This Bucket List Item – In Search of the Northern Lights

We’ve been locked down awaiting this trip, a Viking Ocean Cruise, In Search of the Northern Lights. Leaving from England we didn’t need a Covid test to get into Great Britain from the US, but Viking required vaccines, boosters AND a negative PCR test pre trip. We weren’t taking any chances, and when we finally got to the airport after being in personal quarantine for so long all I could do was look around and say, “People!” 

I won’t bore any more of you with the details of our arduous journey to GET to England; suffice it to say American Airlines is getting ripped a new #$$hole when we get home. But we made it, and spent a lovely day with friends Sioux and Claire having high tea and visiting Runnymede, the site of the signing of the Magna Carta. 

We boarded our ship on Saturday, and had to wait in our stateroom for the results of yet another PCR test before being allowed to roam about. This was our 4th test this week. Thankfully Viking provided a lovely bottle of wine, sandwiches, dessert and access to the full room service menu until we were sprung from our room. We then went for a great dinner and a roam about the ship, complete with a nightcap. Aquavit for me, which was a first, as well as a history lesson from the bartender along with a recap of how Linie, a cask matured Aquavit was loaded onto one of the Viking ocean cruisers while it was being built so it could make an around the world journey before being bottled. Some of that original bottling is available on Viking ocean ships. If it is Linie it must cross the equator twice. It’s a lovely golden color from the sherry casks in which it’s aged, and a subtle caraway flavor. 

The Itinerary

Our itinerary has changed multiple times. Some Covid related and some weather related. One of our original ports was cancelled, so Scotland’s Shetland Islands replaced it. Ponies! Yay! Then the weather, 40 to 50 MPH winds in northern Scotland caused that port to be cancelled as well. So our first day at sea is a rough one, with 20-30 ft. waves and high winds. We’re heading across the North Sea to coastal Norway, and will see fiords and calmer waters tomorrow. So this morning I went exploring again while Steve, who had a rough night with all the creaking of the ship slept in.

The Ship

The Viking Venus holds 900 passengers, and I swear there at least that many crew. And they are all incredibly helpful, accommodating, and friendly. The common areas are very Scandinavian and the restaurants beautiful and well outfitted. There is a lot of Norwegian history and artifacts aboard, libraries with books about Norway and it’s authors as well as general fiction and nonfiction. And they have an assortment of experts; historians, astronomers, and naturalists holding talks about what has been and what we may see. 

Today, because of the high seas the ship is fairly quiet and a lot of folks are looking a bit green. I could have set my phone up and recorded people walking down the hallways; it looked like a bunch of drunks on the ship. Even with fairly experienced sea legs I was all over the place. Lots of ginger candy was being given out at the bars. And speaking of bars, it seemed appropriate to stop at the Viking Living Room bar for a Bloody Mary while Steve took a shower and got ready for lunch.

My new best friend, Alexsander, made me an extra spicy Bloody Mary with Beluga vodka, a premium and very smooth vodka made from Siberian winter wheat and ultra pure water. Before I’d decided on my drink an English woman came by and asked for tomato juice. Not a Bloody Mary, just tomato juice. I told Alexsander that was called a Bloody Shame. I got a fist bump and a declaration that I was his new best friend. I tried to guest his lineage. He said not Russian. We hate Russians. I guessed Ukrainian. Epic fail. Then Belarus. Nope, but his ex-wife was from there and they know his name. After multiple failed tries and a hilarious lecture about how Americans have no sense of geography (which, quite frankly, was mostly true) I finally guessed Croatia. His wide smile told me I’d finally gotten it. He explained that his mother was Serbian and his father Croatian. In his house there was a war every 3 days. I want to adopt this guy.

Tomorrow we’re passing into the fiords of the Norwegian inside passage and out of the North Sea, so the passage to our next port, Trondheim will hopefully be calmer, less creaky, and brighter outside so we’ll look at mountains, maybe see some sea birds and wildlife and have a clear night for viewing the “dancing ladies” as the Scots call the Aurora Borealis. 

Deborah