Iceland and Norwegian Fjords cruise - Emerald Princess (31 May - 17 June, 2025)

* pardon some wonky formatting... it just has a mind of its own sometimes 

Iceland and Norwegian Fjords cruise

Emerald Princess

Built in 2007, the Emerald Princess ship is 114 thousand ton cruise ship that carries 3114 passengers and 1200 crew and has 1544 cabins. Sad fact: on 25 July, 2017, a 43 year-old woman was murdered by her husband in their cabin. He received a 30-year sentence in 2021 and later died, in prison, that same year.

31 May - 17 June, 2025

We took a direct, overnight flight from Ottawa to London. 2 days later, we sailed out of Southampton towards Norway (Stavanger, Skjolden, Olden, and Alesund) followed by a day at sea and then 4 stops in Iceland (Akureyri, Isafjordur, Grundarfjordur and finally Reykjavik). After our 8, wonderful ports, we had 3 sea days to take us back to Southampton.

We arrived in London and took a coach to South Hampton. That evening, we met up with Coggy and Carolyn (Defence Attaché from the UK that we met in Moscow). It was lovely catching up with them and we had a traditional English meal with roast, Yorkshire pudding, etc. We had planned on meeting up with Eric & Helen (whom we also met in Moscow), but unfortunately, our schedules didn't line up.

Monday, June 2nd: Somewhere outside of Southampton 🤷

Jet lagged, but ready to explore, we grabbed a rental car and drove ourselves to Stonehenge! It wasn't necessarily on our bucket list, but it was something different that we had not seen and it turned out to be a wonderful outing for Francine, Alain, Craig & I. Shawn & Tanya stayed back in London to see their old stomping grounds and meet up with friends.

Stonehenge will always remain a bit of a mystery.🤔
Located in Wiltshire, England, in the middle of a large field, are basically a bunch of large, stacked rocks. It consists of an outer ring of vertical stones, each around 13 feet high, seven feet wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal stones, held in place with mortise and tenon joints, a feature unique among contemporary monuments. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice.  
Stonehenge was constructed in several phases beginning about 3100 BC and continuing until about 1600 BC. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage; In 2013, a team of archaeologists, led by Mike Parker Pearson, excavated more than 50,000 cremated bone fragments, from 63 individuals, buried at Stonehenge
(exerpts from Wiki)

It's a bunch of rocks, but it has a strange appeal...maybe because of the mystery surrounding it and how it's built, or knowing the history behind the site

The 4 explorers...these two have been on many vacations with us over the years. Thank you Francine & Alain for being our adventure buddies!

Ta da! The Vanna White of Stonehenge

Showing you a few different angles as we walked around the stones

They had several "selfie" spots where they challenge tourists to re-create fun pictures. Alain and I just HAD to try this pose...not easy, let me tell ya. We ain't no spring chickens! 🐤

Good effort Alain! I highly doubt I'd do as well 13 years from now (when I'd be the same age as you).

Was it heavy Francine? 🤣

Imagine humans moving these huge stones around manually? The strength meter wasn't working, so we'll never know if Craig would have been strong enough! 💪

On the way back to Southampton, we stopped into the village of Salisbury...

The beautiful & impressive Salisbury Cathedral was built over a 38 year period between 1220-1258. The tower & spire, at 404 feet, is the tallest in all of England.

VERY impressive and large

Alain teaching Craig a thing or two. They're a little old for choir boys! 

It's a lovely area to take in the natural surroundings. I can only imagine how much money it takes though to maintain these amazing structures

We were all going to try and fit in there, but I'm not convinced it's possible! Besides, no one should want to be in a confined space with Craig...You don't see telephone booths very often anymore. 🕿

Lovely architecture in Salisbury

Tuesday, June 3rd: 

Sail away from Southampton towards 

Stavanger, Norway

We were heading into "mostly daylight" territory where there was less than 2 hours of darkness. Good thing we had an inside cabin!

Wednesday, June 4th:

day @ Sea 🛳

Thursday, June 5th: Stavanger, Norway

Cloudy with a bit of rain and 12℃ 

We didn't have a tour booked, so we just walked off the ship and explored the cute city (3rd largest in Norway and known as the oil capital...of Norway)

The magnificent views as we sailed into port

Trolls, trolls, and more trolls (and our husbands) ... a huge symbol in Norway. They're not just tacky figures in a giftshop window, they're deeply entrenched in Norse mythology. While much debated, it is agreed that there are two types of trolls...mountain/forest trolls and cave trolls. They're generally depicted as large, dumb, brutish creatures. Trolls of the caves live completely underground, are generally depicted as smaller than humans with large bellies and short arms and legs. They use their connection to nature to baffle and deceive humans. In Norse mythology, neither type of troll are generally friendly to humans. 

Norway is a colourful, vibrant, and expensive Country!
(the cost of a McDonald's meal is about $18 USD)

Love the smile Alain! 😁

The beautiful, old Valberg (Valbergtårnet) tower (constructed in 1853) near the cruise port

The Dudes...lean-machine-Shawn looks cold!

Alain & I clowning around in a teacup playground...and yes, we DID go down the slide; Alain, head first!

Francine admiring the gnome in this Christmassy gift shop


The birthday girl!!!

June 5th, Francine's 69th birthday! Hope you had a wonderful ship birthday Francine! In the background is our sweet waiter for the whole cruise, Woody, from Thailand. What an awesome guy!

Friday, June 6th: Skjoden, Norway

12-18 ℃ with cloud/sun mix, but no rain!

This simple map gives you an idea of just how many fjords there are in Norway! It looks like coral around the coastal perimeter.

The scenery is just stunning in the fjords of Norway. We all really enjoyed the majestic sites on this trip! The sheer scale is SO impressive! Those little, white parts in the picture above are houses and they look so incredibly small compared to the mountains.

Skjolden is a quaint village located at the end of the Lustrafjorden, a branch of the Sognefjorden (Norway's longest fjord). We just walked around, enjoying the scenery.

Looks like I'm going to fall in! Luckily I didn't as it would have been friggin' cold!

The gang of "6 Cruisers" (Craig & I, Shawn & Tanya and Francine & Alain)

We couldn't imagine living in such a remote area with very harsh winters and the real threat of avalanches and land slides always looming over you, but it is incredibly beautiful and peaceful

I wanted to go kayaking in this beautiful area!

Although our ship is very large, it looks dwarfed by the surrounding landscape

Row, row, row your boat...gently down the fjord

Apparently the Norwegian Sea is VERY cold! Alain's feet started to go numb waiting for Craig to get in! These two always have to put their feet in the various bodies of water we come across on our travels

Alain & I hamming it up in the apple structure that shows our ship in the background

A beautiful pic of S&T...including Shawn & Francine's favorite after dinner drink...the "Nutty Irishman"

Saturday, June 7th: Olden, Norway

11 ℃ & partly sunny

Olden is a village in the southern shore of the Nordfjorden ("North Fjord"). We didn't spend any time in the village because we had a "Troll car, glacier and waterfall tour" planned (by Craig). The scenery on the bus was incredible, but difficult to get proper photos of because of the glare of the glass, but it didn't stop us from trying

Beautiful scenery with lots of waterfalls as we sailed into port

. 

The homes at the bottom of this large waterfall must hear the constant crashing of the water. I wonder if they get fresh water from it? 🤔

The pictures don't do the scenery justice. The lush green hillside was way more impressive in person

I mean, come on... you can't really get more quaint and scenic view than that in a cruise port?!

We were excited to get going on our tour here

I loved this spot! So picturesque.

Grass roof dwellings were an common way to construct homes in the past

Just look at this scenery as we were in the bus on the way to the Briksdal glacier

The money shot of the glacier (from the bus)

Again, you can see the scale of these mountains in comparison to the large tour bus on the right 

Troll car journey to get us closer to the Briksdal glacier area (we could have walked, but it was pretty far and more fun in the troll car)

Beautiful waterfall along the route. It almost doesn't look real!

Such a majestic and impressive area

There it is! The Briksdal Glacier

Shawn & Tanya enjoying the scenery

The gang with the glacier! Francine is wearing her beautiful, hand-made (by her) merino wool sweater

The classic, "hold up the rock" pic!
You're so strong Craig! 💪

Incredibly beautiful area and not TOO many tourists there yet. Of course, the glacier used to fill the valley, but now it has receded way up the rock face. Global warming...

Good one! It looks like you're going to land in the water, but you did not (Craig thinks he is so graceful....but he is not)

Love the reflection in the water

The water was so clear and still to enable to get the reflection of the mountain

Had I known my right hand was level with the mountain top I could have done one of those optical illusion photos! 

Would have been funny if he actually fell in!

Craig's Norseman pose! Imagine having a home built here? So beautiful! I love the mountains! 🗻

Aummm.....☮

S&T chillin'

F&A taking in the beauty

From this...

...to this!

It looks dangerous...as if I'm going to fall over the mountain edge, but there was little possibility of that

And we're back to the gift shop within the Jostedal Glacier national park. SUCH a great day! Loved this tour! Thank you again honey, for arranging it!

Sailing away from Olden...

Sunday, June 8th: Alesund, Norway

Mix of sun, cloud and light rain, +10℃

Craig enjoying a morning tea in the piazza before walking off the ship to explore the town of Alesund that destroyed the old wooden city by fire in the winter of 1904 when an animal knocked over a lit torch in a factory. Because of the fire, it is now known for it's unique architecture (very unlike other parts of Norway)

The incredible view from our ship...see that big rock (Aksla Viewpoint)? Craig, Alain & I climbed up it (Shawn, Tanya & Francine took the (lazy) tourist train)

Check out the zig-zag path we took to the top of the mountain (left side of the picture of the mountain)

Craig & the town, from the ship (note the yellow building in the background)

That same yellow building from part way up the mountain on our hike

Our ship, way down there

The three adventurers!

The 2 fun kids!

Cool cloud formation

Definitely worth all the effort to see these views

408+ steps as well as a steady incline before getting to those steps

Great views all around

I probably should NOT have leaned back on that glass, but I lived to get the picture!

Alain recreating the famous Titanic scene:
"Craig, I'm flying"

💥That face! 💥

"More trolls"...that's no way to talk about our husbands Francine! 🤣

There's some good points in there!

Beautiful waterfront area. When they rebuilt the city after the fire, they modelled it after modern, European cities

That's a cute one! Find anything in there Alain?

Entire wall shelf of troll dolls!

It was a wee bit chilly out there for our sail away, but worth being out there for those views!

Just beautiful! The scenery was maybe my favorite from all our cruises. Maybe even better than Alaska!

Good-lookin' bunch!

Monday, June 9th:

Day @ Sea 🛳 heading towards Iceland!

Tuesday, June 10th: Akureyri, Iceland

Sunny & +8℃

I hope you can open the video...

Our wonderful combo tour of the Goðafoss waterfall, Laufás turf houses and the Christmas house

On the way, our guide pointed out the heart-shaped, red traffic light! That's awesome! 💗

The runway at Akureyri's airport

And here we are at the lovely and impressive Goðafoss waterfall (although saying "waterfall" after "Goðafoss" is redundant, since "foss" means "waterfall" in the Icelandic language). Goðafoss translates to "waterfall of the Gods". Apparently, the language was created in a way to create long words since they are most often several words combined to make one. The language stemmed from Old Norse (as Iceland first was settled by Norwegians).
Example of a long, Norwegian compound word: 

“Menneskerettighetsorganisasjonene”

Translation: Human rights organizations

Craig translates to "God of thundering gas"! 

Cool rock formation that looked like an animal head (use your imagination 😉)

Downward from the main waterfall - such a beautiful spot with incredible colour in the rugged landscape

It started getting warmer after our little hike around

More incredible scenery from the bus

LOVE it! So beautiful!

Views from the Laufás turf houses

Located in Eyjafjörður fjord in North-Iceland, you will find one of the biggest turf houses in Iceland, the Laufás turf house. Laufás was rebuilt in 1866-1870 by Rev. Björn Halldórsson. The last inhabitants of these types of historic turf houses moved out in the mid 20th century.

What a unique structure! Such a labyrinth inside, with incredibly thick wood/earth walls.

They really shouldn't let us silly tourist touch the props! 

The dark kitchen

The adorable church next door to the turf houses

Inhabitants would have endured very harsh winters in these dwellings. Imagine how damp and cold it would have been? We're so incredibly spoiled these days with all the modern conveniences. We never would have survived here!

You can see the mud walls on the left

This is the back of the houses. You'd think water would leak through the grass and earth, but I guess it hardened to near like cement

Norwegian flag

The small, Icelandic horses
(do NOT call them ponies, they get very offended)!

The Christmas House was a cute stop, but I expected the decorations to be more unique and authentic, but it seemed to just be similar to our decorations we use in Canada

I loved the little rock people used as welcome signs in various stores, and the coin floor here!

We didn't realize it at the time, but this Viking cruise ship was sailing around this spot for a while because there were whale sightings 🐳

Wednesday, June 11th: Isafjordur, Iceland

Small, scenic town, but not a ton of activities or sites to see.

Sunny & + 10℃

Alain looks way more comfortable!

We didn't have a tour here, so we just walked around town and played in the park. This cruise was not fun for shopping, because both Norway and Iceland are VERY expensive countries and things just seemed way too over-priced to bother

Found this fun jumping pad in the park. Let's just say I had to do another load of laundry after jumping up and down on that. 😕

Alain doin' his own thing back there...🤣

Aunt Judy, this was the ONLY cat we saw on this entire trip, so I had to get a picture of him. He would NOT look at me though, so this is the best I could get. He does not look hungry.

Love the shape of this mountain

Ok, so this picture kind of tells the story all on it's own, but it was such a drunky afternoon that I have no idea when it happened! Well, that's not true, I know it was after Francine's birthday and took place in the afternoon when we were playing cards, on a day we didn't have a full day tour the next day, but otherwise, it's a little foggy. It was a picture from Francine's camera, so I can't even find the date, so I'll just plunk it in here. It was a fun, giggly afternoon and all 3 of us were perfectly fine the next day too! Lesson learned, I should drink more martini's! 🍸

Thursday, June 12th: Grundarfjordur, Iceland

We actually just stayed on board this day as it was cloudy, windy and cool (+10 ℃) and there wasn't much to see that we couldn't just see from the ship - also, it was a tendered port, so we would have had to take a very rocky, 20-minute lifeboat ride 

🤮🥴

Very cool, early-morning cloud/fog formation as we sailed into port

Friday, June 13th: Reykjavik, Iceland

Sunny and 18℃!!! We had a "Golden Circle with Kerid volcanic crater" tour booked through Viator. It was a lot of driving (from 8 am - 5 pm), but we were privileged to see the treasures of the UNESCO-listed Thingvellir National Park.

All of Iceland is one big, geothermic island and apparently people sometimes find holes where the earth bubbles up into the middle of their homes! 

Kerið is the northernmost of four craters situated along an 800-meter fissure called the Tjarnarhólar row. It was formed through explosive volcanic activity (classified as a maar) and is elliptical, measuring approximately 55 m (180 ft) deep, 170 m (560 ft) wide, and 270 m (890 ft) across. Sources differ as to when the explosion occurred that created the crater, ranging from 6,420 years ago to 9,000 years ago.

Where's Waldo? Can you see me WAY over there with my hands up in the air?

It's a beautiful spot with lovely-coloured water

An igloo Airbnb in the middle of nowhere

Up close with the Icelandic horses

The impressive Gulfoss Falls (beautiful, but a little hard to get the full view of them)

"Ahh, look at all the little people"

Alain & I took the extra walk down closer to the falls, but it's a lot of effort for not any better of a viewpoint. 😫

Alain being our tester to see how hot the water is from the geysir run off...it's not

This is an area filled with geysers. Very cool

This one erupts regularly - about every 6 minutes (Strokkur geyser)

The Strokkur geyser erupting and the wind blew the water and sulfur smell our way! 

A very cool spot with the two (old) geysers

This one looks like a bunny pursing his lips! 🐇

Apparently, this glacier is rarely visible because of the weather, but today we were blessed to have a really beautiful day

This area full of huge crevices was formed due to the moving of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates

They did it again (Iceland Sea)...probably felt good after an all-day tour

Nice spot! There was a guy sunbathing here. I guess for the locals, this was HOT and amazing weather

Back on the ship to witness the creative fruit carvings from the chefs

Saturday, June 14th:

Day @ sea 🛳 towards Southampton, England

Sunday, June 15th:

Day @ sea 🛳

Monday, June 16th:

Day @ sea 🛳

The last three days of the cruise were sea days, which meant lots of drinking and playing cards!

Tuesday, June 17th: Arrived back in Southampton, took a taxi to the bus station to head back to London Heathrow & flew home.

 As always, we enjoyed spending time with our friends (The 6 Cruisers!), visiting new places and finding new adventures!  Craig is REALLY enjoying his retirement and already has our fall cruise (Caribbean) and winter holidays (Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific, Cambodia and Philippines) booked!