on the top floor, er deck, of the ship and has lots of comfortable seating. It has views forward and to both sides, a bar, a small stage, and a dance floor. We watch the boat, er ship, leave Oslo and order adult beverages.

We’re soon chatting it up with Neville and Jacqueline from just east of London. They have the most wonderful accents and no end of funny stories, that is to say, they’re British.

Back in the room we ship off our daily missive and head to dinner in the main dining room, table for two please. We have a lovely dinner and watch the craggy, tree filled shoreline pass not far away as we glide through (what we assume is called) the Oslo Archipelago.

At nine we’re in the big theater where the cruise director introduces us to all of the fun things that will be going on during the cruise. After that each entertainer does a song (or dance or musical piece) so we know what’s coming. There’s talent aboard for sure. And at long last, we are too.

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Photos

First thing upon getting up I check an app to check the actual location of our ship. Thankfully it's right where it should be. We know where to go.

We normally just have coffee in the morning but this breakfast spread is amazing (plust it's included in the price of our room).

There's salmon and herring, and Gjetost (brown sweet Norwegian cheese), pre-sliced! We've never seen that before.

We've also never seen caviar in little toothpaste tubes. Karen put one in her pocket to try later. Alas we can't find it. Hopefully whoever finds it doesn't think it is toothpaste!

A healthy breakfast a horse would love. We certainly did.

Blue sky and sunshine and Norwegian flags are flying over the Grand Hotel. That place seems familiar from my youth, but don't recall why.

In the background marchers are chanting, protesting how they feel they're being mistreated. In the foreground are the OsloTaxi's that we should have taken to the cruiseport.

At the cruiseport they have all kinds of stuff for sale, including warm down jackets. We wonder if we didn't pack enough warm clothes!

They're loading the food we'll be eating onto the ship, including a few potatoes, shown here.

Clothes (mostly) put away, we stow our empty luggage under the bed. Outside the window the green islets of the Oslo Archipeligo glide by (we think that's what it's called).

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