News & Blog
 

Due to all the changes we weren’t due to arrive in Bodø until about 11.00am so had a leisurely morning in front of us after our late night last night. We had the usual coffee in bed and then went to Medina for breakfast. We agreed to share so we could get in quickly. Everyone was pleasant enough but not exiting. After breakfast I went up to the Oasis Spa to change my nail appointment as I thought I might be able to do it in the morning before we went out. They didn’t have one

Sadly the sequel, like so many sequels, was a total damp squib. It started well enough with supper in the Beach House as Horizon just wasn’t appealing. However it went downhill from there. We had an incredibly long drive to our stop. We had had to miss one because the coach was too big to make the turn and then we were going to stop a second time the guide said the activity was poor so we needed to go elsewhere. That involved turning the coach round which was almost impossibl

Because of the clocks going back we woke very early and are currently watching our arrival in Narvik. However we still managed to get it wrong! We thought we were really early so we were waiting for the cafe to open at 7.00. But Steve got bored waiting so headed down early. He came back with the coffees saying they’d been open for ages. That of course made me panic so I turned on the tv to check the time and we were an hour out. It was nearly 8.00 not 7.00 and we had to leav

My last words on yesterday’s blog were that we were about to leave port and that the signal would go. Well that was correct but we still had a small amount of time with a connection as we remained close to land for a while. So I decided to catch up on emails etc one of which was from Tripadvisor saying that we were due to be charged the following day for a trip we had booked with them on Monday in Bodo. In order to get the tickets early I decided to pay there and then so pre

Today the adventure really began. It started with an early alarm for an 8.30 start. Steve got the coffee which we had in the cabin whilst getting ready. No rain was forecast so waterproofs weren’t necessary but we dressed really warmly with several layers. Then a quick breakfast in Horizon and off the ship. Andalsnes is a very pretty little village with a population of around 1200 so a cruise ship disgorging 1800 passengers and crew more than doubles the population. Andalsne

Although the clocks went forwards during the night, we weren’t confused this morning. But we were a bit later getting moving as our bodies hadn’t caught up. The morning followed the same pattern of coffee in the cabin followed by breakfast in Medina. We then did a few laps of the deck - well they would have been had not a small part been closed for maintenance so we couldn’t get all the way round. As there were no talks or classes we were interested in, we rested in the cabi

No surprise, we went to the Beach House last night for one of their hearty meals but big surprise neither Steve nor I could finish our main courses (shock! horror!) but Steve did leave a little space for a key lime sundae. All of this was preceded by a cheeky Prosecco in Anderson’s. It’s only the second time we’ve been there because it has a bit more of a wintery vibe which is perfect for heading north in October rather than the bars on deck which we’ve always been to before.

So this is the first post from Aurora on our 2026 trip to Norway. It all started yesterday at 2.15 am when we had to get up for our taxi to our 6 am flight to the UK. It all went very smoothly but after two taxi rides, two train journeys and one flight - all with suitcases as well as our backpacks which we aren’t used to - it was a long and tiring day. So we did little in Southampton other than a small bit of essential shopping (two shirts and a bow tie because he hadn’t brou