I’ve just disembarked a cruise on a battery powered ship that visited 21 different ports in 4 days the journey took us from tromsa in the Arctic Circle all the way down to Bergen and I took this Cruise in the middle of winter I saw and did things on this trip that
Have to be seen to be believe from the ports that we visited to the surprisingly luxurious ship and the food I will show you it all usually when you Embark at Cruise it’ll be lunchtime maybe early afternoon our embarcation time was 11:45 500 p.m. I had a friend
On board who’d already been on the ship for around a week at this point and he had been sending me the most terrifying weather reports and footage of the ship traveling through really rough seas and storms to come and pick me up I was excited but definitely a little bit
Nervous about getting on board I do get seasick and I don’t claim to know much about Norwegian weather but a high Avalanche danger warning definitely didn’t seem good the ship that we were boarding was called the harva pois and we walked through a deserted terminal and just straight up the the gang waiter
Board this felt like breaking every single cruise ship roll all at once normally you have to check in at the terminal you go through security they scan your bags it takes a while but we literally just walked up the walkway and we were in the middle of the
Ship we checked in at reception the same way you would in a hotel on land and we were ready to start our cruise in 5 minutes which was really exciting some guests had already been on board for a week at this point and some would only
Be on the ship for a couple of hours between ports how they keep track of everybody coming and going I would never know but I did wonder if this would affect our cruise I didn’t know if it would really feel like a cruise at all I
Headed to my cabin which was right by reception to drop off my bags and then I very quickly ran around the ship to explore there wasn’t a lot going on because it was the middle of the night but there were small signs around that this would be very different from a
Regular Cruise little things like these parts on the floor so that you don’t slip over when you have your snow boots on they would definitely come in handy and before this I’d never really seen that much snow know actually on a ship but that was all about to change I
Decided to leave the exploring of the rest of the areas until the morning I wanted my first impression to be in daylight and I was as curious about my cabin as I was the rest of the ship I’m not too sure what I expected
From my c View cabin on a ferry but it definitely wasn’t this I expected it to be kind of crammed a little bit dark I was think of bunk beds when I think of fairies for some reason but this was big it was bright it was about the same size
As an Ocean View cabin probably that you’d have on a regular cruise ship the bed looked comfy and on it were two du vays that’s very standard in Norway and actually standard in a lot of Europe we usually only have one in the UK but two
Does make a lot of sense I would be very happy for two to be the standard it makes it so much easier to put the covers on having two singles instead of a double the big pile of seasickness bags was a little nerve-wracking of course but I decided better safe than
Sorry and that I would head to bed before I could risk feeling any movement when I woke up the next morning I had no idea idea how many ports we’d already passed often on the big cruise ships I’ll wake up when we dock because they kind of vibrate especially if you’re at
The back but the Hara Polaris was almost entirely silenc because she is partly battery powered she’s one of the most environmentally friendly ships in the world and Hara are very much at the Forefront of shipping technology it is my hope that the other Cruisin will follow hara’s lead but we will just have
To wait and see on that one the ship actually uses a combination of batteries and LNG fuel because that is the most efficient way they can sail entirely on batteries for 4 hours if they need to which is pretty incredible even when I was stood outside on the deck later in
The cruise I wouldn’t be able to tell if we were still docked or if we’ had started sailing away because it was so quiet the big hat that I always wore might have had something to do with it and also the snow that was constantly hitting me in the face I actually think
I got snow or wind burn on my cheeks during this Cruise keep a look throughout this video and see if you can see me getting redder and redder as the cruise went on we headed to the main dining room for breakfast and and it was here that we
Picked our dining times because guests can be on board for as little as an hour the cruises don’t always include food as standard I decided to buy what is called a meal package so that all of my meals in the main dining room and the cafe
Were included I had no idea what that meant in reality but I was looking forward to finding out I don’t really eat seafood and Norway of course is famous for it so I was hoping that there would be some other options we decided to pick one of the earliest time slots
For dining and that meant that our breakfast lunch and dinner would always be at this set time I’m not much of an early bird so I knew that I wouldn’t really get up and have breakfast at 7:30 every day but it was worth it to get the
Early dinner slot of 6:30 I would pick dinner over breakfast every single day in reality the crew was so helpful the ship wasn’t full so I’m sure they would have let us eat at another time if we asked later in the cruise we even had a
Friend come on board the ship to join us for breakfast which is definitely not something you can do on a regular Cruise he had to pay for his breakfast of course but still it was great he got a little tour of the ship and at that point it was more like a floating
Restaurant when we were sat in the restaurant I noticed that the menus were in Norwegian English and German I was curious about who would be on this cruise but at this point I was just happy to have some food we ordered with one of the waiters who was absolutely
Lovely and the food came very fast I had heard good things about the food on board and this breakfast definitely did live up to that I mean look at these fancy little trays for the fruit so fancy after breakfast I wandered along deck six to find this lovely big lounge
With lots of seats this Lounge wraps right the way around the front of the ship and there are very comfortable chairs next to pretend fires there’s no real fires on the ship of course unless something has gone very wrong speaking of things going wrong I did notice that
On the back of the doors where it explained the safety information it said that we would have to put on Survival suits in an emergency it hadn’t really crossed my mind before just how cold the water was below us we did see massive chunks of ice in the water too so I
Definitely didn’t want to get anywhere near that most days on this Cruise it was between -12 -5 C which I think is around 5 fah if you’re watching this and your American the ship felt very quiet but my friend David who I’ll refer to in this video as my Norway expert said that
The cruise was busier on the way North and quieter on the way South I took his word for that but honestly he could have told me anything and I’d have believed it at one point he did tell me that he saw aan being transported by boat I was
Not planning on believing that but looking at this video it absolutely is true I’ve asked David how pronounce almost every Norwegian word in this video so if I say any wrong please feel free to go and tell David his channel is called life in Norway and I’ll link to
It below I did notice that there were lots of sick bags around the ship they do pop up on regular cruise ships from time to time but on board this ship they were absolutely everywhere in every direction there would be bags on one hand this was reassuring but on another
Slightly terrifying I also didn’t like how the bag said on them when filled put on the ground imagine finding a a bag of somebody’s sick that is disgusting better though than somebody trying to carry it around a rocking ship anyway the less we think about that the better
Polaris is one of only four harer ships and she is the newest she’s been sailing for around 6 months so everything was absolutely pristine on board I really love the Scandinavian style too and it’s very different from the other ships that do Sail on this route the main
Competitor for harer on this route is a cruise line called her to grutin and the route that they actually sail up from Bergen to kcin is actually called her so her to Gren were the only Cruise Line there and they basically said we’ll just take the name of the route that was
Until the New Kids on the Block har showed up to give them some competition so now har and her to Gren are both sailing here and I like to think that they’re friends also on Deck six was a shop that sold lots of weird and wonderful things including these tiny
Shoes that I thought that I should get for my cat Hudson I did ask Instagram if I should and they did back me up on it but I don’t think Hudson would appreciate it sadly they sell lots of practical things here too like coats which which are definitely needed I’m
Not sure who would come on a trip like this without a coat but maybe if someone’s luggage got lost or it got damaged it’s great that there are some options here there was also a conference room where they would do daily talks and at this point I wasn’t actually sure
What I would be doing on a cruise like this there isn’t a theater there aren’t game shows or anything that I’m used to on a cruise I’m used to roller skating and swimming but I would find out later what the real entertainment on a cruise like this
Was it was around now that we started to pull into our first first Port we headed out the front of the ship and watched as we sailed into this tiny tiny town I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much snow and the way that everybody just drives
Around on it I don’t think I’ll ever get used to we don’t get much snow in the UK we were only in this first port for around half an hour so I wasn’t planning on getting off I could off if I wanted to and later in the cruise I often did
Run off pretty much put my hand in the snow and then come back but I wanted to watch this sail in from up high as did a lot of the other guests at the start of this trip I did wonder how you can really explore a place when you’re only
Visiting it for half an hour or sometimes only 15 minutes harilla do offer excursions that are longer and what they’ll sometimes do is the Excursion guests will get off in one port and then the bus will meet the ship at a later Port I’ve taken River Cruises
Like that in the past but on the ocean this was a very novel concept normally on Ocean cruises you only have one port or maybe two ports a day though we got to see the excursions in practice a little later when we were scheduled to sail under a bridge somehow they managed
To it so that when we sailed under the bridge the Excursion bus was driving across an announcement came over the tanite and said that if we wanted to we could go outside and we could wave our flags to the bus I very quickly got changed into my outside clothes and I
Headed out to the top deck it was freezing of course it was freezing and it was quite tricky to see through the wind but it was so much fun I met some other guests up there too some from the us some from the UK and it prepared me a
Little bit for what it would be like to go outside later I was so grateful for my snow boots my hat my coat and my gloves during times like this I’d often pull out my phone to film without my glove on and in a few seconds my hand
Would start to sting I have put together a guide of everything I packed on my website in case you are going on a snowy cruise and the link to that is in the description during my tour of the ship I came across a cafe area that looked absolutely lovely I personally really
Loved the design and the colors everything felt fresh and new and I decided that I would like to have my lunch here as part of my meal package I could have pizzas burgers sandwiches stews all kinds of good things I first went for the burger which was very good
And I came back later in the cruise for a pizza we could also have the pastries here too and the cinnemon rolls were huge and always freshly baked we spent hours sitting here watching the scenery go by my Norway expert David used it as his office but it is tricky not to get
Distracted by views like this the menus do have prices and some people did pay as they went rather than buying a meal package Norway is an expensive place to visit I’ll let you know how much this cruise cost me in a bit but it is worth
Remembering that even if you were to buy something in Norway like a McDonald’s it’ll probably be 50% extra than what you’re used to at home if you’re from the UK anyway I bought a pint of cider in Norway once and it cost me £ 122 and that’s $15 which is another good reason
Why it’s good to cruise in Norway the pizza on the menu was around £4 which is very good for Norway if I hadn’t paid for my meals I could have bought on board my own food from the ports I did bring my favorite drink Pepsi Max and I
Stocked my fridge with it it is a ferry after all and being able to bring anything on board was a massive perk after lunch we went outside after of course getting on all of our snowy clothes we had to scan our cruise card in the same way you would on a big
Cruise ship and after that we were free to explore we just walk down the ramp and straight into the port we had Port stops up to 2 hours on this cruise and we did get a chance to explore quite a few different places some were easier to
Get around than others because of the snow fresh snow is relatively easy to walk on but when it becomes icy and slushy it can be very slippery when it was icy I would wear these spikes on my shoes and when I had the spikes on I was
Pretty much as good as walking as the locals without spikes it made me a local but I had to have spikes the port that we visited was called stock marchness and I found the most impressive icicles here after about an hour or so of walking I was ready to get back on the
Ship which was good because these ships absolutely do not wait they have a busy schedule and they will wait for no person the good thing I suppose is if you did miss the ship you could get to a later Port if you needed to to board again it would be very expensive and
Stressful and I wouldn’t want to be racing the ship in a taxi especially on those snowy roads right at the top of the ship I found a big Lounge that I called the observation Lounge that wasn’t its name but it would be if it was on a cruise ship and I just couldn’t
Help calling it that the lounge was massive beautifully decorated and there were so many seats even when we were Sailing In and Out of ports I could have had 20 seats here to myself if I wanted to there was also glass in the ceiling which would have been incredible if the
Northern Lights did come out to play they didn’t for me on my cruise but earlier in this Cruise David did get to see them it’s in a lounge like this that you would find the entertainment on a regular cruise but the entertainment that we had was slightly different
Instead of watching a comedian we had hours and hours of scenery like this I did see one other guest out here in shorts which I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me for a minute because it was around 12 celsi which is about 10 F I think sailing through the
Rafson was incredible it is this area that big cruise ships could never get to and the ship was silent it was so silent next on my to-do list was dinner I knew that we had another Port stop this evening and I wanted to explore so I
Needed fuel for that we went to our assigned table and the menu was explained to us the menu changes every 3 or 4 days which is different to a regular cruise ship where it changes every day but that was plenty the food was fantastic and the service was really
Fast it looked to me like this area had originally been set up to be a buffet I’m not sure if it was but to minimize food waste all of the food F was served to you even at lunch they serve you a combination of small dishes perhaps they
Changed their mind on that but whatever it was it made the service very fast I had a Ratatouille and a panacotta all washed down with a Pepsi Max in a very fancy glass drinks aren’t included in the meal plan but they do have a drinks package of sorts that you can buy it’s
More like buying a certain number of drink tokens for a discount rather than the usual unlimited package apparently the people of Norway drink more Pepsi Max than any other country I would like to personally challenge them on that cuz I think I could outdrink anybody for
Pepsi Max it is my favorite drink we ate in our normal cold weather clothes and that was absolutely fine there weren’t any dress codes although I did decide to put a dress on the next day this day though I knew I was going back outside in the evening I really didn’t miss the
Traditional entertainment because my trip was organized so much around the meals and the port stops wandering off in the dark in Norway was so much fun you very rarely get late night stops on regular cruises but sometimes we would have a port at midnight or 3:00 a.m. literally anytime the ship Works Around
The Clock always loading supplies and people and I don’t know what else when we woke up we decided to head outside and I was amazed by the snow on the decks we did have a little bit on the first day but we had been quite lucky with the weather on this day though
There were massive piles of snow everywhere and even our cat mascot Captain Hudson had to help clear the decks they had these little machines that would basically fire the snow overboard which was very cool they did tell us ahead of time that they would be
Getting the snow off the ship and I had vision of the ship going through some sort of car wash with rollers on the side and it would be shaking the ship it wasn’t anything like that though and I’m sure the wind does blow a lot of the
Snow off you’d think that all of this snow would weigh down the ship but this is very normal in Norway in Winter there was far more outside space than I expected from this ship I would think that these areas would be used a lot more in summer but I did see one person
Using one of the hot tubs there was also a little sauner and further down in the ship there were two small gyms one for cardio and the other one for whatever other things people like to do in the gym gym I was a little nervous about the
Weather because we were planning to sail out into the Open Sea more than we had before but I had packed lots of seasickness Remedies I had the tablets I had the wristband I had the weird wristband that electric shocks me and best of all I had Ginger biscuits that I
Bought from back home in the UK the weather was still calm at this point but as soon as the ship rocked slightly I would use that as an excuse to eat ginger biscuits Ginger is great for ceasing this and I just love them the atmosphere around the ship as we headed
Into our next Port was very relax people were doing puzzles catching up with work chatting with friends and we had a chance to get to know the crew they were kind enough to let me have a look in an inside cabin and an accessible inside cabin which was very
Interesting the inside cabins are usually used by people who were only on board for a few days and there are big sues on board to with balconies I can’t imagine waking up and seeing snow on your balcony but that must be very cool I was very happy with my choice of SE
View cabin though our location was right in the middle of the ship and we saw some amazing things from the window window heading out in bronis was very different to the ports before the snow was coming down sideways it was sticking to my eyelashes I decided that this
Would be the perfect time to do a snow angel and the snow was actually lovely and fluffy it felt like icing sugar very very cold icing sugar of course my friend and Norway expert David went to a local shop and the rest of us just tried
To work out what was Road and what was the path there were zebra Crossings under there somewhere but we really couldn’t see them luckily for us though the people of Norway were so so friendly and so polite and they would always let us cross the road it must be quite weird
For them to see all of these tourists just bumbling around your britishism of the week is zebra Crossing I’m pretty sure they’re just called Crossings or crosswalks in other countries but this is definitely a zebra Crossing we also have puffing Crossings Pelican Crossings and lollipop ladies who look after them
But that is a britishism for another video after getting wet in the snow I went back to my cabin to change into a dress for the evening the temperature in the ship was actually very warm and it’s weird to think that my house in the UK
Feels colder than the ship did here but it is is absolutely true I was perfectly warm in just this dress but of course it did mean that I couldn’t just pop outside or I would freeze in the evening one of the ladies who worked on board
Sang For Us in the big lounge and this was the first time I’d ever really seen a lot of people together at once it was getting a little rocky but I had taken my seasickness medicine so I wasn’t too worried I didn’t at any point on this
Cruise see anybody be sick or look unwell I think we got very lucky with our weather given the time of year everybody who had been on that Northbound trip told me about the rocky Seas they had to cancel a lot of ports because of Storms and I’m so glad I
Picked the southbound part of the journey because I almost didn’t I was debating which one to pick I was on the cruise for 4 days and the cruise cost me £ 791 which is $993 considering that the cruise was in Norway which is very expensive and that
That price was for a cie cabin including food I don’t think that is too bad that price is based on two sharing a cabin so we both paid that price I did of course have to add on a flight to tromsa and in a hotel there and a flight back from
Bergen which almost cost me as much as the cruise but it was absolutely worth it it’s a shame we didn’t get to see the Norther nights this time but I did see them last year on a more traditional Norwegian cruise to find out what that was like and how it was different very
Very different from this Norwegian Ferry check out this video next
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