When selecting a stateroom, I discovered why the cruise was relatively cheap: In the cheapest category, there was only one room available, and it had no outside window. The next level up had no rooms available. I went up one more level and took a room with an obstructed view window, and, I realized later, on the ocean rather than the land side, meaning we would only see water most of the time. I added a basic wifi package, and four shore excursions. I declined booze packages, fancy dining packages, spa packages, etc. Without paying $40/day for the cheapest beverage package, you don't even get sodas! (I'll buy some to bring onboard.) After all the additions, the cruise is no longer "relatively cheap."
We were to fly to Chicago then to Reykjavik. In the wee hours of the morning, over Newfoundland, halfway from Chicago to Iceland, the pilot said we were returning to Chicago! There was new volcanic activity in Iceland, and jets can't fly through volcanic ash. Here's the track of our flight:
Sounded reasonable, and we were trying to figure out just when we might get to Iceland or whether we would get there at all, but passengers discovered that NO other jet headed for Reykjavik had turned around. United Airlines provided us with alternative flights, free hotel and meals, but no one was happy. In our case, the suggested alternative flights meant waiting another day in Chicago (!!) and an added stop of more than 11 hours (!!) in Canada. Instead, I booked a flight on Icelandair. We needlessly lost one pre-paid hotel night and our pre-paid full day Golden Triangle tour. I will later hassle with United over just how much of an airfare refund I can get. (P.S. I did get a refund for the unused flights.)
There was a little drizzle at the Reykjavik airport, but none when we got to town. We did not get to the hotel until after noon. We slept for a while, had a bit of dinner, bought the sodas for the cruise, and did no activities.
Boarding the ship involved health questions, security briefing, lines for photos, searches, sea passes, and more, but went fairly quickly. The first day, I opened one of the two 0.75 liter bottles of Evian water. I thought they were complimentary. They were not; after taxes and crap, that bottle cost me $7.21! Grrr! That first evening, there was a not very well publicized LGBT get-together; out of over 2500 passengers, there were only two other men and one woman who showed up. The second day was completely "at sea," but we did go to an onboard magic show. Meals are good, and because we are often full, we skipped a couple.
We went to a presentation about the Vikings. The next day included our first excursion, watching Icelandic horses and visiting a dairy farm.
The following day had two excursions. In the morning, we went to the Goðafoss Waterfall and the Akureyri Botanical Garden. (See second photo album about the garden) The afternoon excursion said it would be a "narrated drive through Akureyri; Laufas Folk Museum; Tour the turf farmhouse" Well, the Laufas Folk Museum included the turf farmhouse, but the rest of the excursion was the Goðafoss Waterfall and the Akureyri Botanical Gardens! That's right, a repeat of what we did in the morning. I'm pissed that I paid for both excursions when we could have just done one! I complained to the Shore Excursion people that the two descriptions should have explicitly said that they were nearly identical and that customers should not even be allowed to book both of them without acknowledging that they were practically the same.
Our fourth and final excursion was OK, not great. Most interesting was driving through a one-lane tunnel with two-way traffic! (There are short pull-out lanes every so often for the traffic in one direction to yield to oncoming traffic. Click here for a 40-second video.)
Overnight we were north of the Arctic Circle. We received certificates saying we were now in the Order of the Blue Nose.
I did use the swimming pool and jacuzzi once. We enjoyed a Broadway show tunes performance on the last night.
All the Iceland geology I was looking forward to? We saw almost none of it! Missing the Golden Triangle tour was a major blow, but also the Akureyri excursions did not include any of the nearby lava formations of Dimmuborgir, bubbling mudpots or hissing fumaroles at Namafjall Mountain.
Our return flight from Newark to L.A. left four hours late, because the aircraft was more than three hours late arriving in Newark. Sigh.
On the whole, interesting enough, but missed most of what I wanted to see. As for cruising, Victor got tired of looking at the sea. If I book another cruise, I might try a river cruise.
