joshgates

Goodnight all!
📸Hubby

Tomorrow we are going to push disembarkation as late as we can (eye roll here, yes, we are going to be “those people” this one time) because we are spending one extra day in the UK before flying home on Saturday. The rationale here was that we did not want to face a long flight home on debarkation day. Staying an extra day gives us a chance to rest and reset before flying home. 
 
As we were packing up today, Hubby said to me, “We aren’t staying in some fancy hotel tomorrow, are we?” Well, I wonder if after almost 20 years of marriage he really knows me lol. I am also willing to bet he doesn’t know we had 5 Accor Suite Night upgrades and not 4. 😉
 

Final thoughts of Star Class on Anthem:
- SC definitely paid off for activities. We had zero stress getting to the bumper cars, North Star, iFly. 
 
- Specialty food options are lacking a bit on Quantum class, compared to Oasis. We repeated most of the specialty restaurants, they were all good, but compared to our other star sailings, this one lacked variety a bit. 
- At the end of our 3rd cruise now on Anthem, I can definitely say that they have the best CK staff. On all our sailings on this ship, from March 2018-now, this CK remains beyond excellent compared to other CK crews. There is just something extra about them. 
 
- Leroy, our Genie is fantastic! He is so well organized, kind, great with little kids, and pay attention to small little details. Every day he sends an overview of the day, reminders along the way, follows up on orders to the room, he is beyond thorough. Every dinner he showed up to walk us in (they don’t all do that), and no request was too much for him to handle. He is very dedicated to this job and it shows in his actions each day. He is headed back home soon for vacation but if anyone gets him in the future, they are lucky and in good hands. 
 

Final thoughts on our Grand Loft Suite. 
 
I will admit, I did not set many expectations for this suite only because I am #teamDeck17 at heart. Several things did not surprise me about this room:
- It is most definitely a long walk to/from the suite. 
- There is quite a bit of motion back here. 
- The missing vanity downstairs (compared to the star loft) was missed by the two teenage girls. It made getting ready a tad slower. 
 
A few things that did surprise me about this suite:
- Aside from the long trek to/from the room, I liked the room a lot. It is not as “open” as the star loft but I did not mind it. 
 
- The master bathroom layout in this room is way better than the star loft on the older OA/AL, and the newer HM. It is more open and there is more counter space. This one wins for sure. 
 
- The view from this suite is the best. Hands down. No contest. On OA class ships, with all your Deck 17 rooms, there is either some obstruction from the back deck (flow rider, basketball court, mini golf, etc.) in your line of sight. The ocean facing ones are one sided. The ATS has the Aqua Theater in the line of sight. This room gives you a totally central view of the wake with nothing but the wake in your line of sight. No other room can do that. We have taken so many balcony pics this cruise compared to other cruises.
Would I hesitate to book this room again? Definitely not. 

A gorgeous sunset to cap off a beautiful vacation.
📸Hubby



We feel incredibly blessed. There were a lot of hurdles to clear to take this trip and everything went so smoothly, right down to perfect weather even on days that we forecasted to be not great. Someone was definitely watching over us.
 
Over the last two weeks, we have experienced so much as a family, it’s going to take us a few days to get home and really digest and soak in what we saw. 
 
Meeting @GregD and his family has been a real treat! It is always great to meet and sail with people you have gotten to know over the years. Our cruising community is small, goodbyes are just a “so long for now”. 😊

Dinner at Chops tonight and Leroy had some nice things for us. It was a great way to end this cruise. What The Boss didn’t know was that Leroy reached out to me and asked for pictures of the two of us together and this was the result.

For dinner, The Boss had shrimp cocktail and the goat cheese salad. The camera forgot it’s bite there. I had the wild mushroom soup that everyone apparently loves. For me it was just okay. We both had the petit fillet, and I added the lobster. I was informed that they didn’t have the full lobsters and just had the tails. No big deal for me!

@WAAAYTOOO, Lydia got the apple pie….sorry to report………
it had raisins……
 

Izumi lunch today after we finished bumper cars and North Star with @GregDand family. 

Now at Harry Potter trivia in 270. This one is a whole lot more difficult than the one we did on Oasis. Good thing we have a major fan here because I have no clue about the answers to any of these. 

Here are a few photos of the day that aren’t duplicates. 
 
This guy wore proper gear for a waterfall, unlike some kids I know🤣

Tucking in for some waffles!

Sometimes we take a nice picture 

There may have been a comment made by The Boss regarding Lydia and Trolls or something? Regardless, add another embarrassing photo to the collection.


Old watch tower for the city.

Regent cruises, Seven Seas Splendor was here too. This ship has a suite with a $200,000 bed that costs 11k a night, but needed to be helped out of port with tugs.

Back to why the kids were drenched after the boat ride…
This ride takes you not only to Pulpit Rock but also takes you right up to some of the rock formations and waterfalls. One waterfall in particular the boat was able to get really close to. So close that a crew member takes a bucket right up to it to fill, then they pass out cups so they you can have a sample drink if you wish.
 
My kids decided that they would sample the water too, in the form of a shower. They went to the front of the boat and pretty much got right under the water. Had this teacher been on supervision duty, she would have cared. But I am on vacation, so if they wanted to sit in wet clothes, well their problem, not mine lol.
 
D13 did manage to get some pretty cool pics before the shower though. 
 

Hubby went back out to walk around the port area after having some cake. We stayed behind as we like our afternoon chill time. Here are some photos he took while walking around. 
 

The cruise was about 3 hours long with a 30 min stop for waffles right before the boat enters the Lysefjord. The kids were drenched from the boat ride so we headed back to the room after the cruise so they could clean up. This is what we came back to. Leroy has been so thoughtful along the way. D15 almost 16 loved it and she wore the necklace to dinner already! 
 

Another whirlwind of a day, where do I start? Left off this morning with us getting ready to go on the Lysefjord cruise excursion. The weather was not on our side today. Had it been, it would have been even more impressive.
 
The walk from the ship to the boat (for the Lysefjord cruise) is a quick one. Less than 5 mins. If one ever does this excursion, try to sit on the left side of the boat, that is where most of the sights are. Or go up top.
 
Because it was wet and raining on and off, The Boss and I sat inside, @GregDand Hubby braved the elements and went up top, and the kids roamed around most of the time.
 
Some photos from the ride down Lysefjord. Somewhere in the mist/clouds is pulpit rock. 

📸Hubby
 

Good morning from Stavanger, Norway. This is our last port for this this cruise. Off to do a Lysefjord cruise excursion shortly. 
 

Good morning Stavanger!
 

Dinner brought us back to Jamie’s again tonight. Great food as usual. We saw WWRY tonight and we have plans to see it again tomorrow.

Joff Eaton has been hilarious so we decided to give The Love and Marriage Show a try and it did not disappoint as usual. 
 
Off to bed now finally! Lots of motion again tonight. While I still love cruising, I am not sure if cruising the North Sea is for me in the future. 
 

After riding the train, we walked around the port area for about an hour. Hubby had an amazing time at the Mall of Norway 😆
 

This morning we had arranged with Leroy to have breakfast delivered to the room to avoid the fiasco of Hubby and the kids scrambling at the last minute to find something to eat before we headed off. This turned out really well as it gave everyone a chance to watch the sail into Flåm and eat at their leisure. 

Shortly afterwards, we were off to meet Leroy and @GregD and the gang to ride the Flåmsbana train. Not going to bother to describe it as Greg already did in an above post. The train ride was a good way to see many sights but agreed that it goes by quite fast. There is only one opportunity to get out and take pics (at the waterfall). These pics were taken from inside the train.

 

After Hubby returned from his sunrise photos we were deep into the fjords and by about 7am, I stepped out onto the balcony and was greeted by these sights. Quite breathtaking. We spent about an hour taking photos. This was one of those times that I was actually glad Hubby brought a tripod. We ended up with some really beautiful family shots. As it got closer to 8am, the lighting was perfect!
Another massive photo dump ahead. Photos all by Hubby. 
 

Flåm is gorgeous. The more I look at the view, the more it reminds me of Lake Louise on steroids and train ride is like a super version of the drive down the Icefields Parkway or across the Trans-Canada Highway from Alberta to BC. 
 
In a surprise turn of events this morning, Hubby actually woke up with @GregDto catch the sunrise sail into the Fjords. Pics from a different perspective though as Hubby wandered all around the upper decks.
Massive photo dump ahead 
📸all Hubby, no real filters here 
 
 

After we got off the train we had lunch in one of the port restaurants. We were pressed for time and ended up in the buffet restaurant. While the food was good, it was expensive for what it was, but hey, I was able to get a flight of local beers. They were okay. If we had more time there were better options for food. I guess that means we have to come back! Next up was the Panoramic Stegastein excursion.
 
The beers

Do you think Johnny can pass for a Viking?

Our next excursion brought us to the Stegastein Viewpoint. This is an observation platform that projects of the side of the mountain. The viewpoint is 650 meters above the Aurlandsfjord. To get there we boarded a large tour bus and headed off. What we weren’t expecting is that the road to the view point is a one lane road that handles traffic in both directions. This made for some tight obstacles and our driver had nerves of steel. There were multiple switch backs and many times I thought we would go tumbling off the side of the mountain. This car like many others had to back up to small areas to pull off to let larger vehicles go by.

 
Headed up one of the switch backs.

Once there, the views were amazing!



the platform 

 
some had more fun than others🤣

Unfortunately, while at the top it was a bit of chaos. There were so many people pushing and shoving to get to the end of the platform and nobody was patient, or used any logic to make this process smoother. Oh well, we still had fun. We had about 30 minutes up there so, plenty of time. 
 
once back on the bus we headed back down the same road to Aurlands Village for a little bit of wandering. We stopped in a small bakery and got some cookies. 
 
This church here in the village was over 300 years old

The docks in Aurlands

 
We had about 20 minutes here as well and headed back to the ship. All aboard was 4:30. We got there at 4:35, as well as a few hundred other passengers. There were multiple tours that arrived back in port all at the same time.
What a day!

Today was BUSY! As we all know I got up early to watch the sunrise, and ended up staying topside all morning until we arrived in flam which was around 8. Leroy then had me in the North Star again for my early morning ride. I made it back to the room for our Starbucks and breakfast delivery. 
We then had our first excursion of the day which was the Flam railway. This is a short 20km section of railway that goes from Flam to Myrdal where you can connect to the Bergren-Oslo Line. This section is the steepest railway in Europe and a great way to see some scenery. Along the journey you pass picturesque villages with a church from 1667, amazing waterfalls and steep escarpments. You climb 864 meters with an average gradient of 1:18, passing through 20 tunnels including one that turns 180 degrees. 
 
View of Flam from the North Star. Flam has a full time population of about 400 people, and it’s main industry is tourism.

Our own little Vikings we’re ready to go.

On the way up, here is the church from 1667

So many sights.

We even spotted an elusive Lulubot outside of her natural habitat! 

 
The train does make a stop for pictures at the Kjofossen Waterfall. These falls have a free fall of 305 feet. While there you must try not to become under the spell of the Huldra who will try to lure you into the mountains for good. She can be seen here…..I was tempted to stay, but a stern look from The Boss set me straight and I quickly returned to the train. 

 
Once at Myrdal Station, the train stops briefly before heading back down the mountain. 


The ride was fun and a good way to see a lot of things quickly, but we all remarked, that you do see them quickly before you pass them by. The total journey is about two hours.

A couple more, totally worth getting up super early for! This is the final approach into Flam.

And even more? Lol Some videos on IG as well. 
Simply gorgeous sail in this morning! 

Arriving into Flam. Today brings us deep into a fjord. I woke up at 4:10 to catch the sunrise