The last day on a cruise is always interspersed with jarring reminders that the realities of life are about to take over once more. The disembarkation schedule is one such reminder. We’d need to be hanging around the Observatory given our cabin location, forward on Deck 10. More on the disembarkation at the end of this write-up, because we laughed. What we did like about this note of impending departure, though, was the voyage summary and the breakdown of where all the members of the crew came from.

Another reminder of your cruise coming to an end is the appearance of suitcases outside cabins, awaiting collection so they can be delivered ashore and picked up by you after disembarking. We sometimes hear people making a big deal about needing time to pack to go home and it puzzles us as we’re of the mindset that everything is going to need to be washed anyway so just wrap up the souvenirs and anything vaguely fragile, then stuff the cases with everything from the closets, drawers, and wherever you’ve been storing your dirty underwear (one of the cases does this job for us). If this takes us more then four minutes then we get concerned. It’s not a happy task, and the cabin always looks so cold and bare immediately afterwards, but it is a quick task.

Our cruise was finishing with some lovely bright weather. It wasn’t super-warm as we were just in April at this point, but the views were lovely.

We joined forces with another couple for trivia for the first time and we won comfortably, then engaged in another spot of prize-swapping with other cruisers to give away our bottle of fizz again and ensure we ended up with one of every type of keepsake prize that Ambassador gave out. Were they good prizes? No. But that’s half the joy of them.

Our last dinner aboard Ambience was spent in the company of our irregular dining companions. Irregular in the sense that I’m not sure we sat with them for dinner for two nights in a row at any point of this cruise as one or both of us couples seemed to have other plans. We had four courses on this final evening in the main dining room. We usually have a starter or a soup or salad, but not both, but as we were sharing a table and our fellow diners had ordered from each course it felt only polite and sensible to do the same so we weren’t sitting there and twiddling our thumbs while they ate.

We couldn’t afford to go crazy in the nightclub until the early hours as I’d be driving home the following morning, but we spent some time there, had a farewell drink or two, enjoyed the music, then made our way to bed for the last time on Ambience. Even the polar bear in one of the elevators seemed to be sadly saying goodbye to us.

We needed to be out of our cabin considerably earlier than our scheduled disembarkation time. Cruise lines like to get a head-start on cleaning those rooms ahead of a new batch of passengers and you can hardly blame them for that. The same people who moan that they’re being turfed out of their rooms so early will generally be the same people who moan that their rooms aren’t ready on embarkation when they’ve boarded at the first possible moment too.

One advantage to this early start for us was that we got to see some of the early morning approach to London Tilbury cruise port along the Thames. It’s a river that you associate with skyscrapers and bascule bridges and people selling internal organs to pay for a glass of wine at tables outside bars alongside it, but this far to the east there’s far more of a river cruise through the countryside air to it all. Not that we’ve done a river cruise through the countryside. We don’t think we’re river cruise people.

And then Tilbury cruise port came into view and the wait began for our disembarkation at the end of a superb cruise with Ambassador Cruise Line. For a little more information about Tilbury cruise port and a few more photos of it, the ship, and the Thames, you can look at our Ambience embarkation write-up from the start of this cruise.

I mentioned that we were entertained by the disembarkation process. There was a schedule that you can see in the first photo in this post and we were informed numerous times over the speakers on the day before and on this morning that we had to wait until our section was called before disembarking. Now, this didn’t apply to anyone who self-disembarked – that’s people who carry their own luggage off – but for everyone else who’d put their cases out for collection the night before it was important that we wait.

Some people who’d put their luggage out didn’t want to wait, possibly under the assumption that as soon as Ambience got within range of the dock it would start loading up the cases onto teleporter pads and beaming them ashore in batches. However, Ambience is an old ship without fictional matter-energy transportation systems, and she uses an older method of crew pushing trolleys loaded with cases into the luggage hall in the order of cabins in that disembarkation schedule. And if you get off early – and many people did – then you’re left to stand in a cavernous space with doors open to chilly April winds, no cases in sight for you yet, and – because you’ve got off the ship at this point – no way to get back on. There were some upset people standing around and asking if they could re-board. Oh. Sorry. No.

As I said earlier, we laughed.

And that concludes this first experience of cruising with Ambassador. It was spectacular. We loved the itinerary, we adored the ship, we found ourselves loving the way that Ambassador do things, and this was a cruise with a fabulous crew aboard. And we will be back and cruising with Ambassador again. At the time of writing this we have plans to try out Ambassador Ambition out of Portsmouth in early 2027, then we will be jumping back on Ambience out of London in late 2028 for a return to Norway’s Arctic Circle when we’ll also be treating ourselves to a suite as it will be a big wedding anniversary for us.

In an ideal world, Ambience would have docked right in the middle of the city and we’d have had a decision about whether to take a tour at all or simply walk straight into the city for a good look around, but we’d been told ahead of time that it was far more likely that we’d be at the South Harbour port instead, about three kilometres away. That’s not too far to walk but it did mean that we paid more attention to whether there were any excursions that might interest us instead, using the reasoning that if we really, really wanted to look around Aberdeen we could always drive up this way at some time. We probably wont, because there’s a good chance that a car drive to Scotland will find itself low down the list of Things That Might Be Enjoyable, but we could.

Aberdeen’s South Harbour is not the most thrilling of cruise ports.

It was handy, then, that we’d booked ourselves on a trip to visit Crathes Castle. The excitement began before we’d even arrived at the historic site – and, indeed, that arrival was in some doubt for a while – when our bus suddenly came to a halt on a long road somewhere along the 25 kilometres route from Aberdeen. The traffic had stopped and it wasn’t clear what was happening so the guide eventually got off the bus and made her way up the road on foot to see what the problem was. What had occurred was that a farm vehicle had tipped over off the side of the road and was leaking fuel. Traffic couldn’t go past it for safety so cars were being told they needed to turn in the road and head back the other way. But there wasn’t enough room for the bus to do this and reversing several kilometres was out of the question. In addition, there was no phone signal where we were so nobody could get in touch with the cruise line to let them know what had happened. To say that our guide was panicking would be an understatement, even though we were mostly all calm and telling her to not worry about it.

But, as you already know because this write-up isn’t titled “That Day We Got Stuck On A Road And Didn’t Go On A Tour And Got Left Behind By Our Cruise Ship“, the problem was resolved. At some point a determination was seemingly made that the leaking fuel wasn’t that dangerous after all, or it had stopped, or a bus of tourists were expendable, and we got the okay to proceed, even if would now reduce the amount of time we had at our destination. We’d still have more than enough, though.

The land at Crathes had been given to the Burnetts of Leys family by Robert the Bruce in 1323, and wooden fortifications were built on it, but it wasn’t until the second half of the sixteenth century that the present tower house was constructed. Additional wings and improvements were made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. What you can see now if you’re visiting isn’t a castle in the traditional sense and it wasn’t a building that saw any action of note, but it does have some lovely interiors and gardens, as you’ll see below. One thing to note, though, is that accessibility is somewhat limited with very narrow staircases and small rooms, plus a decent slope up from the car park to the building and again down to the gardens. One of the women on our tour was restricted from seeing much of anything inside as a result and needed quite a bit of assistance just to get her to and from the gardens.

Crathes Castle has quite a few original pieces of furniture on display, but the ceiling decorations in places were more interesting to me. Alcoves in the grandly-named if not grandly-sized Grand Hall were particularly interesting. In here, over the fireplace, we could also see the Horn of Leys which, in addition to being a great euphemism for an erection is also reputedly another fourteenth century gift from Robert the Bruce.

The narrow stairwell in the photos below should give you some idea of what you’ll need to be capable of climbing if you visit this Scottish site although there were some routes that were less constricted.

A design fad in Scotland in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was “Scottish Renaissance Painted Ceilings” and the ones that survived later renovations in Crathes Castle are very good examples of this type of decoration.

That covers the interior, and we were fortunate enough to be visiting Crathes Castle on a very sunny day in April so we then had plenty of time to explore and enjoy the walled garden area too. We’d have probably done so even if it was tipping down but we’re rather glad it wasn’t. The garden is split into eight sections and some of the yew trees and topiary were planted in 1702 but the majority of the work involved in laying out the garden in this attractive way is more recent, generally from the early parts of the twentieth century.

And that’s some of what you can see inside Crathes Castle and its walled garden. Where else are you going to be able to make comments about the Horn of Leys and nicely-trimmed bushes and get that level of eye-roll from your wife while protesting your innocence?

The journey back to Aberdeen was without incident and we were offered the chance to be dropped off in the city in order to look around and make our own way back. We’d only have an hour or two there, partly due to the reduced time at the castle, and all the walking up and down slopes and steep, narrow staircases had aggravated my wife’s knees a little so we decided we’d leave Aberdeen for another day. Maybe.

A quiz was won by us back on the ship and we swapped our bottle of fizz for a luggage tag, but you probably only want to see what we ate in the dining room aboard Ambience that evening instead. You and your cruise ship food obsession.

This penultimate night of the cruise was spent in the Observatory nightclub until the early hours once again.

All that remains of this cruise is one more sea day heading down the east coast of England before arrival in London the following morning, and that will all be covered in the next and final post from this Ambassador Ambience cruise series.

This, then, is a photographic record of what we got up to for these sea days. There is the remotest of chances that you might have read one of the previous sea day accounts from this cruise and remembered how we like to spend sea days, but for everyone else reading this then it’s fair to summarise these days as ones where we generally do sod all. We eat, we read, we do trivia, we drink, we stay up late and dance. We don’t go in for many activities even though we keep saying we should, if only so that these sea day accounts in cruise travelogues aren’t quite so similar all the time. The first of the two sea days was very much in this tradition.

After the rain and wind and rough seas of the night before we were greeted by blue skies when we opened our curtains and stepped out onto the balcony. It was still a little rocky and that meant we had some lovely views of the waves slamming into the front of the ship and crashing past in thundering foam sprays.

Assume we did all the usual things we tend to do and that I didn’t photograph anything worthy of showing you, because that’s what happened next. As usual, here’s what we ate in the main dining room on our shared table for four in our late fixed dining slot.

After dinner we did something we don’t normally do. Not that, you filthy-minded swine. There was a comedian doing a set in the theatre and we thought, why not? There were some laughs and I’d rate the overall set and quality of comedy as okay, but nothing more than that. It’s all subjective. There’s a comedian who does the circuit on P&O ships that loads of people love and he is, quite frankly, in our opinion, abysmal. Horses for courses. The theatre space on Ambience is worthy of a quick mention, though, as it’s wonderful. So much space, tables by the seats, and even waiter service while you’re watching a performance. We don’t do shows, as you know, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t done shows in the past, and the contrast between this venue where it was designed around passengers’ comfort and modern theatre venues which seem to be designed simply for passenger quantity was impossible to miss.

We spent the remainder of the night in the Observatory until the lights came up, then it was off to our cabin with a quick reminder to change our clocks to UK time awaiting us. We didn’t go straight to bed, though, because there was another lovely aurora show in the sky to gaze at first from our balcony. It was a bit of a shame that the moon was so bright and right in line with where all the activity was taking place.

Day two was a little busier for my camera.

It started after breakfast with an ice carving demonstration out on the top deck. We’ve seen these sorts of things on several ships and there’s a nice amount of skill displayed by the artists, although it’s not always the easiest job in the world to work out what the final sculpture actually is. Please feel free to guess.

I then left my wife in a quiet lounge area to read her book while I took advantage of the bright conditions and took a wander around Ambassador Ambience to snap some photos.

I started around the atrium area and the SW19 bar which, as you may be able to guess from its name, is Wimbledon-themed and includes some tennis memorabilia dotted around. We didn’t spend a lot of time at this location on this cruise, and not just because tennis is one of the dullest sports to have been invented, although if the other bars and lounges were busy then it was the place to come and get a drink. For a central hub of a ship, it was generally far quieter than anywhere else.

A couple of photos from the theatre that we’d seen the comedian perform in the day before, mostly just to show off the seating space and tables all around.

Our history of visiting casinos on board cruise ships is a brief one. We used to do the penny-drop, Tipping Point-style game on Princess ships and we have in the past had the odd dollar bill on us that we’ve fed into one-armed bandits so long as they’ve got proper arms to pull, but as these are typically smoky spots on ships we mostly avoid them unless we have no option but to pass through. The casino – if you can call it that – on Ambience is… tiny. I don’t think we saw two people in it at once at any point in the cruise.

Like all cruise ships, there’s an area where plaques are displayed to commemorate first times in ports. These are always interesting to us, partly to look through and think “Been there… been there… going there next year… been there…” and partly to see which ports make an effort with their plaques and which are a bit more perfunctory.

If you’re into crafts and games then Ambassador seem to have you covered from our limited experience of seeing some room space given over to them and to what activities were arranged on sea days. I’ve mentioned before that taking part in these sorts of things is something we keep saying we should try, but we are terribly introverted and have managed to find excuses not to, so far.

Raffles is a very different sort of venue during the day. It’s amazing what darkness and lights – and the availability of cocktails – does to a room.

The elevators on Ambience are decidedly quirky. Not only are they decorated in unique styles, which allows you to play a game of guessing what sort of decoration you’re going to get when you call for a lift, but some were remarkably unreliable too. Did we get trapped in a lift once? Yes. Did a lift one day just choose its own direction and floors to stop at for both us and other confused people? Also yes. It’s just part of the character, though, and we loved it.

I finished off my solo stroll around the ship by popping out onto the promenade deck then up to the top deck for some shots. A shot of the wake was included because of course it was. You can see that by this point on the second sea day we’d slowed right down and were in far calmer waters.

After a lovely sunset at sea – well, every sunset at sea is lovely – it was time for the usual mix of drinking, trivia, and dining, before more drinking and dancing into the early hours. There was a Baked Alaska Parade in the main dining room so no surprises what we had for dessert.

The next post sees us reach the last port of call on this cruise, and another new port for us as we stop at Aberdeen but head off on an excursion to see Crathes Castle.

The expected long day in the Lofoten Islands and subsequent day in Bodø was pushed to one side during an early morning announcement. The captain of Ambience informed us that the stop in Lofoten was still going ahead, albeit rather truncated, and that Bodø was being cancelled in order to get the ship ahead of a storm projected to otherwise cause the ship some serious problems. Furthermore, with this being a tender port, priority would be given to those on booked trips that still had enough time to go ahead, so for those of us who’d been intending to have a more leisurely, play-it-by-ear day on land that short time would be shorter again. We were still absolutely going to get off the ship, though. A new port? You’ve got to step ashore at the very least.

We had a relaxed breakfast and kept an eye on the tender boats shuttling between the ship’s anchorage and the small cruise port a couple of kilometres south of the town of Leknes.

Our original idea for how to spend the day in Lofoten had been to get out somewhere to take photos of the landscapes which we’d been told were stunning, then to circle around to Leknes, see if there were any museums or similar places of interest open, see if we could grab a drink, then walk back to the port. But, of course, that idea was based on the premise that we’d have a long day here and we were down to just a few hours ashore now. So, by the time the tender boats were available for general use we’d already adjusted what we were going to do to a far simpler one of taking the shuttle bus into town to save time, having a quick look around to see if anything was open, then seeing if we could find a reasonably scenic walking route back.

On the short ride across the water to the port we could see a large building with the sort of architecture that said “Oh yeah, I’m a modern museum dedicated to the stunning nature you see around you” and that’s the sort of thing we like. We had a quick nose at the map to see if it was open, only to realise it was a school. Our schools did not look like that, and they didn’t have those views.

At the small cruise port where the tender boat docked we could see what looked like a small tourist operation in place for water-based trips. On another day it might be something we’d consider.

The shuttle bus ride to Leknes was short and also along a rather dull and surprisingly busy stretch of main road. I could see that my wife was looking at it and thinking it would not be pleasant to walk along it back to the port so I reassured her that I’d identified something a bit more rural when we returned and this made her feel worse. She is prone to anxiety when she doesn’t know where she is, and when it comes to travelling that turns out to be almost everywhere, almost all the time. Her sense of direction would be worthy of study if she had one. Fortunately, never fear, Mark and his magnetic-sensing mind is here! I can typically pinpoint myself and where we need to go with expectations of turns and waypoints to look out for after a short glance at a map, and even on a cloudy day I can usually just tell north, south, east, and west by intuition.

Oh, I am so going to get absolutely lost the next time we’re somewhere off the beaten path now.

Anyway, we were dropped off in a car park between some shops, none of which interested us. Sure, Norwegian supermarkets can be a source of saying things like “Jesus! How much for a packet of crisps!?” and “What the!? Liquorice-flavoured bread! But why!?” but we had water on us, we weren’t hungry, and we didn’t know how long the weather would remain dry so it wasn’t very long before we’d ascertained that we might as well just start a slow bimble back along the road I’d spotted.

Leknes isn’t quite a one-road town, but it’s not far off it. While the bus had brought us to it on a newer road that curves around the eastern side of the town, we were heading out on what was clearly the original main road, now very lightly-used. Further from the town centre the houses became more spread out which gave us occasional glimpses at the mountainous landscape that wrapped around the place but the low and complete cloud cover didn’t help matters so I mostly enjoyed some of the functional architecture of businesses we were passing to start with.

It wasn’t long before we could tell we were outside the town and onto the quiet single road that headed south, and at last the views we’d been hoping to see came into sight. Mostly. It’s a place that would be lovely to see on a clear day, that’s for certain.

The weather didn’t entirely hold off for us, and our walk was accompanied by a fine and very cold drizzle. We could see plenty of signs around that the temperature was holding at or below zero and a brisk walk might have made this more tolerable but one of us does like to take photos so that wasn’t going to happen.

The sudden appearance of signs of industrialisation let us know that we were nearing the port but there were still some pleasing sights to see in the vicinity. When you’re in Norway, you’re usually only a short distance from a gorgeous view.

There were enough people in the queue to get back on the ship that we had to wait for a second tender boat. The wind was picking up, the chilly, misty drizzle was persisting, and only the thought of hot drinks and alcohol aboard were keeping us warm. The first thing we did when we got back on Ambience was head straight to the café in the main atrium.

Another reason for not heading straight to our cabin where the promise of a hot shower awaited was that we realised we were close to the time for some afternoon trivia in the Botanical Lounge on Ambience so, after finishing our drinks in the atrium, we made our way there to challenge our brains. A science-fiction theme helped a lot and the low attendance didn’t hurt – there were still some boats due to return as we’d not left it to the very last moment to get back – because we won the trivia and picked up our second prize of the cruise to go with the stress ball we’d already won: a flimsy, Ambassador-branded fridge magnet! The prizes on Ambassador were wonderfully woeful.

Time for showers and changing into evening attire next, even though it was late afternoon. That’s the crazy sort of rule-breaking we do when we’re cold.

At this time, everyone was aboard and Ambience started to head away from Lofoten. The wind was getting noticeably stronger, the clouds were getting fuller, the seas were getting choppier. It was easy to see why the captain had made the decision he did.

Lounges for entertainment either side of food then occupied the remainder of this day, and that started with the evening trivia in the Purple Turtle where we actually won again, picking up some fizz this time around. We had the top-tier drinks package anyway so winning the bottle wasn’t a big deal for us, but we would make use of it later in the cruise in a way that caused a member of staff to look at us like we’d grown another head each. No, it’s not what your filthy mind is thinking.

And here’s dinner.

With an unexpected sea day coming up we were free to stay up as late as we wanted in the Observatory, and we did. It was quieter up there on this evening and that was due to some definite lurching of the ship in the front edges of the storm we were trying to outrun. If there are rough seas then you can usually find us at the highest point of the ship near the front or back as that’s where most of the fun can be had. It’s quite surprising just how few people share this opinion.

The next post in this series covers two sea days on Ambience, and, in a break from the tradition I’ve established in these cruise write-ups, there are some actual things to show off other than the sea and food: more Northern Lights, ice carving, and some actual photos taken around the cruise ship like I’m one of those cruise bloggers who seems to think that what the world needs most is another ship or cabin tour.

We were on the Norwegian Sea and heading south! Did you even know there was a Norwegian Sea? No, us neither, but there is, and it’s apparently a “marginal sea”, which is something that geographers have invented so they can re-classify existing world features to justify retaining employment now that everything has been mapped.

Here’s a look at the sorts of things you could get up to on a sea day aboard an Ambassador ship.

Food preparation demonstration, sales pitches masquerading as talks, bingo, dance classes: these are just some of the things we weren’t interested in, but that’s because we’re not representative of everyone and some people will actually want to do these activities. Maybe not the sales pitches. Earlier in the day there were lots of craft-based events (something Ambassador seems to do very well) which is something we keep saying we should join in with, then never do, while later events coalesced around music and game show or trivia entertainment. That’s more our thing. Mornings for us tend to be for relaxation and reading and recovering from hangovers until our brains and livers feel rejuvenated enough for a session of punishment and reward again.

We typically bounce around the ship’s venues during the morning on sea days, sometimes to avoid busier spots, sometimes to track down some trivia taking place, but always to give our room steward time to clean our room. In the afternoon we like to hit our room for a while if we’ve got a balcony as it’s our quiet space, and watching the sea roll past and thinking about how small we are on it is part of the utter joy that is cruising. The distant Norwegian landscape was still as wonderfully icy and enchantingly beautiful as it had been on the northbound cruise along this part of the world.

Not photographed, but mentioned here because it’s a thing that happened and this is an account of things that happened, is that we saw an orca surfacing very close to us. To date, it’s the only orca we’ve ever seen – we’ve become a bit blasé about whales and dolphins now, don’t you know? – and it was a fabulous experience. They have such distinctive fins. The size of it suggested it was a male.

We took part in Ambassador’s “Nice & Easy Trivia” once again, and once again unsuccessfully. It’s definitely trivia, it’s definitely nice. Easy, it ain’t. However, spoiler alert: we’d do a lot better tomorrow. This quiz on Ambience takes places in the Purple Turtle bar, and, like the easy quiz that isn’t, it’s a misleading name as there’s next to no purple to be seen. And don’t get me started on the lack of turtles. It did have cocktails, though.

After our lovely speciality dining experience the evening before in Saffron it was back to the main dining room tonight. Ambassador have fixed dining and shared tables, in line with many other smaller and older cruise lines, and our dining companions were actually present on this evening. We probably only saw each other on a quarter of the evenings for meals as one or both of us booked other things. We got on perfectly well with them, though.

It won’t be a surprise to learn that after dinner we spent time in Raffles, the absolutely gorgeous piano lounge on Ambience. It was a night when there was no scheduled entertainment taking place in there so it was quieter than normal and we’d become attached to the comfy wingback chairs around the edges of the venue so thought it would be nice to sit and relax for a bit. We’d only intended to stay for one or two drinks but because it was so empty in there we ended up speaking for ages with one of the members of staff who had nothing else to really do, hearing about her life back home and what it was like working for Ambassador, then with a solo cruiser from Essex who told us tales about the single men she’d met aboard. Oh, there was good gossip.

After the late-night tray of snacks had made their rounds we popped up to the Observatory for music and drinking into the early hours, as normal. Because we’d seen the Northern Lights the evening before and there was a chance to see them again we took our hoodies with us in case there was any extended time out on the deck oohing and aahing, and my wife ended up leaving her Nightmare Before Christmas-branded one in the club at the end of the night. We only realised this in the morning but, fortunately, it had been handed in at reception.

In the next post we reach what should have been the penultimate Norwegian port of call on this Ambience cruise into the Arctic Circle but the weather would have something to say about those plans. We still get off the ship and have some time ashore in the Lofoten Islands, though.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, we’d had a long day, so with us only remaining in Alta for the morning we decided that we’d stay aboard rather than have a little walk ashore which had been our original intention. There was light cloud when we opened our curtains but this day would prove to have some gloriously clear skies later, something that would have been useful the evening before, but then again, we’d been snowed on when we’d been walking around Alta and that’s almost a rarer event for us than seeing the Northern Lights so we were perfectly happy with how this all worked out.

As we started to depart from Alta our balcony allowed us to view the small airport. It was fun to see one of the airport’s trucks race down the cleared runway to flash its lights and sound its horn as we headed away, although Ambience didn’t return its own horn as a salute. It’s likely that the reason for that is either one of restricted noise pollution laws that happen in some locations or simply reducing the risk of triggering avalanches.

I took a lot of photos of the sail out from Alta aboard Ambience and the reason for that should be obvious: it’s because I have no self-control. And also, Alta’s snowy landscapes were stunning. What follows in this post is a very small fraction of the hundreds of pictures taken.

I’d been keeping a track on my phone of other ship movements and knew that P&O’s Aurora was heading in as we were heading out. I soon realised that our exit lane out of the fjord would mean we wouldn’t be able to see her passing us on the port side of the ship from our balcony, but as our cabin was only a few metres from the forward viewing deck I’d be able to nip out and see her from there. Even though Ambience was cruising very slowly along the frigid waters away from Alta, the difference between our sheltered balcony – a bit chilly – and the forward viewing point – brass monkeys time – was immense, so I kept heading out, then back to warm up, then out again. It was worth it, though.

The rest of the afternoon was mostly spent just taking photos from our balcony after Aurora headed past us. More photos of stunning Norwegian landscapes coming your way.

Instead of heading straight out to the open sea, Ambience changed course to pass by Nordfugløya, an uninhabited island and nature reserve, although the reason for this wasn’t for viewing purposes. This was to facilitate getting the pilot home who’d helped guide our ship out from Alta. A boat came out from one of the islands further south in this arm of the fjords to pick the pilot up. A nice gesture, saving sending the boat all the way to Alta and back.

I don’t think anyone can argue that Norway’s coastline and landscapes are utterly beautiful.

A typical evening on a cruise ship would involve some drinking, some trivia, and some food, before more drinking and some late-night dancing, and that’s largely what happened next, although we did something a little special by taking ourselves to Saffron, Ambassador’s speciality Asian restaurant aboard Ambience.

We are not fans of Asian food, we don’t hit Indian restaurants at home, we never order a curry for a takeaway. However, when we cruise there’s a reasonable chance that we’ll occasionally try the Asian offerings at speciality restaurants, partly because it’s not as if we can’t get any other food aboard if it turns out to be awful, and partly because we’ve discovered that cruise lines ease up on the chillis when cooking, which is the main problem we’ve got with that cuisine.

So, Saffron, then. The positive element and main plus point to this experience was that overall, the food in Saffron was the best Asian speciality dining we’ve ever had on any cruise ship. Please remember that your tastes are different to ours and you may disagree, but we found the food to be generally more tasty than painful, and that’s the sort of thing we look for in things we’re putting in our mouths. There were two negative bits of this dining experience, though. We weren’t massively keen on the location, being a curtained-off part of the buffet, although there are other speciality dining venues on other cruise lines that effectively do the same thing, so that’s not really a big deal. The biggest gripe was the service, and this you can disregard as just one of those things that happens, but I’ll still mention it. Everywhere else on Ambience we’d had great service, attentive staff, the works. Not the case in Saffron, and the reason for that was clear to us. Several bridge officers came in to dine at the same time as us. The staff then prioritised the officers and we were mostly ignored until they’d had their starters, drinks, and main courses served. It wasn’t a good look from Ambassador, but it was the only real blot on the cruise. Again, the food was lovely.

And to round off this day sailing away from Alta past stunning landscapes and dining on absolutely lovely Asian food in one of the ship’s speciality dining venues, we then spotted the aurora (natural phenomenon, not the ship this time), and got some better phone photos than from a couple of days earlier. This was one of those occasions where you could actually see the aurora quite clearly with the naked eye. Often, there’s a smudge in the sky that only a camera can pick it up but we could see greens in the sky fairly easily, unaided.

The next post in this Ambassador Ambience Norway cruise travelogue series will be considerably shorter as it’s another relaxing sea day to suffer through.

Not a lot in Alta is somewhat of an understatement, although it’s pretty enough to just get outside the more built-up parts and look at the landscape in the winter time, but there was one thing we could see that was open so that was our very limited plan for the time there.

The snow was falling quite heavily as we got off the bus, adding layers to the thick and sound-muffling blanket of white that coated everything. It hadn’t actually snowed in our previous port of Tromsø although there had been plenty of it on the ground, and what there’d been on our morning’s tour was very light compared to the more persistent fall that now greeted us in Alta. I’ve mentioned before that snow is a rarity in our part of the world so this just filled us with joy.

Our joy, though, was as nothing compared to some other visitors to Alta.

We’re fans of architecture, whether that’s for historical reasons or for unusual reasons, and the Northern Lights Cathedral in Alta certainly falls into the latter group. Despite its name, the cathedral is merely a church, consecrated in 2013, but it’s one with a design reminiscent of something Frank Gehry would put up, making use of titanium panels to curve around and produce something both sharp, manufactured, yet with the sense of natural growth and movement too.

There’s a small charge to look inside the church and we weren’t at all surprised to see some other people realise this then turn around and leave. Some people just don’t like parting with money for any experience at all. Mate, you’ve travelled all the way to the top of Norway; you can spend a few Norwegian Krone on this.

The interior art is by Danish artist, Peter Brandes. The vertical lines are representative of the bands of aurora that can be seen frequently in this part of the world.

It’s one of the smallest churches we’ve visited when we’ve travelled around the world, but it’s certainly worth a look for its modernist, abstract designs that combine organised religion with the natural sense of scientific wonder all around.

Back out in the wonderful snowy wonderland of Alta I made my way to where I could see the bust of someone in the grounds near to the cathedral, grabbing a different view of the building as I did so. The sculpture is that of Kristian Birkeland, a Norwegian physicist who developed the theory of how aurorae are formed. It’s an interesting thing to see something scientific and rational right next to a place of irrational worship.

With nothing else in easy walking distance in these conditions, we made our way back to the bus stop and picked up the shuttle bus back to the ship in port.

Feeling a smidge chilly after several hours in the snow, we went and got ourselves some hot chocolate from The Coffee House, a short walk from our cabin, then warmed ourselves up ahead of the evening’s planned activity.

We’d loved the snow in Alta but there was a concern with it too, as we had a second excursion booked for this day and that would be a trip out to see if we could spot the Northern Lights away from the lights of the ship and city after dark. The one thing you need for that, though, is a distinct lack of cloud. Just before we headed off to meet our bus for this tour we could see that there wasn’t a star to be seen anywhere in the sky so the expectations at this point were low, but not zero as we knew the trip would try to get us somewhere with the best chance of seeing the great natural phenomenon.

Spoiler: we did not see any Northern Lights on this evening’s tour.

We were taken to a place called Isnestoften, about forty kilometres north of Alta and close to the fjord. Here, there was an area set aside near a farmhouse with tents, fires, hot drinks, and some alcoholic beverages set up, and almost everyone on our tour spent their entire time there, and by all accounts had a lovely evening. About a dozen of us, though, set off into the darkness, a few hundred metres down a sloping road with knee-high snow, and to the water’s edge by the fjord where there were some benches with furs laid out on them. We sat there for nearly a couple of hours, snow up to our calves, cameras at the ready, and saw not a thing.

But it was absolutely lovely. It was so peaceful, and it didn’t even feel that cold. Darkness, muffled sounds, ultimate relaxation. Sometimes there’d be a break in the cloud cover and stars would pop out and expectations would rise, but while we weren’t rewarded with any aurora sightings on this night we still had a wonderful time.

We eventually made our way back up to where everyone else had spent the evening, warmed ourselves by the fires, and had something to eat and drink before it was time to leave.

We’ve seen the Northern Lights on numerous occasions – we’d seen them the night before from the ship, and we’d see them again on this cruise – so not spotting them on this excursion wasn’t the end of the world, and our enjoyment was enough that when we come back here in late 2027 and late 2028 it’s extremely likely that we’ll try to do this all again. And we won’t be concerned whether we see anything or not then either.

Ambassador Ambience was staying overnight in Alta and leaving around noon the following day so we decided not to get off for an explore in the morning. In the next post in this 2025 Arctic Circle cruise travelogue series we wake to clear blue skies and enjoy some utterly spectacular winter landscape scenery on our sailaway from Alta.

Our balcony faced part of the industrial port and the airport runway, and during our day and a half here we’d quite often see trucks heading out to clear snow for any planes.

We had a full day of things to do planned and the first of those was a brief excursion of just a few hours the reasonably short distance south from Alta to Sorrisniva Hotel.

It wasn’t the main hotel itself that we were interested in – although that’s where you can find toilets, a café, and a small tourist shop if you’re after any of those things – but rather the Igloo Hotel. On a cruise that saw us ticking off a lot of northernmost things in the world, this was another.

The important thing about the igloo hotel at Sorrisniva is that it’s not one of those ice hotels you sometimes see in cities which turn out to be barely-glorified freezers in warehouses. Ah, the experience of drinking in a venue that recreates all the fun of meat-packers sneaking off for an alcopop during work hours. The igloo hotel opens from December to the end of March every year, built fresh from the snow each time, and it invites artists to come in and sculpt decorations from ice or in the snow walls of the bedroom suites that the hotel contains. Each year there’s a different theme for the artwork so you could come back time and time again and see a different layout and different sculpted artworks.

Initially, there was a bit of a crowded wander, poking heads into all the rooms, so, after being frustrated for the umpteenth time by certain people thinking they had a monopoly on posing in front of snow and ice sculptures for a few dozen photos, we headed into the main, ice column-supported hall of the igloo hotel and made our way to the ice bar at the far end. Our tour entry had included a small, wooden token that we could exchange for some alcoholic blue stuff in a glass made from ice. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t awful. It was blue. And you had to drink it quickly before any heat from your hands or gloves caused the glass to crack.

Taking time out to have the drink gave everyone else who’d turned up to look around the igloo hotel – not just our tour group, but other independent travellers too – enough time to move on from the rooms, and gave us the chance to conclude a look at them and take photos in relative peace.

You can, of course, book to stay at the igloo hotel, and you’d be right in thinking that it’s not cheap, and that’s before you even consider that this is Norway. It’s also very basic with your amenities literally being the room with some furs on them. No en-suite. Not even a door in the standard rooms. You’re paying for the experience, but definitely research what that experience is going to be before you book.

Some designs were better than others, as you’d expect, but it was such a wonderful thing to see as a whole that we decided that if we were ever to come back up this way – and if it was in that December to March window when the igloo hotel was actually built and open – then we’d almost certainly visit again because the designs would change each year. Plus, we’ve absolutely no interest at all in husky rides which seems to be an obsession of everyone else who cruises to this part of the world.

The igloo hotel also included a chapel. Presumably to pray the place doesn’t melt on you while you sleep.

Most people headed straight into the main hotel after seeing everything there was to see in the igloo hotel, probably in search of a coffee if our experience of cruisers is any guide, but we traipsed around the back of the hotel into the knee-high deep snow – it’s such a novelty for us to get snow like this so we made the most of it – and we were glad that we did as we found a few reindeer tied up with sleds. The hotel apparently offers rides as part of a Sami experience and this appeals far more than the husky option if you ask me. We stood a respectful distance away to take some photos because you shouldn’t pester animals, and I’d like to say that other visitors to Sorrisniva did the same. I’d like to say that.

After a quick look at the gift shop for some souvenirs it was time to head back to the ship but we were told we could get out in Alta town centre if we wanted and take a later bus back as there was a regular shuttle service throughout the day. We did want this, so in the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll take full advantage of this opportunity to visit the Northern Lights Cathedral in Alta.

So, after our lovely time crunching through snow, throwing the odd snowball (it’s the law), and finishing our time determining that Tromsø does beer well, we made our way carefully back towards where we’d need to jump on the shuttle bus back to the ship about four kilometres away. Four kilometres doesn’t sound like much but we knew from the trip out that it wouldn’t be the nicest of walks even in good weather, and the state of the pavements along the roads in winter outside the city centre didn’t encourage trying it either.

You’ll know from my previous two posts on our time in Tromsø – I’m pretending you’ve read them – and from our Travel Achievements page – I’m pretending you’ve had a good look around the site’s menu and all the different pages and navigational aids I’ve put in to help people looking for travel write-ups – that we like to spot things that are the most or least or smallest or biggest, etc., when travelling. Passing Tromsø Cathedral on our way to the bus, it was nice to note that this 19th century cathedral, in addition to being the only wooden Protestant cathedral in Norway, is regarded as the northernmost Protestant cathedral in the world. We’ll hopefully get to see inside it on a future trip to this part of the world, and it would be nice to check out the interior of the nearby Arctic Cathedral too to compare the architectural styles.

There was a memorial stone opposite the cathedral and outside the gift shop, dedicated to Richard With, born in the city and, in cruising-related news, the founder of Hurtigruten. They’re a line we’d be very interested in cruising with if we could just sort out inheriting vast amounts of money from a rich relative first.

A short walk around the corner and we found a bus already waiting to go, hopped aboard, and in very short order were back at the cruise port north of Tromsø city centre. A quick freshen up later and we decided to head up to the Observatory to start with for the lovely views of the surrounding area and a Kir Royale each as there was a little bit of time yet before we were due to sail away. We’d not left it to the last bus back because travel anxiety is real.

As the time for Ambience came to depart Tromsø I first made a circuit around the top deck for some views before heading down to our room and our balcony for more sailaway shots. I bumped into a couple of crew members on the top deck who were photographing the landscapes too plus each other, and I asked if I could grab one of them as well. Ambassador make a point of saying their crew are the friendliest at sea and we saw no evidence to counter this on this cruise.

The evening aboard Ambience mostly followed the usual pattern of trivia, music, food, and drink, culminating in a return to the Observatory late on for the disco.

While we were in the Observatory someone mentioned that the Northern Lights had become visible. We weren’t dressed for the cold temperature so only ducked out briefly, and we only had our mobile phones on us, but very faint aurorae could be seen with the naked eye and there’s some dodgy photography to prove it below. We’ve been lucky enough to have seen the Northern Lights many times now, with nothing getting close to the very first time we spotted them on a weekend break in Iceland in 2015. We always enjoy seeing them, though.

In the next post in this 2025 Arctic Circle cruise on Ambassador Ambience we reach the northernmost point of the cruise when we head off on a trip to visit the igloo hotel in Alta.

But first, some sights along the waterfront area of Tromsø, because Norway’s coast is gorgeous in any circumstances but snow adds something magical once you’re up in the Arctic Circle.

Tromsø is one of Norway’s largest fishing ports and there was certainly a lot of evidence that people there liked to take boats out to sea.

We could see something odd not too far along the waterfront so headed towards the Hålogaland Theatre.

Inghild Karlsen and Bo Bisgaard are the sculptors responsible for a number of fabulous pieces of artwork just around the theatre in Tromsø. The first we’d spotted was a bronze dachshund dog gazing out to sea. At first sight we assumed someone had stuck googly eyes on the sculpture but these are actually part of the design. Something we couldn’t see, because of the depth of snow around it, was the tail, which is mechanical and wags whenever a performance starts in the nearby cultural building.

Set just back from the water, and running along the length of the theatre, there were seven sculptures in white concrete, representing theatre muses. The snowy conditions had given most of them a temporary hairstyle for the occasion of our visit.

I did wonder if the muses sculptures outside the Hålogaland Theatre had names but couldn’t find any information to suggest they did, and I did then wonder if I could embrace the spirit of colonial travel of the past and simply assign my own names to them with some idea that the names might stick by being the first person to give the sculptures official titles, trusting that the onslaught of Absolute Idiocy search results would happily list them in summary form for those searching in the future. I’m cruel, but I’m not that cruel. Although the one with the dinosaur-like face is definitely called Norgeosaurus. Trust me.

We spotted another few structures that we assumed were art installations of some kind as we headed back towards the city centre. We weren’t exactly right, although the design was supposed to be somewhat aesthetically pleasing in addition to being practical. These are called Krykkje Hotels and they’re designed to provide nesting space for birds in the winter months. They were certainly well-used.

I’ve already mentioned spotting the Blai Statue in the previous post, but here’s a closer look at the grumpy-looking woman, sat down and waiting for a bus with purse clutched in front of her. So much character here, and if a lump of metal can bring a smile to your face then it’s doing a grand job.

Our destination on this trudge through the snow was the northernmost brewery in the world, Mack, as you already know, but we actually spent most of our time next door in Ølhallen, as it happened to be Tromsø’s oldest pub and the location serving beer, which is what we really wanted. Dating from 1928 it’s not that old when you compare it to some of the pubs at home, but it’s still nice to visit a place that is part of local history. The pub was busy and got subtantially busier as the afternoon progressed, and served a huge range of ales. We absolutely had to stay for four pints each, for science, with an emphasis on the local brewery’s output. Everything we had was lovely, and at the end of our time there we popped next door to buy a souvenir in the form a t-shirt, too.

We’ll conclude our day in this Norwegian city in the next post where there’s a short walk back to the bus then the sail away from Tromsø to enjoy, plus our first sighting on this Arctic Circle cruise aboard Ambience of the Northern Lights.