There weren’t supposed to be two sea days in a row at any point on this 2025 Ambassador Ambience cruise to Norway but plans sometimes have to change, and if you’ve read the previous post about our time visiting Leknes in the Lofoten Islands then you’ll already know that weather was the factor involved in us missing the scheduled final port of Bodø and spending additional time on the Norwegian and North seas instead. To start with, this had been a little bumpy – which is fun, because we like rough seas – but it soon settled down as our ship got ahead of the storm that had been coming towards land.
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.