Day 10 - Oslo, Norway

July 10th continued...

The Viking Ship Museum was another location that sounded cool in print. The photos of the boats had us thinking it would help us balance out the poor glasswork experience. Sadly, the photos we had seen prior to arriving showed the whole museum. The building had been a church and now held three ships. While the ships were remarkable in size, age and the seas they were used to navigate -- only having three to look at with the seven other busloads of tourists was not worth missing other potential sites in Oslo or simply exploring Oslo on our own. The whole tour group scenario reached our last nerve. We missed the adventure tours of our Alaska trip. After a quick wander through the museum and a hot dog for Kirsten, it was back on the bus to return to the ship.

As we went back through the city, the guide pointed out the building where some of the Noble Prizes were awarded (both Oslo and Stockholm split the honor of hosting the ceremonies) and other buildings of significance to the Norwegian people before bringing the bus back to the port.


In the morning while hurrying to the bus, the fortress wall that stood alongside the ship had not seemed all that important. With the sun finally coming out for the day it was remarkable. After the disappointments of the places we visited, I began to think it would have been far nicer to have just stayed there all day.
There were really long lines to get back on the ship since it was noon and the all the tours had ended, but there was a hall of souvenir shops right on the pier so Angela, Tina, Chris and I all ran through the various stalls looking for a few things to bring home with us.

Back outside the hall as we waited in line, I looked at the mountains. The fog had finally lifted and the Olympic ski jump was visible. The day was beginning to look really nice, so as soon as we dropped our bags off at the room, Chris and I headed up to the top deck for food. The rest of our group had already eaten while we waited in the line to get back on board the ship, so we ate alone as the ship slowly pulled out of port. We took the stairs up to the deck above the bridge and watched for a while. The ship passed by a tiny restaurant that was perched on a rock in the harbor that you could only reach by boat. The further we pulled away from the harbor, the windier it became and rain started to fall again.

Since this was the last day on the ship, we spent several hours packing and listened to the captain and crew talk about the history of the inlet we were taking tiny island for dinner?to the ocean. We stopped every so often and stepped outside to try and decipher the clues of rocks and trees to see where a boat had sunk during World War II or some other historic event occurred. We could not really see what was being talked about.

Having packed most of our things, we dressed for dinner and went to check out the prints from the photos taken the night before. Since the photographer actually tried to work with us, we had high hopes of good photos. Alas, the white background made everyone appear to be washed out. A few of the photos would have been OK if the lighting was better because the whole group was actually smiling. Chris had won a free photo, so we picked one out that was the best out of our options and returned to our room before meeting everyone for dinner.

Our very last dinner on the ship had an American theme (I’m still not really sure what that means). As part of the Princess Cruise experience, on the last night they have baked Alaska and walk through the dining room with all the desserts lit up before bringing them to each table. All in all, the dinner was fairly calm. When we were done Chris and I went right to the casino. It was not busy yet, so we sat in the library for a while watching the waves hit the side of the ship, when that started to border on the scary side I tried for a final win at Jackpot Party. I did make $30 before joining Tina at the roulette table for a while. While I was not all up on the winning for the trip, I did end up even at the table by the end of the night. Chris and I cashed out all our chips and returned to our rooms to get pull our bags in the hall for pick up.