However, you should never, ever assume you’re going to get the same thing or have the same experience as us. Every occasion is different and they’re experienced by different people with different histories and expectations, so the perception of even identical events can trigger completely different levels of enjoyment or lack thereof in people.

This is one reason why I try to steer away from reviewing in the generally accepted sense these days – that is, with an eye to recommending or not – and why I try to present everything about our cruise history in the form of diary-style, photo-heavy entries. These are records; not recommendations.

The second reason that I write about our travels in this way is that things change, and this post will be a good example of that. Or, at least, an example of that. Perhaps not a good one. Let’s not pretend I’m writing anything terribly useful or that most people don’t really know already.

This is a look at the food on Sky Princess during the last two sea days on the ship at the conclusion of our 2022 Norway and Iceland cruise. Except for breakfast; for some reason I never bother with breakfast photos.

Starting below with Alfredo’s, which at the time of cruising was free and fairly popular as a result. The food here was very good, but not to the level that we’d likely pay what they charge now. That might now be free or included if you want to use up a casual dining allowance depending on what type of fare you book your Princess cruise with, but whichever way you slice it, you will now be paying for something that we got at the time for free. When compared to the free offering around the Lido pool (unless that too changes in the future), then the price, if the food were to remain the same, isn’t worth it in my opinion. But the food may be better. Because, here’s the thing: this was just a snapshot of when we travelled.

So, we enjoyed this food. If we’d had the same food and paid for it then the food would have been the same but we might have felt that the value was less. Bear that in mind. And also bear that concept in mind whenever you see reviews of cruising or travel where the people are getting things for free. The perception of value changes, and that can be reflected in what’s reported, and that may not likely match your own experiences. This is why I have trust issues with sponsored travel posts or visits. This is why we don’t get on with many other cruise bloggers. Although, we also don’t get on with many people, period. We’re not people people is what I’m getting at here.

Now here are examples of the food we ate in the main dining room on Sky Princess (that’s the MDR to regular cruisers) and not only does it look great (to me), but it was great (to me). Don’t let that persuade you one way or the other, though, because you won’t be having the same chefs on the same ship on the same day, cooking in the same way, and presenting you with the same food as me unless you have access to one of those new-fangled personal temporal incursion devices that are all the rage. If they’re not all the rage when you’re reading this then oops, someone went and changed something in the past again.

The food in the main dining room was of great quality on Sky Princess but that didn’t stop us splashing out on some speciality dining in Sabatini’s Italian Trattoria. It’s because we like Sabatini’s. We know what we’re getting here in general.

Or do we?

No, because since this cruise with Princess on Sky Princess we’ve discovered on a more recent cruise that the menu’s changed, and quite extensively. And it may do yet again before you cruise. You really just can’t tell. And even if I say that this particular meal was cooked to perfection, with good service, nothing to fault it, you might have a miserable time dining here. We’ve heard people moan about food and service that we’ve thought were absolutely fine, but there’s no point being one of those tedious people who pipe up and say “Well, we had a lovely time” because everyone’s different. That’s like those people who like to tell you that cruising looks terrible and they’d never do it. Great, thanks for that insight that means absolutely nothing to and will affect absolutely nothing for me or anyone for whom this looks wonderful.

Now, you might have read all that and thought “What kind of idiot does this Mark think I am? I know that food can change from ship-to-ship, from cruise-to-cruise, from night-to-night, from table-to-table. I just wanted an idea about the sort of food on the ship and, thanks to this post, I’ve got a few pictures, none of the details I was actually after, and am being treated like I’ve got the IQ of one of the stupider species of hamsters.”

Well, sorry about that, but I’ve read Facebook group posts and seen the questions people ask. What will the sea conditions be like on my cruise in 18 months time? Can you wear two pairs of socks on the top deck if it’s cold? Can you bring a rotary washing line for your balcony? What vegetables will I get on formal night?

In summary: we had great food on Sky Princess. If you’ve found this page because you want to find out whether you’re going to have great food on Sky Princess too then you’d be as well off consulting a tea leaf-reader.

For this post, though, it’s pretty much just pictures of the ship with no waffle from me, and just to be different I decided to take most of these with a 100mm prime lens so it encouraged artistic shots due to a fixed field of view. Expect close-ups, weird framing, odd subject matter, shallow depth of field, and, essentially, something a little different from all the other photographs of cruise ships I or other cruisers typically take.

To conclude the photos from the sea days, and as is mostly traditional on this site for any cruises that start and end in Southampton, a shot from our balcony on the morning of departure. Never a happy time, but at least the weather was lovely for our return to England at the conclusion of this excellent cruise aboard Sky Princess.

Sea days are days to rest and recuperate and watch the blue water rolling past under blue skies.

Usually.

This particular sea day on Sky Princess started with a low, long, familiar sound.

“Was that you?” I asked, risking becoming the subject matter of an episode of Cruise Ship Killers for the sake of a poor and obvious joke.

Fog horns! That meant fog! Quiver in fear at our deduction skills! We know the sound of fog horns well as we live just ten minutes on foot from a port. We’ve experienced fog a few times on cruise ships in the past, too, with notably impressive memories of a foggy Suez Canal and on a red, glowing Scarlet Lady among others, but nothing like the duration we were about to encounter.

Wanting to give our cabin steward plenty of time to clean our room, we headed out for a walk on the open deck after breakfast. The Sky Princess infinity pool took on another feel entirely when looking out into the white, featureless void. For a brief moment it was possible to imagine this was a cruise in a universe where Olbers’s Paradox didn’t exist. Don’t pretend you weren’t thinking that too.

It was mostly devoid of people out on top of Sky Princess. The all-encompassing fog had dropped the air temperature down very noticeably, especially when compared to the warmth of the day before in Norway. One person who was out, however, was one of the ship’s photographers. We’d already encountered him a few times on this cruise, always asking us if we wanted to pose for pictures, us always smiling and replying no, me always pointing to my own camera. On this day, though, I got him to pose for a picture for me instead. And then we performed a quick draw shot of each other. Because we’re adults, that’s why. It was fun, and it wouldn’t be the only time we’d do this, also drawing against each other ashore much to the puzzlement of other passengers and ship’s photographers around when in Iceland. Again, fun. These sorts of interactions with crew are always welcome.

Sky Princess was like a ghost ship, doomed to sail some fog bank that awaited ships passing too close and sending them to the watery grave where all its own missing passengers were assumed to be. Another reason for the lack of people outside was the fog horn itself. We hadn’t realised until we decided upon our circuit of the top deck that it would be quite so deafening. We tried timing the gap between blasts in order to prepare ourselves for the next thunderous honk but spent a good portion of our morning walk yelling “Fuck me!” nevertheless. Probably a good thing we were not in earshot of other cruisers, to be fair.

At least we could see some sea from our balcony. This was the Norwegian Sea and not the North Sea as we’d initially assumed. Sea boundaries are a bit arbitrary, though, and, while seas sometimes feel like they have personalities, you are very unlikely to offend them by calling them by the wrong name.

There’s not a lot else to report about this foggy sea day on Sky Princess. It was a day of reading and eating and drinking and taking part in trivia quizzes. We snacked for the most part, and even our dinner ended up being bits and pieces from the International Café because we weren’t that hungry by the time evening rolled around. In addition, it was a formal night and we didn’t feel like dressing up too much (not that anyone really cares about that on Princess, thankfully). We won the very last of the quizzes – an 80s music one – and snatched up some of that Ship Champagne (spelling and pronunciation important).

The only point of contention was in the Princess Live! lounge. This cruise took part during raised COVID precautions aboard, which meant that you were expected to keep your mask on when moving around and in certain lounges, but not others (for reasons unknown). One where this was required, where announcements were made by hosts to ensure people complied, was Princess Live! We, of course, had no problem with this in principle, right up until the point they got everyone in the lounge to start a group singing contest between two halves of the venue. This ran counter to every precaution. Either enforce the mask rule and don’t do stupid singing events, or don’t enforce the rule and anything goes. This hypocritical approach to health precautions felt tokenistic and ultimately annoying. Whatever.

The view as we headed to bed was still that of thick fog, and the fog horns still blasted out every couple of minutes. An entire day of fog at sea!

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll arrive at the port of Akureyri, Iceland.

Gee, Mark, thanks. A couple of sandwiches on a plate. That’s exactly what I came looking for when I searched online for pictures of the Norwegian port of Ålesund as seen from the Sky Princess cruise ship.

I aim to please, and then I turn around and fire in the opposite direction. It’s my way.

We returned to our balcony, ordered some drinks to be delivered to the room, grabbed our books, and waited for the sail away from Ålesund. We love having a balcony on a cruise ship for this very reason, and we love being able to have drinks delivered to us anywhere on the ship with Princess Cruises. It’s a terribly civilised way to depart a port that avoids all that mingling with other passengers on the top deck.

From the balcony we could see some other parts of the town that we’d likely try to check out if we were to return here on some other cruise. Despite its medieval stone look, the Ålesund Church was also one of the new constructions of the early twentieth century utilising some of the architectural styles of the time, as explained in the previous post in this travel series, and it would be nice to see that up close; and the Aksla Viewpoint on Mount Aksla (bit of a coincidence) holds some appeal if I ever feel brave enough to try to persuade Marie to make the 418 steps climb up there.

Ålesund is located at the entrance to the Geirangerfjord and benefitted from some beautiful rocky sights as a result. What else is new on a Norwegian fjords cruise? Geologists struggling to find a vacation that will satisfy the needs of family members who don’t share quite the same passion for geology as they do – there are more of them than you think – could do a lot worse than suggest a cruise on the fjords of Norway.

The final bit of Norway’s land mass that we passed on Sky Princess as part of this cruise was the island of Godøya to which we’d paid a visit first thing on this day in order to see the Alnes Lighthouse. That had been on the island’s northern side whereas we were passing to the south, but that made it interesting to see the mountainous form of Storhornet from the opposite side.

The open sea marked the start of the transit towards the next country on this cruise and the point at which we hit the shower and changed, ready for the evening.

I mentioned that there was a reason that we went for something light to eat when we got back aboard the ship and that reason was that we’d booked the Crown Grill speciality dining on the ship for that evening. Past experience told us to eat light beforehand, so that’s what we did, and we still felt full to bursting by the end.

All that remained after food was to take a drink back to the room to enjoy the sunset at close to midnight. It never got much darker than this and the sun would start to rise again very soon afterwards. That’s what happens when you cruise in the height of summer.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll spend a quiet day at sea heading from Norway to Iceland, and the views will be… not quite what we were expecting.

But first, the story so far…

We were in Ålesund, the final Norwegian port on our 2022 Sky Princess Norway and Iceland Cruise and we’d spent the morning of this beautiful, sunny, summer day in Norway at first Godøya to see the Alnes Lighthouse, then at Giske to see the white marble church. The afternoon was free time for us to have a bit of a wander around the town, and that’s what you’re going to see in the pictures in this article.

We were dropped off fairly close to where Sky Princess was docked, as you can see below. You’ll also see a shop called Bunnpris which we’d noticed in another port earlier on this cruise. We continued the very adult conversations we’d already had about this retail chain.

“Ooh, Bunnpris! Shall we head in to see what the pris of their bunn is?”

“Excuse me, sir. This bunn. I’m interested in the pris.”

This is one of the many reasons why you never want to go on a cruise with us.

It was to the harbour that we headed because it looked like it would have the prettiest views of Ålesund and the highest probability of getting a drink somewhere. We like to drink local alcohol in local places for the experience when we travel, so don’t judge us. We almost immediately came upon a statue of a young fisherman. It’s one of the staples of ports in Norway that if there’s a tradition of fishing then at some point you’ll find a statue to honour the men (it’s mostly always men) who braved the seas to bring food ashore.

A more aesthetically-pleasing art sculpture (to me) was a little further along the waterfront of Ålesund Harbour; this being one of Harald Grytten, a local historian and former director of the town’s museum who was instrumental in cataloguing the architecture and teaching local history in public. The statue, sculpted by Olaf Leon Roald, is named The Wanderer and was erected in 2013.

We were exceptionally lucky with the weather on our cruise ship visit to Ålesund, as not only did we have beautifully intense blue skies to contrast with the bright colours of the waterfront buildings, but we also had only the faintest of breezes giving us gorgeous reflections on the surface of the water. A great day for attractive photography in Norway. You’ll also see a nice example of a contemporary, abstract, metal sculpture set in Ålesund Square. Sadly, I don’t know anything about it, but I like the look. It’s like a jellyfish went for a swim in a sea of mercury.

Let’s get around to the architecture that Ålesund is famous for. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century Art Nouveau is what you’ll see a lot online, and it’s fine and perfectly correct to describe the style of Ålesund’s buildings in that way, but if you’re feeling a little bit art-snobby then why not berate people by telling them that, as with lots of art movements, there are branches off them and national or local flavours to them on occasion, and that’s the case with this town in Norway where the prevailing architectural style is actually Jugendstil, a style originating in Germany?

So, why would a Norwegian town have an awful lot of buildings designed with an eye towards floral patterns and geometric patterns and naturally-flowing curves and, most importantly, a young, Germanic feel? The answer is Kaiser Wilhelm, the last German Emperor and King of Prussia. It was probably your second guess, if you’re honest with yourself.

In the early hours of the morning of the 23rd January, 1904, a fire broke out in Ålesund that quickly spread thanks to strong winds and the fact that the entire town was built from wood. One person died – a woman who went back into her house to get her purse – while ten thousand residents were forced to flee, mainly on foot with what they could carry, seeking shelter where they could (which wasn’t many places at all). News of the fire spread almost as quickly as the fire itself and the Kaiser sent a telegram of condolences while the fire was still being extinguished. His personal interest in Ålesund was that he had frequently spent time in the region, and he was subsequently one of the first to send aid in the form of shelter materials, food, and medicine.

When Ålesund was rebuilt it was done so with stone, with better facilities, in the early twentieth century style of the times, and, thanks to Kaiser Wilhem’s connection to the town and generosity, with architects that included many from Germany.

We enjoyed more of the views of the town along the harbour front before deciding we’d quite like a drink.

There weren’t a huge amount of places open when we arrived, which we initially thought was weird considering there was a cruise ship in port until we remembered that most of the passengers on cruise ships are as tight as anything and would rather head back aboard to eat and drink than pay anything extra ashore. Not us, though. However, of the first couple of places we looked at we could see they were rammed with people so we ended up at a small pub called Smutthullet a bit further back from the main tourist spot. It felt like a locals pub more than a tourist pub, despite – or maybe because of – the odd scarves above the bar, and it served Norwegian beers, so we stayed for a couple and divested ourselves of money into the local economy.

All that remained was to simply walk back to the ship. There were many other things we could have done in Ålesund with some more time to hand: there’s an aquarium, and we like aquariums; there’s the museum which would have told us more about the history and the architecture; there’s also the hike up the hill for the views over the town that would have seen my wife kill me had I even suggested it. We might do one or two of those the next time we hit this part of Norway, though.

In the next part of this cruise travelogue series we’ll wave goodbye to Ålesund from Sky Princess, and goodbye to Norway too as we sail away and head towards our favourite European country, Iceland, on a cruise ship for the first time.

This post, for the most part, will simply be photographs of the view from our balcony on Sky Princess as we cruised away from Skjolden and down the fjords.

There’s not a lot to describe that was new in the evening aboard Sky Princess either. At some point when you’re cruising – or just travelling in general – you do get into a rhythm and find what it is you like so just keep doing it. The good thing about cruising, though, is that the outside keeps changing while you’re doing that. We had a very good dinner in the main dining room, took part in the movie quiz where we finished second, then drank and danced until gone two in the morning.

With this cruise on Sky Princess taking place this far north in the height of summer, the sky never got dark so before we headed back to our room for the night we popped out briefly onto the ship’s (admittedly underwhelming) promenade deck just to snap a shot.

On the way back through the ship towards the elevators that would take us to our room I decided to capture some photos of some of Sky Princess’s interior spaces with nobody around. I find these sorts of pictures a little unsettling. I’ve seen a lot of cruise bloggers going out of their way to take photos and videos without people in them, and it never feels right to me. Not only that, but it’s not really representative of what being on a cruise ship is like. Ships aren’t wall-to-wall with noisy people (the lazy “Butlins at sea” trope spouted by the bigoted sub-moronic), but they aren’t ghost towns either, and I prefer to see what they’re like and give people a better expectation for what travelling by cruise is like. It’s also why I don’t like a lot of the TV adverts you see for cruising either, showing the happy family on a ship with a capacity of several thousand, apparently blissfully happy with perhaps just a dozen others; you’re going to upset some people with those misrepresentations, you know.

The next port of call on this Sky Princess cruise would be one we’d cruised to almost a decade before: Olden.

If you’re one of those people who’ve not cruised with Princess Cruises before, or not cruised at all or in a long time, then you might be interested in seeing what sorts of daytime activities there will be on a Princess ship, and that’s covered below. If this doesn’t make you feel like cruising with Princess is for you then it’s probably worth mentioning that our experience on other cruise lines (and if you take a look at the menu on this site you’ll be able to see just how many that is) is that they’re all much of a muchness when it comes to these things. Fitness or dance classes, the odd quiz, some light music becoming more showy as the day wears on, and endless attempts to encourage people to make themselves look younger and fix their aching joints with highly questionable products or purchase some jewellery or artwork. It would almost be weird if we didn’t look at sea day activities on a cruise ship and think “Nah, I think I’ll just swim and read my book and drink.”

As I mentioned in the first post in this Sky Princess cruise travelogue series, we’d had an unwelcome “upgrade” to a mini-suite. Our preference would have been for a normal cabin with a big balcony – that was what we booked – but the addition of the seating area on which to throw bags and sit and read, plus the second TV for ordering food and drinks to the room was actually something we came to really like. Not only that, but its location towards the front and on the Lido Deck made it fantastically convenient to access the adults only pool and to pop out to grab snacks or drinks from the pool bars. Photos of the mini-suite are below.

We had been still up and dancing at gone three in the morning (as mentioned in the first post) and likely would have spent even longer in bed thanks to that on the back of a long day trying to get aboard Sky Princess but we were woken at half eleven by an announcement into the cabin from the captain pointing out that some passengers still hadn’t completed their muster drill.

The muster on Princess ships (at the time of writing this) is supremely easy. There are two things you need to do. First, stick the muster video on your TV (or watch on your phone) and at the end check the boxes that confirm you were present (as detected by your Medallion) and watched it (honest). Second, head down to your muster station so they can register your Medallion and confirm that, yes, you know where you need to go in an emergency. That’s it. We tend to put the video on while we’re unpacking and make finding the muster station the first thing we do as it’s the work of a few minutes in total usually.

That people still find a reason to not do the muster these days – and we experience it on other lines too – annoys me immensely for two reasons. Firstly, it increases the risk that the cruise lines will go back to the old way of mustering. I really, really don’t want to do that, and neither do you. Secondly, there’s an easy way to sort this out. You can’t buy a drink or hit the casino or the shops without a cruise card or Medallion, so after a grace period on embarkation day why don’t the ships simply block the card from purchases until the muster is done? Okay, I know why they won’t do that – it’s additional code development and quite likely prone to false negatives leading to lots of angry travellers – but it seems doable in theory.

Anyway, after all that, and after a late breakfast and a peruse through the Princess Patter to confirm there was nothing to do but eat, drink, swim, and read, we went ahead with the day’s plans of eating, drinking, swimming, and reading.

It was formal night on Sky Princess – they tend to be on sea days – but I didn’t feel in the mood for dressing up in my tuxedo so we booked at table at Bistro Sur La Mer, one of the speciality restaurants on the ship. We’d dined there before and I hadn’t been massively impressed with what I’d ordered, but my wife had liked it so I gave it another chance. I’m pleased to say it was massively improved this time around, and the view was quite spectacular with the low sun late in the evening as we headed north.

Our first Sky Princess sea day evening concluded at Take Five. On the previous night I’d asked the band if they knew the Duke Ellington track, Caravan, expecting it would be something that any jazz artists would know. They didn’t, which was a surprise. However, they’d looked it up during the day, practiced it, and performed it that evening for everyone, but mostly for me. How can you not like that?

Another day at sea rolled around on Sky Princess. We were still heading north up the North Sea towards Norway, and the weather was lovely. In the photograph below you can see the view from our balcony which shows its position above the bridge and also highlights the big problem we have with these cabins on Royal-class ships: the balcony depth. You can sit bolt upright, or you can sit at a slight angle. Meh.

We’d last been on Sky Princess only four weeks before when we’d cruised to Norway and Denmark so the ship hadn’t changed at all, but that’s no reason not to have a wander, take some photos of the top deck, the swimming pools, the sports areas, and the ship’s wake. It’s a nice, gentle way to pretend we’re getting exercise before we sit around spending another day eating, drinking, and reading once more.

On this day at sea we decided to do the free afternoon tea. This is something Princess do – I think – on every sea day. Some sandwiches, some rolls, some cakes, and a few cups of tea. It’s pleasant, but not spectacular, but it is complementary and we enjoy the break occasionally on cruises.

We had known that some other people we’d gotten to know on social media were going to be aboard and, while wandering through the ship, we bumped into them, sat down, and ended up chatting for hours. We’d end up spending a lot of time with them, often quizzing in the evenings.

This second sea day featured food in the Main Dining Room. Not only did we get a great seat with sea views, we also had a great meal. One of the stand-out things about this particular Sky Princess cruise was just how good the quality and range of food was. Food can be a bit hit-and-miss when you cruise, really depending on which staff are on, when you cruise, and all those other random factors, but it was all top notch on Sky Princess.

The traditional conclusion to most evenings on this particular ship was, of course, Take Five. Through the last set of the night we were the only people in there listening to the band and they made a point of coming over and thanking us for staying and applauding each track.

At this time of the year the sun barely sets in this part of the world which was why it was still light when we decided to make our way to bed. By this time, too, Sky Princess had started to make its approach into the Sognefjord ahead of its first port of call on this cruise, giving us our first glimpse of Norway’s fjords.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series I’ll cover the excursion we took while docked at Skjolden, Norway. We’ll be starting with a drive up over the Sognefjellet mountain pass and we’ll make a stop at the Mefjell Crossing Memorial Stones.

Late June, 2022. This would be our third cruise on Sky Princess, operated by our preferred cruise line of choice, Princess Cruises, and it took place barely four weeks after getting off the same ship when we’d cruised to Denmark and Norway.

When we had booked this cruise that would be visiting some fjords and ports we’d not seen before in Norway ahead of a few stops along the north coast of Iceland, we’d filled in all the little details, picked the cabin we wanted, and chosen the earliest possible boarding time. Before we’d left our house on the day of the cruise departure, though, all of that had been changed by Princess.

Firstly, a fair amount of time before the cruise we’d spotted that the cabin we’d picked had been swapped out for another despite us requesting no upgrades. We’d half-expected this to happen, though, as, as with our previous cruise, what we’d chosen for ourselves – one of the few rooms with bigger balconies on these ships – had been commandeered for quarantine purposes; this was 2022, after all, and the pandemic was still in people’s minds. Our Premium Deluxe Balcony on deck 9 was replaced by a Mini Suite on the Lido deck. This was not what we would have chosen, even if Princess considered it an upgrade, but we decided not to fight the decision. As it turned out, we ended up really enjoying the convenience of being close to the pools and fast food places and we really liked the space in the cabin, even if the balcony suffered by comparison.

The second change came via a message the night before the cruise: the ship would be late in and our boarding time of 11:00 was pushed out to 12:30. No big deal, we thought, unless everyone ignores it. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people likely already with firm plans in place to turn up and our slight fear that perhaps Southampton would become a parking lot as a result turned out to be well-founded, though not just for that reason.

When we arrived at the port gates at just after midday we could see chaos in car form. However, the traffic, very slowly, was inching forward so we followed the line towards the ship’s berth. Then we followed the line away from the ship’s berth and down some side roads to perform a U-turn because people in hi-vis gear told us to. Then, after a hefty delay, we were sent to a parking area in queues. Then, after some time there, we were sent to another parking area in queues. Then, after some more time, we were sent to the area beside the ship where they would eventually take our details, park our car, and let us board. Not 11:00 then, nor 12:30. Not even the 15:00 we’d heard someone say it would be as there’d been reports that a fire alarm had cleared out the embarkation and disembarkation building for a while. We eventually boarded Sky Princess at 18:48.

You might imagine that we would be fuming after all this, but we genuinely had a load of fun while queueing. For a start, some of the parking people were doing their best to entertain grumpy passengers; one was even directing cars as if directing planes at an airport. As for us, we dug around in the glove compartment and found a USB stick of music we’d not listed to in ages, plugged it in on shuffle, hid the display screen, tried to guess the songs as they came up, and danced and sang along in the front seats. What’s the point in getting upset about things nobody’s got any control over? Everyone’s doing their best, and sometimes shit happens.

We aren’t the sort of cruisers who immediately head off to find some food as soon as they board the ship. Usually. You’ll understand that we were a little peckish on this occasion, though; not to mention thirsty. We had suspected there might be some delay at the port so had brought water just in case, but only a small bottle between us and that hadn’t lasted long. So, with it likely to be some time before our cases arrived we more-or-less just dropped our carry-on luggage in our room and went to dine in the Cielo dining room. We sat with a couple of American women and had a very good first meal on Sky Princess while sharing stories of how the day had been for everyone and everyone’s cruise history; all the usual stuff.

Back to our room for the much later than planned sail away and a small summer sunset from Southampton.

In addition to our cases then turning up – allowing us a chance to hang everything up, grab a shower, and get into something a little smarter and less grubby-feeling for the ship and its upcoming cruise – we received a letter from Princess Cruises informing us that they would be giving everyone some on board credit as a gesture of goodwill to make up for the delays in embarkation. Considering it wouldn’t have been their fault that there’d been a fire alarm and evacuation at the port building, that was a great move from Princess, and it’s not the first time we’ve benefitted from them from some issue that generally didn’t really affect us that much and wasn’t their fault in the first place either.

To finish off this day of embarkation chaos at Southampton, it won’t surprise you if you’re a regular reader of our cruise accounts to learn that we hit the drinks hard. Take Five, the jazz lounge, was our haunt for a few hours, selecting a variety of drinks from the extensive menu, enjoying the band, and enjoying the view of our home city of Portsmouth as we cruised past along the Solent.

We finished the evening off in the Vista Lounge, and I really mean we finished the evening off in the Vista Lounge. It was just us two and a mother and daughter who we were chatting with and dancing with at three in the morning when the lights finally came up and we let the DJ go to bed.

A long cruise embarkation day, not without problems, but one we thoroughly enjoyed nevertheless. In the next post in this Sky Princess cruise travelogue series I’ll share a few pictures and details of the next two days which would be spent at sea, relaxing, before the first of many great ports on this cruise.

“Lars, I hear you’re the mayor of Skagen!”

“Yes, that’s true, Viggo. How nice to hear from you after all this time. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Well, Lars, I come with an amazing offer. I happen to have come into possession of more yellow paint than I can handle and I’m willing to let you have it for less than cost price. I’m taking a loss here and you’ll be doing me a favour while also getting an amazing bargain!”

“I… I don’t really know what to say, Viggo. I don’t think I need any yellow paint.”

“But your town, Lars! Picture it! Skagen. The yellowest town on Earth. Tourists will flock there!”

“It’s an interesting offer, Viggo, really it is. But I don’t think I can really…”

“How is your wife these days? Did you ever tell her the story of how you were also seeing my sister Kamilla when you were first dating her?”

“That yellow paint. How much did you say you wanted for it?”

And that’s the story behind Skagen’s yellow-plastered buildings with red tiled roofs. Probably.

There’s also probably a good story behind the prevalence of pizza places in Skagen. As we headed up through a pedestrianised area it seemed like every other place was selling pizza, and with it being so bright and sunny and with the cruise ship in port they seemed to be doing a decent trade. We, however, had another destination in mind.

We passed by plenty of market stalls before coming up a small square with a fountain and some modern art sculptures in it. These were designed by Poul Winther, an artist who was born in Skagen in 1939, and of whom there is very little other information available. We liked the artworks here; they’re our sort of abstract modernism.

The final landmark of note that we encountered before our intended destination was Skagen Church. It’s a hard-to-miss sight.

This building in this form dates from the turn of the twentieth century. A smaller church had existed in this spot for around fifty years prior to that but Skagen had become more religious than its size could cope with so it was extended and the taller tower was added by architects Ulrik Plesner and Thorvald Bindesbøll. Before that earlier church there had been other church buildings for the people of Skagen but this area of Denmark farmed to excess, removing too much vegetation in the area, and the result was shifting sand dunes that ended up winning the battle against man’s constructions. Indeed, if we’d not taken the war-related excursion earlier in the day then we would most likely have visited the still partly-buried church on the dunes instead.

“Father Henrik, long time no see.”

“Viggo? Is that really you?”

“It is I, Father, Jacob’s older brother, and I come with a bargain you and your congregation are going to love.”

“Yes, I bumped into Lars last week. How much do you want?”

Barely a minute’s walk from the church was what we really wanted to see: Skagen Brewery. This is the northernmost brewery in Denmark – which you probably could have guessed – and it boasts Denmark’s largest beer garden too. Established in 2005 in a former power-generating facility it brews its own beers and also distils gin. We tried the former in the garden and bought the latter to take back home with us. We are very fond of locally-produced drinks when we travel and I have to say that the beers were absolutely gorgeous, with different styles for all tastes.

After a very pleasant time in the sunshine we decided to make our way back to Sky Princess in the port. Now, if we’d paid a little bit more attention to the map then we’d have taken a shorter route – almost directly south – but we initially started off roughly heading back the way we’d come. This brought us in time to the statue of the Danish Fisherman and Rescuers dedicated to local heroes, which was nice enough but, it turned out, not that convenient for getting back to the cruise ship. We ended up having to double back on ourselves quite a bit in order to find the route that would get us back on board and that’s why there are perhaps more photos of Skagen’s waterfront area here than you might be expecting.

Back aboard Sky Princess we chatted and decided we really liked what we saw of Skagen, a place we’d never heard of prior to booking this cruise, and a place we’d neglected to look into too much. Skagen has a number of museums that look like they’d interest us, it’s got that dune-covered church we’d love to go and see, and there’s always the lure of a return visit to the brewery, so we’d jump at the chance to return here on some future trip.

We had plenty of time to chat about Skagen and gaze out at the sea because we ordered some snacks and drinks to our room. That took seventy five minutes to arrive. Not good, Princess Cruises.

We sat in a fairly empty lounge with the intention of having some drinks before dinner but after twenty minutes gave up waiting and placed orders on the app rather than hope some member of staff considered checking on the tables. Not good, Princess Cruises.

At sea in the evening we decided to dine in Alfredo’s after taking a look at the menu for the main dining room and not seeing anything that set us alight with excitement. The view from our table was very good and the food was lovely even if service was a bit sluggish. I say “sluggish”, but I mean “glacial”. The first courses were fine but dessert took forty five minutes to arrive after ordering it, and that was only after I’d attracted the attention of a waiter twice to see if we’d been forgotten (and we clearly had been). Not good, Princess Cruises.

In the next post in this Sky Princess cruise travelogue series we’ll be making the first of two visits to Oslo in 2022 and we’ll be heading off on an excursion that starts with a look around Vigeland Park.

Our balcony was on the starboard side of the ship and was facing seaward so our view wasn’t of Kristiansand itself, but rather the channel that would head out to open water and to the island of Odderøya that lies just to the city’s south.

We spent a little time enjoying the relative peace and quiet out on our balcony, reading, and watching the ferries coming and going that run regularly between Norway and Denmark. We would be doing the same thing when Sky Princess left the port.

The rugged landscapes of the Scandinavian countries’ coasts have a fabulous beauty and a similarity that almost tells you where in the world you are even if you didn’t know for sure. We were reminded a little of the Stockholm Archipelago as we finally cruised away from Norway this evening.

We had plans for the evening that included a late dinner so we decided to take advantage of our Elite level loyalty and hit the lounge set aside early evening for nibbles and quiet drinks away from those who hadn’t yet reached Platinum or Elite levels themselves. To be fair, this is something that is less of a perk than it used to be. Back before the excellent drinks packages that Princess Cruises brought in, this did at least give you the ability to get a few exclusive drinks at reduced price. I suppose it still does for the small number of (weird) people who don’t pick a drinks package, but I suspect that really is a small number indeed as they never seem to have the exclusive drinks menu out by default now and you have to ask for it. Not only that, but we’ve seen the drinks available in other bars now too, so yeah. The nibbles as well are a nice idea in theory, and we do see people take advantage of them, particularly on formal nights, but we’ve never felt the need to eat just before we eat. Still, it can be nice to get away from the crowd aboard after a day ashore, and there’s usually some pleasant live music accompaniment.

We followed up our Elite lounge time with some in Take Five. As it was still early there was only recorded music playing quietly and we had the space mostly to ourselves. A few pre-dinner cocktails almost had to be ordered, and the cocktails in Take Five are absolutely fabulous!

Finishing off the evening nicely was speciality dining in Crown Grill. No surprises here with us ordering mostly what we always order and enjoying every last bite. It was good to see that they had the very excellent Belle Glos Pinot Noir that we’ve discovered over the space of a few years is our preferred bottle of wine on a Princess ship.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll be visiting Copenhagen, Denmark for our second time, and for the first of two occasions on cruises in 2022.