Crown Princess had dropped anchor near the Norwegian village in order to let a small percentage of the passengers off who would be taking a hike of their own then catching up with the ship later in the day. Knowing the ship wasn’t stopping long we simply admired the view from our balcony which handily included a sight of Hellesylt nestled on the shore of the fjord and the tender boat operation in place to take fellow travellers from the cruise ship to land.

The cruise from Hellesylt to Geiranger took around one hour and twenty minutes and for this duration we spent almost all of it on the top deck both to give our room steward the opportunity to clean our room whenever it was most convenient for him and so that we didn’t miss a thing of the scenery on either side of the Geirangerfjord as we cruised along it to our destination.

We started off by watching the Norwegian scenery pass us by from towards the aft of the ship, as much as anything to give us as different a view as possible from our cabin which was very near to the front.

For obvious reasons – to keep waves to a minimum so that the impact on the land is negligible – cruise ships need to keep their speed low when in the fjords. You’ve got flat, calm water, and towering faces of tree and bush-covered rock either side; the hum and low white-noise of the engines; the conversations of passengers carrying but everything just a bit muffled; a hint of echo in the surroundings but also sound-dampening taking place. And with all that you’ve got rises and falls in landscape, great tears of rock on occasion, waterfall streams from higher mountain tops and melting glaciers cascading in places. It is a simply astonishing, serene, humbling experience to cruise along the fjords of Norway.

The rock formations along the fjords were just incredible to look at and we found places where the cruise ship seemed startlingly close to the cliff faces it passed. However, scale can be difficult to judge with the sizes and distances involved. We were a lot smaller than we thought against the thundering presence that nature was throwing up around us and it was only when we could spot a structure we were familiar with – a house on the fjord shoreline, for instance – that our perspective reset itself.

More people started appearing on deck as we neared one of the sights of special interest along the Geirangerfjord route. Crown Princess passengers filled up all the best viewing spots along the sides of the ship and attracted the attention of staff keen to see who wanted to start the morning off with some speciality coffee or get some water to take ashore ahead of the disembarkation process to follow. The serenity of the earlier part of the cruise was somewhat lost but it didn’t detract from the views from the top deck too much.

That special sight was the Seven Sisters Waterfall. One side of the fjord sees seven streams representing the sisters dancing playfully down the rocks while the opposite side has a single suitor who flirts with them. You get used to these sorts of myths when you visit Scandinavia.

With this cruise trip to Norway taking place in September the water levels were fairly low so the waterfalls weren’t as impressive as they can be at different times of the year but we were lucky to have exceptionally nice weather cruising along the fjord which allowed the sunshine to generate rainbows in the cascades as we passed.

With the waterfalls behind us we weren’t far from the village of Geiranger now. The place relies on tourism and despite its small appearance it boasts the third largest cruise ship port in Norway, able to cope with several cruise ships at once in numerous anchor positions and with the assistance of a floating and movable pier. It’s also a place at risk of destruction from a tsunami should a large enough rock fall occur along the Geirangerfjord.

Crown Princess wasn’t the only cruise ship visiting Geiranger on the day we visited in 2013. The first ship we passed was P&O Adonia. Formerly with Princess Cruises as Royal Princess she has since been sold and renamed as Azamara Pursuit. We also spotted Celebrity Eclipse.

Both of those ships were employing tender boats to ferry their passengers onto land but we still had quite a bit of a wait as we’d only just arrived. Not only that, because we had an excursion booked we had a specific time at which we needed to make our way to the theatre on the ship so that left us a period to enjoy the surprisingly warm (and getting warmer) day on the top deck.

The next part of our second day in Norway is covered in our Geiranger Hiking Excursion write-up.