Family Fun in Europe, Part 18: Life on the Sky Princess and Heading Home

This is my eighteenth and final post about our family's 2024 trip to Europe. I recommend reading the first, second, third, fourth,  fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth posts before this one. 

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Heading Home

On Thursday, August 1 we left Norway to sail toward Southampton, UK, where we would disembark and fly home. I thought I'd use this final post to share a bit more about life onboard the Sky Princess. 

Sky Princess is a MedallionClass ship, which is really nice. Your wearable medallion serves as a hands-free key, ID, and meal delivery service. The app makes it simple to find family members, view the ship's schedule, send messages, and lots more. 

  

It's a beautiful ship, packed with tons of things to do. Like I mentioned previously, I didn't take advantage of nearly as many planned activities as I normally do. I did meet the family for trivia occasionally...

... and I went to a painting event. I thought there was going to be an instructor, but it turned out to be totally on our own. 

With no plan whatsoever, I jumped in and ended up with this. 

I spent a lot of time in our cabin: reading, watching movies or the Olympics, doing puzzles, or just watching the scenery as we floated by. Or, in the case of bridges, floated under.

The sunsets were beautiful and the seas were blessedly calm the whole 14 days. 

The towel animals our room steward made each day were delightful. 

Of course, I spent a lot of time eating. I had breakfast and lunch at the buffet each day (eaten outdoors, or wherever the fewest people were...

  

... and dinner in the dining room with the family. 

The cruise was restful and a great way to spend time with family. It was exactly what I needed to end a wonderful 3 weeks in Europe. 

Saturday, August 3 was a long (LONG) day. Mom, Dad, Kari, and Allison had a much earlier disembarkation time than we did, so we'd said our goodbyes already. The three of us had to be out of our cabin by 8:45. We waited in the dining room until 9:30, when our disembarkation group was called. We were the second to last group (out of 30+) which sounds like it would be a bad thing, but it's the opposite. We were in no hurry to get to the airport since our flight wasn't until 4:00 pm. With everyone else getting off the ship well before we did, there was no competition for elevators, no lines, and no need to search through an enormous space to find our luggage. We scanned our medallions, walked off the ship, picked up our luggage, and were on our bus in 5 minutes. 

The drive to Heathrow took two hours, but it was a somewhat pleasant drive. Security was quick at Heathrow, although Trevor's plastic playing cards triggered a secondary check... again. Plus, he had to have his shoes screened. Steve and I got to keep our shoes on, which was a nice surprise. 

We had a few hours to wait for our flight, then boarded at 3:30. The flight was almost 11 hours, landing at 7:00 pm San Francisco time. I appreciated the schedule that was displayed on the seatback in front of me. Speaking of which - no upgrades this time. Standard economy. 

Departure, Meal Service, Lights out, Light snack, Lights on, Snack. Would I be able to sleep when the lights went out? (Spoiler: No, but not for lack of trying.) They didn't make much effort to have us sleep since it was westbound. It wasn't especially quiet or dark. 

At least the food was really good. This was the Meal Service, which happened about an hour into the flight. I didn't have the Light snack (hour 5), nor the Snack (hour 9), which was pizza.  

The flight was smooth and without incident, but it's still about the last way I'd like to spend a day. We got home around 9:00 pm local... which is 5:00 am London time, which is how it felt.

I can't complain too much though. My parents, sister, and niece had a similarly long flight from London to Seattle, then a tight layover before flying to Boise. They got home after midnight local. At that point, we'd been asleep for hours. 

Thank you so much to my parents for giving Trevor the best graduation trip ever. Thanks to Kari for all the hard work making arrangements. And thanks to my cancer team for working around my trip so that I could still travel without compromising my health. What a vacation - one I'll remember forever. 

Family Fun in Europe, Part 17: Kristiansand

This is my seventeenth post about our family's 2024 trip to Europe. I recommend reading the first, second, third, fourth,  fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth , and sixteenth posts before this one. 

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Kristiansand, Norway

On Thursday, August 1, the Sky Princess docked in Kristiansand, Norway. 

 

Steve, Trevor, Kari, Allison, and I opted to walk into town in the morning and explore Kristiansand on our own. My parents had a shore excursion booked later in the day, a train ride. 

Obviously, we had to ask Trevor and Allison to pose by this moose. 

Kristiansand is a fairly large municipality. With 116,000 residents, it's the 6th largest in Norway. The pier area was bustling with tourists and locals. 

We strolled through Otterdalsparken. Locals call it Nupenparken, because the fountains in the park were made by artist Kjell Nupen. 

There were some impressive sand sculptures on display. 

How sad that they are temporary! So much work and impressive detail. 

Horse, not sheep. Norway, not Sweden. 

This is Christiansholm Fortress. 

  

I love taking pictures of Steve taking pictures....

... and then seeing what he captured. 

I'm always delighted to find a manhole cover specific to where I'm visiting. I wish all cities did this. On the other hand, since most don't, it makes it all the more special to find one.

This is Kristiansand Cathedral, completed in 1884. 

  

There was a 30-minute organ concert scheduled to start in 20 minutes, but I didn't get much support when I asked the rest of the group about staying. Nor did anyone opt to join me for a scavenger hunt. 

    

This is Haakon VII, king of Norway for 52 years until his death in 1957. Surprisingly (to me anyway), he was born in Denmark, not Norway. He was crowned King of Norway when the country (a dependency of Denmark until 1814) became independent of Sweden in 1905. 

There were flowers everywhere in Norway. 

We were wandering somewhat aimlessly through town, looking for interesting things. Naturally, we stopped at a grocery store. Those cylinders on the middle shelf are "white cheese." I don't really understand and would like to know more.

There are the smallest rolls of toilet paper I've ever seen. My hand is there for scale. I have small hands. 

I'm nervous about the Salt Sild since there are fish (whales?) on the package. And Salt Skum doesn't exactly draw me in either. 

Self-serve bins like this haven't returned in force in California since they were removed during COVID. You can find some, but they're rare. I wonder if they were removed in Norway and returned, or if their patrons are more trusting of their fellow germy shoppers. 

Next, I convinced the group to pop into the library. I love libraries and they're especially fun to visit when you travel. I went through the children's section looking for familiar books. 

Harry Potter Og Barnets Forbannelse! And Kaptein Supertruse og de Drittleie Doene! (affiliate links)

  

Note to Dav Pilkey: "Captain Superpanty" should appear in a future book. He could be Captain Underpants' Norwegian doppelganger. Hilarity will ensue, I assure you.

"Stupid Pigs" is apparently the same as "Talking Toilets." I have questions. 

Here's another one. Why is there a "Gross" section in the library? They're next to Mysterier, so maybe they're the gory version of mysteries (horror)? I'm confused. 

Looking around the library was a lot of fun. I love the Pac-Man theme. And skewering books to make a tower representing words (pages? books?) read is a neat idea, assuming the books were already damaged and would otherwise have been discarded. 

  

We left the library, and walked down the street and into a candy shop. It was disappointing - mostly American brands we can find at home. Including Jelly Bellies, that are literally made 3 miles from our house. 

  

Next souvenirs. While Steve (pins), Trevor (decks of cards) and Allison (keychains) hunted, I looked at the selection of Engelsk books. 

Norway Yatzy? 

I browsed through the many (many) options for taking home a Norwegian troll. I was not tempted by the small options...

... nor by the surprisingly large ones. It's the size of a toddler. This is a shop for tourists, not locals. Assuming anyone would want this, who has room in their luggage to take it home? Are people paying to ship it? So many questions. 

Next, we popped into McDonald's. Not to eat, of course. We have a strict rule about not eating at places we have at home when we travel. We were there to see what unique things were on the menu. Probably the most surprising was the sweet potato fries. There weren't any regular fries on the menu. The Chili Cheese Tops looked interesting. The Tutti Frutti Sundae appears to be vanilla with colorful sprinkles, but I can't confirm that. 

The streets were getting more crowded and we'd seen everything interesting within a reasonable walking distance, so we began our stroll back toward the ship. 

I wish I'd taken pictures of the various Caution signs I saw during this trip. That would make a fun scrapbook page. 

Kristiansand's Cruise Terminal is in a great location. It's an easy walk to town, but if you don't want to do that, there are lots of shops, restaurants, boat rentals, tours, and more just steps off the ship.  

As we were getting back to the ship, my parents were getting off the ship to go on their train trip. 

We barely got a taste of Norway, but it was enough for me to know I want to come back. That's the beauty of cruises - you get a brief introduction to a lot of places so that you can prioritize where you want to go on return visits. From Kristiansand, we sailed back to Southampton, where the cruise began. Tomorrow I'll tell you more about the cruise as well as our travels home.