2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 06 - Geiranger, Norway (Beautiful)

 September 8, 2026

This morning was a lazy morning…although I got up and opened the curtains around 7 AM to see the most beautiful valley full of waterfalls as we cruised up the fjord.  Hundreds of waterfalls cascading over and down the steep slopes of the fjord walls.  Its pretty breathtaking.

The boat first stopped for about an hour in a place call Hellesylt so some excursions could take off from there.  Such small little towns with homes on the most steep cliffs.  I always wonder how they can build such structures.  How do the get the machinery and supplies there?  After spinning the boat we headed to Geiranger.  This was our main port of call for today.  We were here from noon until 9 PM.  We left the boat around noon.  Our plan was to take the hop-on, hop-off bus through the little town and up into the mountains.  Most of the ship wanted to do this, it seemed.  A pretty long wait to buy tickets.  It turned out that our bus time was 1:30 pm, so we had some time to kill.  I just kinda walked around then went and stood in line to make sure we got a decent seat on our bus.  The girls shopped.  But while I walked around, I noticed these green looking vehicles that seated two, one in front, the other in back.  They rented for 1 hour for the same price that we paid for the hop-on, hop-off bus.  I think that would have been a lot of fun to take those around the area for an hour.  Anyway, the bus thing was fun.  We went to the top first where we had amazing views of the valley and into the fjord.  We took tons of pictures of the beauty all around us.  Later, we caught the bus and took it to the next stop where we got off and walked about .9km to a farm house/restaurant.  That was a nice scenic walk up high on the mountain.  After walking back to the bus stop, we got back on the bus to the next stop which was near a visitors center.  It had a river flowing through it that you could follow all the way down to the city center and to our ship.  That was a great walk back. Someone said that there were 480 steps one takes to do this.

After spending the afternoon walking around Geiranger, we re-boarded the bus to wait for dinner.  I have found the food to be ok…not the best that I’ve had.  It’s good…but not the best.  I have found the service to just be ok…not the best, not the worst.  And some of the processes, like getting back on the ship took too much time when compared to other ships.  Most ships have two entry points, this one only has one.  So you get queued up a bit.  It’s just time…all good.

Finally, Denise and Ilene were handed a promotional flyer for a spa night.  They seemed to think it was a good deal for the money.  So they booked it for 8 PM.  As I write this, Denise is there now.  We went to the main show but Denise and Ilene left me to get to this appointment.  Kim was not feeling well after dinner and went to his room.  So I’m on my own for a bit until the 9:30 Big Band show.  I hope we’re able to get seats to it.  We shall see.

Here are some pictures of the day:

I believe this is a shot of Hellesylt’s port. 

Cruising through this fjord.  It was gray in the morning but cleared fairly nicely in the evening.

While waiting for the time to get off the ship, the girls colored.  Yep, colored.

These were some little stories in the little main street of Geiranger.

It was cold in the morning.  Denise couldn’t get enough layers on.

At the highest stop point of our on-off bus, there was this chair looking out over the valley.  Denise and Ilene had some fun with it.

They insulate their homes with dirt and grass on their roof of their houses.  I just wonder if they mow it.

Lovely waterfalls everywhere.

This is the little town of Geiranger, Norway.  Lots of RV’s came into the green area to the right by nights end.  I think it is a popular tourist and camping place.

Cruising up the fjord. 

It was Diva’s night in the lounge.  I thought this girl sings wonderfully.  And to do this song from Whitney Houston (written by Dolly Parton) is a tough one.  She did a nice job.

Some videos that I took.  Pretty area this place is.

2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 05 - Ship at sea day.

 September 7, 2026

Finally a good nights sleep!  I did take a Melatonin pill and it seemed to help.  Anyway it was fun waking up, opening the shades and having a full view of the North Sea.  Looking out from inside it looks really cold out there.  But, when opening the door, the air is not that bad.  It’s probably in the 50’s I would guess.  The sea is a bit choppy and the boat is moving more than I’ve felt in past cruises. 

I’m once again writing this in the Carousel Lounge waiting for the Big Band again.   This time it will be the swing genre.   Our day has been fun.  We started the day in the dining room for breakfast.  The food is pretty good but the service, especially at breakfast was quite bad.  It just seemed like our table sat in a place where the servers stopped just short.  After eating we went to a ‘name the price’ trivia type activity.  It challenged us as it had to be priced in euros.  So we were constantly having to adjust from dollars to euros.  It wouldn’t have mattered as our pricing was always quite high.  

After failing on pricing, we put our swim suits on and went to the hot tubs in the indoor pool area.  That felt quite good just soaking in the warm water.

But the highlight of the day activities was being taught the Cha, Cha, Cha.  Boy did Kim and I tear a rug up with our moves.  We led Denise and Ilene so gracefully that Kim’s blood sugar went real low and I could barely stay awake.   We did make it through a couple of rounds of dancing with the music.  It was kinda fun.  

After lunch,  we each went back to our room to take a rest.  We were to meet with Kim and Ilene at 3 PM for a Win it in a minute challenge.  But Denise and I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until it was way over.  I had to text them to see if they made and they had.  So embarrassing.  But once we fully woke up, we met them in the buffet and played some cards.  That was fun.

Tonight was formal dinner night followed by a couple of great shows.  The main show was a Rock and Roll show that we all loved.  You know, we grew up in an era with the best music!  It was awesome to go through a myriad  of rock and roll songs.  The even did Stairway to Heaven from Led Zepplin.  

As I said earlier, I’m writing this from the lounge where they Big Band is going through some of the old swing tunes.  That, too, takes me back to my high school days since we played many of these swing tunes in our band classes.  The talent on the ship has been really quite good.  The singers have all had amazing voices.  And this band is really good.

Lastly, we sat through an education of Norway and its history.  That was really fun since the next 3 days will be spent visiting Norway fjords.  We are excited to see the beauty of this country and experience a bit of its culture.  

Some pictures:

They have sculptures made from plastic bottles retrieved from the sea.

Hot tubbing.  Nice.

Enjoying the balcony.

Our rock and roll show with some amazing stunts.

Waiting for the show to begin.  Got great seats.

Lovely sunset from our balcony.

The big band show singers.

Playing cards while waiting for the big band show to begin.

Serious dancers we were.  It was a lot of fun.

2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 04 - Cruise Time!

 September 6, 2026

Well, I wish I could say that we were able to write that we both slept better.  But that was not the case.  I even took ibprofen which usually helps me to sleep better.  I was awake at 1:30 but I think I fell asleep a little after 9 PM.  Anyway…all good.  I laid awake following the BYU blow out game.  I read a chapter in the book I’m reading called ‘Torn’.  I researched public transportation in Dublin.  Just stuff.  I tried to go back to sleep.  But no luck.  My body got rest but my mind did not.  All good.

The high priority of the day was to be to the cruise ship by noon.  But because we could not see the Christus statue in the Church of our Lady yesterday, we agreed that we would meet there at 9 AM and that we probably would not have time to go out to the temple and attend our church services there.  We arrived as planned at the Church of our Lady as planned and saw the amazing statues there.  The Christus was at the head of the chapel with all the original Apostles down the side.  One thing very interesting was that Peter, in his right hand is holding keys?  Why, one might ask.  Well, Peter was given all the keys to the priesthood that Christ bestowed upon him before His crucifixion.  To us, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, this is very important.  We believe those PH keys were lost as the ancient apostles died off and the power to act in His name was lost.  Thus, we believe that the priesthood and those keys were restored as part of the restoration process through Joseph Smith.    Anyway, pretty interesting that Peter is depicted that way.

After spending about 15 minutes there, all alone, we felt like we could get back to our hotels, retrieve our luggage and head to the temple where the chapel was and attend church services there.  So off we all went going to our hotels.  Well, Denise and I just missed the bus we needed and had to wait another 15 minutes.  This cost us and so we did not arrive until 10:18…18 minutes late.  Bummer.  Nonetheless, we made it and enjoyed the bearing of testimonies in danish no less.  I didn’t understand a word except when a few senior missionaries bore theirs in english.  After the services ended at 11, we decided to take public transportation to the ship.  This consisted of about 4 connections…a bus ride to the metro, the M3 metro to a connection with the M4 metro.  Then once near the port, we got off and took another bus to the ship terminal.  We arrived at around 12:20.

The ship boarding process went fairly well and before we knew it we were in our room, a balcony.  It is the first time we’ve ever had a balcony.  And we are amazingly please with it.  Should be nice to have as we go through fjords in Norway.  We then headed to put the cruise feed bag on…the ship’s buffet.  We enjoyed a yummy lunch.  After eating, we were all pretty tired so we went back to our rooms and took naps.  That felt so good.  At around 5:30, we got up and started to tour the ship before sitting down to eat at 6 pm.   The ship is pretty amazing.  Really differently designed than other ships we’ve been on.  Bowling Alley, F1 cars, indoor swimming pool and hot tubs, indoor sports court and so on.  It appears that there are lots of eateries.  But most cost.  We are still figuring out the boat though.  So we shall see.

After dinner, we headed to the evening show which as a show pretty much based on lighting technology.  It had a number of performers, about 18, that danced, sang and did acts with lights and lasers.  It was pretty fun.  

I’m now writing this in a lounge listening to big band disco music.  It’s pretty nice.  They have singers with the big band that has an 18 piece orchestra.  Really fun.  Well we are off cruising again.  It was really nice to unpack and know we don’t have to live out of suit case for 7 nights.

Here are some pictures:

Church of our Lady where the Christus is found.

The Christus….beautiful.

Peter, with keys in his hands.

After church outside the temple.  It’s hard to believe I attended church dressed this way.

Part of our journey on the metro system with bags in tow!

Our first balcony.  We are loving it!

Lunch by the windows as we began our journey.

Indoor basketball court.

Large outdoor pool.

Indoor pool and hottubs.

Our evening dinner table.

I had to ask for some ice and they brought me a bucket full.

The roof of the main atrium is amazing.  It changes regularly with some amazing designs.

The big band show…really good.

2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 03 - Walking Tour of central Copenhagen.

 September 5, 2026

Horrible sleep last night.  Awake at 2:30 and could not go back to sleep.  Denise and I had a nice conversation around 4:30 AM…that is how off our sleep schedules are.  Normally I can go back to sleep.  but not last night.  Bummer.

Today was going to be our ‘walking tour’ guided by Denise Tiner.  We planned the sequence of things to visit during our conversation at 4:30 AM mapping out walking distances and timings of things.  But all in all, the day went pretty darn good.  But we are beat.  I will post pictures and then describe the activity below them.  Here I go….

We started our day at a bakery that has been in business since the 1600’s.  It is called Stk. Peders Bageri.  As you can see in the pictures, the line was quite long when we arrived and it took probably 20 minutes to get inside.  They had some really unique pastries…some better than others.  But our favorite was one with pistachio nuts all over it and chocolate frosting.  It was all really good.

So this was the sad part of our day.  The highlight of our day and trip was to be the seeing of the original Christus statue along with the 12 original apostles.  Unfortunately the church (Church of our Lady) was closed for the day due to baptisms going on and then a wedding.  Come on…what do they think…they are a church?  We were so disappointed that we’ve made the decision to go back there early tomorrow morning just before their services start and get some pictures.  Unfortunately we will miss going to the ward here and attending church in Copenhagen.  Timing will not work.  Fingers crossed we get in tomorrow to see the statues!

The next set of pictures above are of the Round Tower.  This one cost a bit to get in but was interesting and worth it.   It basically is an old observatory and was the home of the guy who determined the speed of light.  Can’t remember his name.  Anyway, upon entering you walk up this spiral ramp which as big enough to get a car on.  You go up and up and up eventually arriving at some stairs that take you outside where you get a panoramic view of Copenhagen.  The last picture is actually into the room that has some telescopes.  Again, it was pretty nice to visit and took about 30 to 45 minutes to enjoy.

The next couple of pictures is of Stroget street which is a pedestrian only shopping center that has been around 1962.  Being a Saturday, it was pretty popular with lots of people roaming the street.  We also passed a cool fountain that is also shown as we walked around Stroget.

The next set of pictures and stop was at Christiansborg Palace, one of 4 palaces where the King and Queen may visit and use.  The top picture was of one of the canals that you see sometimes as you walk along the path to each site.

The next stop was the Marble Church.  Unfortunately, it was being used.  I think being a weekend, there were tons of marriages and things going on within the churches.  But it looked pretty cool from the outside.  The statue that is also shown was one of many that we passed as we walked the streets here in Copenhagen.

The next stop shown above was Amalienborg Palace.  This is where the King and Queen have their residence.  Many large buildings make up this plaza for various royal reasons.  And as you can also see, at noon everyday is the changing of the guard.  Again, not having much luck, normally there is a band and a lot more pomp and circumstance than we saw.  But it was fun to watch nonetheless.  The top picture if one of the policeman that came over and gave us a really good overview of this plaza and all its buildings and this process of changing the guard.  Great guy.

The next stop was a 20+ minute walk to The Little Mermaid statue that sits along the harbor.  I’m not too sure what all the big deal is about this statue.   But I must say that the park all around was pretty nice and there was a ton of people in the area just doing stuff.  The top picture is the Geffion Fountain where we took a quick sit down break as we walked to The Little Mermaid stature. I really needed this as my legs were really hurting.

Interesting story about the next set of pictures above.  In the temple, we were shown a mural in the baptistery where many famous Danes where shown.  One of the individuals was a young lady who was an immigrant to America.  We were told that a statue of her and plaque was found near the site of The Little Mermaid statue.  We got talking about this and decided, what the heck, let’s make the walk to it.  It probably took another 15 minutes to get there.  And when we arrived, we could see the pier but no statue.  For whatever reason, a lady and her husband approached us and asked what we were looking for.  We told her a statue of a woman who had immigrated to America for religous reasons.  The woman was not sure much as to what we were saying.  But the man knew.  He said to keep walking and we’d see it.  And sure enough, we found it.  Pretty cool.  Over 20,000 immigrants left from this site to seek religious freedom in America…most pioneer members of our church.  And in front of this statue were little bricks that had names and dates of some who had departed from here.  It was a highlight of the day to find and see this.

 Our next stop was lunch.  So we retraced our steps back past The Little Mermaid status to a restaurant that sat on the harbor.  Outside was this stature made of iron…items retrieved from the ocean.  It was pretty cool.  The restaurant was called 7 kitchens because it was made up of 7 different kitchens that made different types of food.  Pretty unique.  Have not said how expensive dining out is…but we had 2 small salmon patties, nachos and a burrito bowl between all 4 of us.  The cost…$90.   I could get all of this for under $40 in the states.

The next stop and set of pictures is of a very popular site named Nyhavn.  It is a very colorful set of buildings along a canal with many, many eateries all around.  It was VERY crowded.  But a great spot to get some nice photos of us and this place.

Our next stop was Rosenborg Castle.  I don’t know much history of this place.  But the park it sits in was pretty amazing.  Lots of people just sitting around enjoying the lovely day we had…without any rain I might add.  We too found a bench and just sat, visited and enjoyed the beauty around us.  That was the end of the sites that we planned to see.  It was a lot of walking and all our feet hurt pretty good.  But such is touring sometimes.  All great fun.

Since we were close to Kim and Ilene’s Presidential Suite, we decided to go play some cards and rest a bit.  But on the way, we found an ATM so Denise could get some danish coins and such.  Unfortunately, we left our bank card at home.  But Kim brought his.  So they pulled some money out for us.  The picture of Ilene and Denise showing candy bars that they bought with the actual bills that they had.  We pulled out 100 DKK which is close to $15.  But the cost to do that…$9.  So we paid $24 to actually get $15.  I’ve made better deals in my life.  But Denise has her danish monetary souvenir.

Bikes are everywhere here in Copenhagen.  Everywhere with amazing bike paths through out the city.  So, Denise and I have wanted to rent bikes and do some pedaling.  And that’s what we did to get back to our hotel from the one Kim and Ilene are in.  As you can see from the map above, there are ‘hubs’ of bikes throughout the city where various merchants rent their bikes.  We used Donkey Republic.  It had a 60% off coupon for your first one way ride.  So we created accounts and applied the discount.  I think we rode about 8 km back to our hotel and it cost us $3.  Pretty cheap.  It was fun.  But Denise’s bike challenged her she said with its steering.  But we made it safely.  The odd thing is that few wear bike helmets.  You’d think that would be a requirement.  The other thing is that bikes are everywhere…and not locked up.  The rented bikes have a locking mechanism that makes them unuseable.  But the non commercial bikes don’t and most are not locked.  They trust each other I guess.  

Well…great day but wiped out.  Tomorrow we head to our cruise ship to start our 7 day cruise.  It might be a few days before I publish blog updates!