BearCruise

Northern Europe cruise | Port 4 | Olden, Norway

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It’s Tuesday, June 20, 2023 and our 11-hour port call today was from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Olden, Norway.

6:00 – 8:00 am: Sailing the Norwegian Coast. Enjoy scenic views from Observation Lounge (Deck 17), Surfside Café and Grill (Buffet, Deck 17), Sun Deck (Deck 18 forward), or from your own balcony cabin.

We didn’t get any pictures pulling into this port.

8:00 am – 7:00 pm: In port.

9:45 am – 2:00 pm: Amazing Briksdal Glacier excursion Meet on the dock and look for the BearCruise group. Excursion leaves promptly at 10 am and returns at 2:00 pm.

Amazing Briksdal Glacier excursion:

The excursion will depart from the village of Olden. Head out through the valley along Lake Olden to Rustøen, all the way at the end of the fjord. Here you will find many colourful farms and waterfalls.

From Rustøen we go to Briksdal Inn. This is where we’ll walk to the Briksdal Glacier. A beautiful trail surrounded by waterfalls and mountains will lead you to the viewpoint at the glacier lake. The walk to the viewpoint normally takes approximately 45-60 minutes.

Following your time on the glacier we’ll head back to the ship.

Photos of the excursion

Some sites right at the dock:

Scenery during our 1.5-hour bus ride to the Briksdal Glacier. That 5th picture is of beautiful Lake Olden, which we made at stop at on the way back for a photo op. (More of those pics below.)

At Briksdal, we had a fairly easy 45-minute hike—although it was all uphill and a little steep in a couple of spots—of about 45 minutes—with several waterfalls along the way. Some were quite high and a bit of a way from us; others were right upon us:

Us at various points along the hike:

Some very short (5-10 seconds) videos of waterfalls we saw during the hike. Bob is waving to me from that bridge in the last video. I love how his head bobs from side to side after a bit. 😃

Here are some shots of the “reward” for making it to an open area up close to (what’s left of) the glacier. This is my second time seeing a glacier—I saw several on an Alaskan cruise in 2024—and they always look so unreal.

Some roadside scenery on the drive back from the glacier to the ship. Norway is very open and you can pretty much camp anywhere there.

We made a stop at beautiful Lake Olden, which we’d passed by on the way up to the glacier, for a photo op. I’d have to say this was the most beautiful place I saw on this trip. That’s our friends Al (also our group’s cruise director) and Ken in the last picture.

6:00 pm: Cocktail Hour, Whiskey Bar, Deck 8

I actually took a few pictures at our cocktail hour gathering today. Just some bears relaxing and catching up about their days.

7:00 pm: Dinner—Specialty Restaurant of the Day‐Hasuki Japanese Grill, Deck 7

This was one of Bob’s and my second “free” restaurant in one of the ones you usually have to pay for, and it was a “Kanki-like” restaurant if you’re familiar with it. You sit in groups of 8 around a hibachi and your own private chef cooks for you. They sat our group of 6 with this straight couple who was already seated, and it was a fun, fun time, with a great chef and most-delicious food.

Eggselent trick!
Dancing meat
Slicing & dicing

8:00 pm – midnight: Disco Party – BearCruise group meet-up at the ship’s disco party, Prima Theater, deck 6.

I went up to the cabin and bed right after dinner, as it was late by then, and I was tired. Bob “took a twirl,” seeing if any of our group were at the disco.

Northern Europe cruise | Port 3 | Ålesund, Norway

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It’s Monday, June 19, 2023 and we had an 11-hour port call from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. in Ålesund, Norway.

9:00 – 11 am: Sailing the Norwegian Coast. Enjoy scenic views from Observation Lounge (Deck 17), Surfside Café and Grill (Buffet, Deck 17), Sun Deck (Deck 18 forward), or from your own balcony cabin.

Here are a couple of pictures from our balcony as we pulled into the port:

11:00 am – 10:00 pm: In port.

Bob and I had a leisurely breakfast and morning, since our meeting time for today’s 7.5-hour excursion wasn’t until 12:15—for a 12:30 departure.

12:15 – 8:00 pm: Fjords, Trolls, and More or Ålesund Ultimate Sightseeing excursions. Meet on the dock and look for the BearCruise group. Excursions leave promptly at 12:30.

Bob and I were scheduled to to on the 7.5-hour Fjords, Trolls, and More excursion, described as:

From the cruise ship, we’ll make our way through the beautiful area outside Ålesund, to the land of the trolls.

After a scenic drive we will arrive at the breathtakingly beautiful Gudbrandsjuvet ravine. You can walk over a bridge from one side of the ravine to the other. From here the bus will drive through the National Park Reinheimen, to the Trollstigen plateau. Enjoy the amazing view over the Troll Road as well as the waterfall Stigfossen. When driving down the Troll Road, the driver will safely drive the bus through 11 hairpin bends. At the bottom of the Troll Road, there will be an extra photo stop from where you will be able to take the best pictures of the day!

Next up is a visit to the Troll Wall, Europe’s tallest vertical rock face, and the impressive Romsdalshorn. After this stop, it is time to head back to Ålesund.

However, we arrived at the meeting point on the dock at 12:10, and it was eerily empty. Thinking we might have the wrong place, I asked nearby NCL staff if he’d seen a large group of guys meeting nearby, and he said there was one about an hour earlier. Ugh!

Turns out we “didn’t get the memo” to set our clocks ahead yet another hour, so we missed the excursion’s departure an hour ago. Apparently there were two time changes over the past two days, which you may remember they tell you about with this card in your cabin.

Well, since there’s no date on the card, or any other identifying mark that it’s a different card, we thought it was the same one from the previous day laying around our cabin, so did not move our clocks ahead an additional hour.

Of course the editor in me has all kinds of suggestions about how to communicate this better. I get that they probably want to reuse them, so don’t want to do something as obvious as to date them, but they could do something like adding to the bottom of them, “First of two,” and “Second of two,” or they could mark one “The end of the day we leave Iceland” and the other one “At end of our day at sea.” Anything to let us know that the second one is a new/different card.

But we’ve let all that—and the $280 we paid for a tour we didn’t get to go on—go. Right at the port, we saw a tourism company offering a 1.5-hour “train” ride, whose next departure was about an hour away, so we walked around the port a little, and then took that.

It was a guided tour, recorded in various languages with yours selected from a choice of 8, listened to with earbuds, and it was well done. Its biggest takeaway, from people getting off the previous tour, at least was the song playing on the recording between talking, which sounded like maybe some city anthem.

Hear it for yourself:

It turned out to be a real nice tour whose highlight was the mountain town, Aksla, with a great viewpoint for pictures,

In the port area right off the ship:

In this area, there was also a mall, with gay flags out in front of it, and since we had some time we went in it to check it out. There were several stores with pride displays, and one of them had a translated Spare by Prince Harry. The translated title of the book says, “In The Shadow.”

That site at the top of the mountain is where this little “train” tour took us:

Shots of the panoramic view at the top of Aksla mountins:

Since our group would be gone until 8 PM—you know, on that excursion that we paid $280 for but didn’t get to go on but have let go— back on the ship, we took advantage of the fantastic weather by enjoying the jacuzzi.

Before we got in the jacuzzi, that lady in the last picture was at the bar and I heard that she was waiting for a beer on tap that had run out. “Draining the keg again, are ya?” I asked.

The bartender asked me what I wanted, and I told him that I didn’t mind waiting for him to change the keg and get her drink, to which she offered, “Go ahead and order yours, and I’ll bring it to the jacuzzi for you.” Very sweet.

After a little while and a couple of drinks in the jacuzzi, another member of our group, John, joined us. While talking, he asked if we’d been on the waterslide that was right next to us, and I indicated that I hadn’t but wanted to.

“I’ll go again with you if you want to.” he offered, and the liquid courage was at just the right level to seal the deal.

Bob didn’t want to do it, but he followed us up there to get a picture of me on it, but once we got all situated, John and I got to the entrance at the top only to find it closed.

While we were up on top deck of the ship, deck 20, I took a few pictures:

6:00 pm: Cocktail Hour, Whiskey Bar, Deck 8

Some of The Whiskey Bar offerings:

7:00 pm: Dinner—No specialty restaurant of the day due to late port call departure

After happy hour, we ate at The Hudson, one of the ship’s main dining rooms. Even though we didn’t get a picture of it, appetizers did happen: Bob got the cheese ravioli (with lobster cream sauce), and I got their Caesar salad. An adorable little girl sitting next to us reminded us of a child version of our friend Jaleh.

8:00 pm – midnight: Disco Party – BearCruise group meet-up at the ship’s disco party, Prima Theater, deck 6.

We did not make it to the disco party tonight, but it happens in the 3-story Prima Theater, where the shows are. Once the show is over, they fold down all the seats, which then collapse back toward the wall, opening up the area as a dance floor. Here’s a 2.5-minute video of how it’s done.

After dinner, I went back to our cabin and watched The Book Club, while Bob went to join our group for our 10 pm sail-away. He found the designated bar for the event closed, with no one there, but eventually found them in The Whiskey Bar.

Northern Europe cruise | At sea | Iceland to Norway

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It’s Sunday, June 18, 2023, and today was an “at sea” day, which means no port call—and extra BearCruise-organized activities! We were en route from Iceland to Norway.

Noon: If you are looking for someone to join for lunch, meet at The Indulge Food Hall (Deck 8 Aft) or the Surfside Café and Grill (buffet, Deck 17 Aft). Form a small group and find a spot to enjoy lunch together.

Bob and I had lunch in The Indulge Food Hall, comprising various “stands” named: Tapas, The Garden, Nudls, The Latin Quarter, Q Texas Smokehouse, Seaside Rotisserie, Tamara, Coco’s, & Starbucks (Ugh!) Here’s what a couple of them looked like:

A quirky little thing about this dining area was that if you sat at the seats at one of the stands, you could only order food made at that stand. But if you sat in the general seating area throughout the place, you could order from any (or all) of the stands. All of the food in this dining area was complimentary, so you could also order as many items as you wanted. Here are some of the various seating areas where you could order anything:

And this is what Bob and I ordered for lunch today. (We both had the tomato soup.)

1:00 pm: Games at The Stadium, Deck 18. Games like miniature golf, dart rooms, beer pong, foosball, tabletop shuffleboard, ping pong tables, and a pickleball court! Here’s what they looked like:

There’s another game area near The Stadium called the Galaxy Pavilion. Here’s its description and a 12-second video giving you a feel for what it’s like:

You can see all of the virtual reality games in this area in this 5-minute full walkthrough tour.

2:00 pm: The Rush Slide Bear Races! Deck 18, Starboard, pick a partner, and race on these dry slides 10 decks down to the finish line!

I didn’t join the group today to do The Rush, but later in the week, I did do The Drop. There are three slides aboard the ship—a wet one, called The WaterSlide, by the pool and hot tubs, and 2 dry ones (The Drop and The Rush), which extend down the side of the ship for 10 stories

3:00 pm: Hot Tub Take-Over, Infinity Pool, Starboard Side, Deck 8, Oceanwalk

Bob and I didn’t join the group for the hot tub & pool takeover today.

5:00 pm: Cocktail Hour, Whiskey Bar, Deck 8

Our daily cocktail hour / happy hour is always fun. People were raving about the Old Fashioneds they make here, so we had one today. Normally we drink either Buffalo Trace & Soda or 1792 & Soda.

Our Old Fashioneds from The Whiskey BarOld Fashioneds from The Whiskey Bar

6:00 pm: Dinner. Specialty Restaurant of the Day—Palomar Mediterranean and Seafood, Deck 17

As part of our package, we got to choose 3 specialty restaurants to eat in, but the one designated for the group tonight, Palomar Mediterranean and Seafood, wasn’t one of the ones Bob and I chose, so we had dinner at The Indulge Food Hall, choosing items from several different “stands.”

10:00 pm – 11:30: Summer: The Donna Summer Musical This is the ship’s current theater offering, playing twice during the cruise, on each of our days at sea (i.e., today and Thursday). It’s a touring production of the closed Broadway show.

We were only marginally interested in seeing this show, and definitely wouldn’t have if we had had to pay for it.

It was only about 15 or 20 minutes in, which included some sound effects that made me think of a laugh track, and we were not at all impressed, when all of a sudden a loud explosion-like sound happened, and for the next several seconds we could only see the lips moving of the 3 characters who were saying their lines at the time.

The lights came up, and an announcement was made to the effect of, “Ladies and gentleman, your safety is our highest priority and we want to bring you the highest quality entertainment experience on the NCL Prima. We have experienced a catastrophic technical event that is causing us to have to halt the show while we address it.”

Since the wording was such that you couldn’t tell how long they thought it would take, or if they were sure it could be fixed at all, and we weren’t enjoying it, we took advantage of the moment to leave.

Northern Europe cruise | Port 2 (Day 2) | Akureyri, Iceland

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It’s Saturday, June 17, 2023 and our 10-hour port call was from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Akureyri, Iceland.

Until 4:00 pm: In port.

6:45 am – 2:00 pm: Tour of North Iceland excursion – Meet on the dock at 6:45 am, and look for our group. Excursion leaves promptly at 7 am and returns at 2 pm.

The Goðafoss Waterfall is one of the most spectacular waterfalls in Iceland. The water of the river Skjálfandafljót falls from a height of 12 meters over a width of 30 meters.

The most incredulous thing about this stop was that the souvenir shop was closed for a holiday, but it didn’t have a sign saying such, only its hours, opening at 8:30. Since it was about 8:15 when we got to it, we waited until 8:30 for it to open.

The sightseeing crowd grew, and grew impatient, waiting. Thing was, we could see in the windows that there wasn’t anyone in there, and the chairs were all still upside down on the tables. But since we didn’t know it was a holiday, and just couldn’t understand how—or believe that—they weren’t going to open, everyone just waited.

Well, as it turned out a lot of our group had to pee, and lucky for us all being guys, we found some dumpsters behind the building and turned them into a men’s room. How do you spell relief? D – U – M – P – S – T – E – R. I was glad I didn’t have to take a dump, because that would have been more ironic than a black fly in my chardonnay.

The Skútustaðagígar pseudo-craters are located in the Lake Mývatn area. The craters themselves are not magma-producing volcanic vents but were formed by gas explosions when boiling lava flowed over the cool, wet surfaces about 2,300 years ago.

Dimmuborgir, which loosely translated means ‘dark castles,’ are thought to have been created about 2,300 years ago in the violent throes of an extensive volcanic eruption. The heavy volcanic activity in the region surrounding Lake Myvatn over the last few thousand years accounts for extraordinary and sometimes eerily beautiful land formations and geology. Dimmuborgir, on the east side of the lake, are a badlands of lava pillars, caves, rugged crags and towering rocks. Some of the rocks reach 20 meters (65 ft) in height, forming almost unearthly and alien castles and towers.

The 16th photo (with the crevice) is where the North America & Eurasian tectonic plates (almost) meet. The little walkway over it, in the 17th photo, was billed as “the shortest bridge between North America and Europe.”

Námaskarð, a geothermal region with boiling sulfuric mud springs and steam vents, is located at a short distance from huge volcanic mountain Krafla. Námaskarð, Hverarönd is an expanse of fumaroles, hot springs, mud pools, and mud pots. In this stunning arctic dessert, you will find boiling water and lands. Due to the hot surface, there is no vegetation found at Námaskarð geothermal area. The constant emission of acids has made the surface completely sterile and acidic. The presence of colorful minerals at this site provides an amazing panoramic view. Natural black rivers and boiling pools emitting steam and smoke lay in this colorful landscape are breathtaking. Everything at this acidic land is permeated with Sulphur, even the air, making the area quite distinct.

This place was visually arresting and geologically fascinating, but it smelt like sumpin’s butt.

While all of that made for a great tour, the most interesting part of the trip to me was the story our tour guide, Ragland, told:

After about an hour of describing scenery as we were passing things on the way to our first stop, he said, “I’ve talked a lot about Iceland, but now I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself. He told us he’d lived in Iceland most of his life. When his father was 43, he went to Berlin, where he met his mother when she was 16, and he brought her to Iceland. She didn’t want children but he did, and he told her if she wouldn’t give him children, he’d divorce her. They were married for 8 years, during which time she had him and his brother.

Then one day she said she wanted to go back to Berlin. It was customary for the woman to get custody, and she wanted to take the boys with her, but he said, “You go back, get a job, and then send for the boys.” As soon as she left, he took the boys and went to Gran Canaria Island for 4 or 5 years. Eventually they moved back to Iceland and reconnected with their mother, and they went to be with her every summer for several years after that. He stopped the story there, as we’d reached our next stop on the tour.

When we got back on the road, he said, “There’s more to my story than I told you before, so I’m going to tell you a little more.” He then said, “My father was gay. And he didn’t come out until he was 90 years old.” There was a collective gasp and clutching of pearls by the 55 gay men on the bus.

He continued, “And I knew he was gay. He owned a store, and one time when I was minding it, I saw a magazine that was, you know… but when I asked him about it, he said that some customer had left it there, and he was going to throw it away. But I found it again about a year later, and it was, well, it was a well-worn magazine by then.” Lots of empathetic laughter on the bus.

“When he was 90, we were on a trip together and started talking about things that matter, and I said, ‘Dad, I know you’re gay.’ At first he said, ‘Oh no;’ that he was bisexual. But I told him that I’d never seen him with another woman since our mom left, and that it didn’t matter to me at all if he was. That he’s a great man, and he’s been a great father, and it didn’t change how much I loved him in any way.” Why aren’t there any tissue dispensers on this bus??? “And after my saying that, he admitted that he was gay. He died when he was 93.”

4:00 pm: Sail Away & Hot Tub Take-Over, Infinity Pool, Starboard Side, Deck 8, Oceanwalk.

Neither Bob nor I participated in the event today.

5:00 pm: Cocktail Hour, Whiskey Bar, Deck 8

It’s always a good time at happy hour at The Whiskey Bar. It’s a chance for those of us who did different things to catch each other up on our respective days.

6:00 pm: Dinner. Specialty Restaurant of the Day—Onda by Scarpetta, Deck 8

As part of our package, we got to choose 3 specialty restaurants to eat in, but the one designated for the group tonight, Onda by Scarpetta, wasn’t one of the ones Bob and I chose, so we had dinner with our friends Leo and Steve at one of the ship’s two main dining rooms, The Commodore.

10:00 pm – midnight: BearCruise Mad Hatter Party—Observation Lounge, Deck 17 Forward

This was a hugely fun event in the ship’s Observation Lounge. To no one’s surprise there were quite the creative and festive hats among the group members. Here are some of them:

Back in our cabin, we found this card and heeded its instructions.

Northern Europe cruise | Port 2 (Day 1) | Akureyri, Iceland

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It’s Friday, June 16, 2023 and our port call to Ísafjörður, Iceland was canceled due to an expansion project to the port, which didn’t finish in time. So we’re going from Reykjavik directly to Akureyri, Iceland, which would have been tomorrow’s port call, and we’ll stay there overnight.

Happy Birthday, Paul Henfrey!

8:00 am – 4:00 pm: Day at Sea / Views of the Icelandic Coast – Observation Lounge (Deck 17), Surfside Café and Grill (Buffet, Deck 17), Sun Deck (Deck 18 forward), or from your own balcony cabin where you can see panoramic views of the stunning Icelandic scenery.

During breakfast, people started pointing out the dining room windows, where we passed by a frolicking pod of whales, and several of them breached at various times.

I actually used some gym clothes that I packed for a cruise! The ship’s gym is called Pulse Fitness Center, and it has mostly treadmills probably 25 or 30. But it has only 6 elliptical machines, and half of them were out of order. Who sets sail on a 3950-passenger cruise ship with half of its limited elliptical machines out of order??? NCL, apparently.

With that bitching said, I did manage to be near one that someone was finishing up on fairly quickly, and I’ve definitely worked out with worse scenery before. Here’s a 15-second, because no one wants to watch more than 15 seconds of someone else’s video, proof that I actually got up on the machine.

I sure did work up an appetite working out and immediately went to the Surfside Café for some nourishment.

When Liz Taylor, at her heaviest, was asked, “What do you want on your hamburger?” She responded, “A hot dog.” My lunch was an homage to her. (The potato salad and French fry combination was my own idea.)

Some scenery as we sailed from along the Northern coast of Iceland from Reykjavik to Akureyri:

10:00 am – noon: Hot Tub Take-Over, Infinity Pool, Starboard Side, Deck 8, Oceanwalk.

Bob and I didn’t attend the hot tub take-over or the pool party.

4:00 pm: Arrival in port.

Pulling into the port at around 4 PM:

From our balcony once docked:

6:30 pm: Cocktail Hour, Whiskey Bar, Deck 8

Our group descended on the Whiskey Bar and we kept the bartenders going nonstop. Bob and I drank a couple of Buffalo Trace & Sodas and a couple of 1792 Small Batch & Sodas.

7:00 pm: Dinner. Specialty Restaurant of the Day—Cagney’s Steakhouse, Deck 6

As part of our BearCruise package, we got to choose 3 restaurants to eat free in from the list of about 7 “fancy” restaurants (in which you have to pay to eat), and we had designated nights for the group to make reservations for a particular restaurant if they wanted to eat together.

We chose Cagney’s Steakhouse as our first specialty restaurant and tonight was its designated night for the group.

Overnight until 4 pm tomorrow: Docked in Akureyri.

Northern Europe cruise | Port 1 | Reykjavík, Iceland

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It’s Thursday, June 15, 2023, and we arrived at 6:05 am in Reykjavík, Iceland on Iceland Air Flight 630.

8:00 – 9:00 am: Transfer from Keflavík Airport to Skarfabakki Harbour cruise port. Our friend Cronin arrived within minutes of us (on a direct flight from Raleigh), and we caught the same bus provided by NCL for our transfer from the airport to the ship’s port.

It was a 45-minute bus ride, and unexpected by us, it stopped at a Hilton Hotel by the port for a complimentary breakfast. Not to seem ungrateful, but I’d rather have had a $20 cheaper ticket—omitting the breakfast stop—for the transfer.

11:00 am: Board NCL’s Norwegian Prima. We started the boarding process of our ship, whose stats are:

And here’s a look at our stateroom—cabin #16130:

The following Bear Cruisers are celebrating birthdays and anniversaries during this cruise that occurred before or occur after the cruise:

Happy Birthday to Dave Bailey and Fred Larabee on June 9th, Darrell Couture on June 11th, Steve Nelson on June 12th, Bryan Hughs on June 28, and Ken Hughs on July 3rd!!!

Happy Anniversary to Rick and Rodney Thibodeau on June 7th (9 years married), Marc Anderson and Allan Holden on June 27th (15 years married), and Kent Parks and Randy Moore who will have been together 40 years on August 6th!!!

2 – 4 pm: BearCruise Hospitality Desk. Penrose Atrium, Deck 6 Midship. Come check in with us if you have not received your BearCruise lanyard and / or did not check in with us on the bus or at the hotel.

After checking in and getting our BearCruise lanyards, we caught up with the 12-15 guys on the trip from Raleigh, and met a bunch of other guys we’ve only talked to in the group’s chat room created many months ago when most of us first booked this trip.

6 pm: Sail Away–Soleil Bar, Deck 8 Aft. Wear a hat and/or t-shirt with a bear on it to help us find you in the crowd.

Leaving the Reykjavík port:

7 pm: Cocktail Hour, Whiskey Bar, Deck 8 above the Penrose Atrium.

The cocktails at the sail-away bled on into the group’s cocktail hour at The Whiskey Bar, and we all stumbled from point A to point B.

7:30 pm: Dinner—NCL has a “Dine Anytime” policy for restaurants on the ship that are not specialty restaurants. This includes Hudson’s (Deck 7, main dining room), The Commodore Room (Deck 6, overflow for Hudson’s), The Indulge Food Hall (Deck 8 Aft), the Surfside Café and Grill (buffet, Deck 17), and The Local Bar and Grill (Deck 8 Starboard) are all open for dinner. Feel free to try all of these venues, and invite others from the group to join you. Meet at cocktail hour prior to dinner to find others to join. This applies to dinner every night, and note that you may also have one or more specialty dining included in your reservation, which you can schedule using the app. For those of you who want to eat with others in the group in specialty restaurants, we have designated a “Specialty Restaurant of the Day” to help you coordinate reservations.

Bob and I ate alone at the Surfside Café & Grill, which is the same place at which we had lunch. It’s a cafeteria-type venue and all-you-can eat.

8:30 pm: LGBTQIA+ Social As if we hadn’t been gay enough all day and hadn’t had enough alcohol, the ship had its own meet and greet for our “community,” where we met other folks of the same ilk who happened to be part of the other 3,200 passengers on the ship, not part of our 150+ BearCruise group. We’re everywhere.

Here’s us with our Raleigh friend, Joel, with whom we shared a toast to innocence, drank a toast to now.

John, Joel, & Bob at the LGBTQIA+ Social

We were exhausted after two very long days with only about 4 hours between them. We went to bed at about 10 PM, where unbeknownst to me then, I’d sleep for 14 hours.

Northern Europe cruise | Travel day

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It’s Wednesday, June 14, and our long-awaited cruise to Iceland, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, and England leaves out of Reykjavík, Iceland tomorrow afternoon.

center

We usually get up between 3-4 a.m. to catch an early flight to our vacation destinations, so it was nice to have a mid-morning flight for a change. Our itinerary:

Northern Europe BearCruise outbound air travel itinerary

Upgrade to business class

Last week, we got an email from Icelandair letting us know about their “upgrade offer,” which consists of making them an offer to upgrade to business class, which we did, and which they eventually accepted.

In addition to much more comfortable and roomier seats, a 3-course meal, and free drinks during the 5-hour flight from Boston to Reykjavík, we got access to the Icelandair Lounge at Logan airport for our 7-hour layover.

Icelandair lounge

The Icelandair lounge opened at 2:30 and we were in it at 2:35. You’re only supposed to be let in 3.5 hours before your flight, which would have been closer to 5:30 for us, and the person at the lounge check-in raised one brow and said, “You’re kind of early, but go ahead in.”

We took advantage of its open bar for a few cocktails and had a nice lunch—all of it complimentary. And we were there long enough to have dinner, too, so we split an order of fish & chips as we wanted to save room for our meal on the flight. First world problem, I know. But since we live in a first world, it’s a valid problem.

Icelandair flight

There were 5 rows of business class seating on this Boeing 767-300ER, and we were in:

Our seats—4A & 4B

Awaiting us at our seats were a blanket, a pillow, a “Travel Essentials” pack, and some noise-canceling headphones. Before we could even buckle up, our attendant brought us a glass of champagne to welcome us to Icelandair.

Inflight information and entertainment

Bob’s movie summary and review:

And we each finished our respective book during the 5.25-hour flight:

Inflight 3-course meal

Group “check-in”

We’re cruising with a group of about 150-175 gay men, a good contingent of whom have been trickling in to Reykjavík over the past few days. Here’s a group pic we received during our travel day. We’ll join them tomorrow morning when we arrive @ 6:05, and the cruise sail-away is at 6 PM.

BearCruise bears in Reykjavík

Domincan MayDaze BearCruise | Day 5 | Bimini Beach, Bahamas

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It’s Tuesday, May 30, 2023 and we had an 11-hour port call from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. in Virgin Voyages’ Beach Club at Bimini, Bahamas.

Welcome to Bimini Bahamas sign

BearCruise group activities

8:00 am – 7:00 pm: Bimini Beach Club (private beach club owned by Virgin Voyages)

Look for us by the pools or on the beach if you want to hang out with the group. We will string a Bear Pride Flag from a palm tree or umbrella so you can find us. We are told that the DJ and dancing by the pool is awesome from about 1:00 – 3:00. Head right as you go into the pool area if you want to be near the action.

The Beach Club @ Bimini

A lot of cruise lines have their own private beaches or islands, but I’ve never been on one that made a port call to theirs. I really like this concept, because the food is included like on the ship, and your drink packages or bar allowances work there, too.

We had a leisurely morning on the ship, and made our way down to the beach club around noon. Not surprisingly, we didn’t have any luck finding shaded seating, or on any available lounge chairs actually, but we found 2 chairs set around a tree stump big enough to act as a table, which we nabbed.

We had a couple of cocktails, read a little, and did a little people watching in and around the wide variety of seating options.

After a little while, we got some lunch, which we brought back to our “table” to eat. John chose the Watermelon & Jicama Salad, Caribbean Chicken & Coconut Curry, Grilled Corn-on-the-Cob, and the Rum Cake.

Bob took a dip in the ocean and was surprised that his inadvertent mouthful of water was salty. I spent a little while in the “calmer” (volleyball side) pool—there were two pools, separated only by a walkway.

3:00 – 4:00: Sean Hornbeck of The Connected Traveler is hosting a private cocktail party at The Lounge at Bimini Beach Club and we’re invited. There’s a $35 cost that can be charged to your account using your bracelet. Unlimited alcohol for the hour is included.

We did not attend this event, as we still had $115 left of bar money that we wanted to spend on Buffalo Trace & club sodas, our drink of choice.

7:00 pm: Cocktails, The Dock House Bar, Deck 7

Earlier in the week, a friend of ours told us on Facebook Messenger that two friends of hers, a gay couple, were on this ship and she thought that we should meet each other. We asked her to tell them that we’d be at The Dock House Bar every day during the cruise for our cocktail hours, and it might be easier for them to spot us than vice versa.

They came to the bar today and we really enjoyed talking with them. Since they are big Broadway fans, as are we and our mutual friend, Sandy (who facilitated our meeting), it would be fun to all go on a Seth Rudetsky’s Big Fat Broadway Cruise in the future.

8:00 pm: Dinner, Restaurant of the Night: Gunbae, Deck 6

We pretty much let, Simba, our fantastic server bring us a little bit of everything.

After dinner, Simba engaged the four of us (Al, Ken, Bob, and me) in the drinking game called Sam-Yuk-Gu (“3-6-9”). It involved taking shots of Jinro Chamisul Fresh (about 17% alcohol and a.k.a. “Korean Vodka”).

and its rules were:

I would be remiss in not sharing that our friend and tablemate blew away this game. Bob and I were out quickly, then Al.

Starting from 1 again when someone goes out, Ken went 1-on-1 against Simba, who told us before we started, “I’ve played this game thousands and thousands of times, so I’m pretty good at it.”

Ken ended up getting into the 90s, when Simba just stopped and declared him the winner. He said, no one had ever gotten beyond 50 playing against him.

All of us drank to that—and to Ken!

And Al recorded all 10 minutes of the game!

Ship Shows and Activities

11:00 pm: Studio 72 Disco Party, The Manor, Deck 6

Bob ran up to The Manor to get a few pictures of this event, which we otherwise did not attend.

However, a member of our group who did attend asserted that this drag queen split that he captured was the highlight of the event.

Dominican MayDaze cruise | Day 4 | At sea

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It’s Monday, May 29, and we have an “at sea” day today, which means no port call and extra BearCruise-organized activities!

Today’s breakfast:

We ate all of our breakfasts and lunches in The Galley, which is described as:

There were a few more stations in this food-court-like dining area, including:

The Sweet Side: The Sweet Side houses pastries in the morning (for the sweet-toothed breakfast lovers among us) and desserts later on. It’s a non-stop sweet fest, so leave your rude friends by the pool.
Well Bread: Well Bread has fans, and we call them “Bread Heads.” So make like a bread head and grab a pastry for breakfast or a flatbread in the afternoon or evening.
Pop Star: Pop on over to our cart for a myriad of tasty and refreshing popsicles made with locally inspired flavors.
BearCruise group activities

Noon: Bear Lunch. If you want to join others for lunch, meet at The Galley Food Hall, Deck 15 Aft. Also note that these restaurants are also open for lunch if you want to try them: Razzle Dazzle, The Wake, The Dock / Dock House, The Social Club, The Pizza Place, and The Sun Club.

We ate lunch on our own today from the Burger Bar.

5:00 pm: Pool Hot Tub Takeover – Deck 15 (Pool Deck)

6:00 pm: Michael & Tom’s Champagne Party, Suite 15299Z

Two guys in our group had one of Virgin Voyages “Rockstar Suites,” and they hosted this champagne party inviting everyone in our group. It was a beautiful suite with a separate bedroom area and 3 sliding glass doors that opened onto a massive deck. Champagne was out when we arrived and within minutes it started flowing as more and more of our group poured in. And our hosts were as nice as they were generous.

At one point sitting down on the deck, I kicked the table knocking over my champagne flute, and Michael immediately went inside, I thought to get a towel, so I followed him in to take it to clean up my mess. But, he went right to the bar and filled me up another glass of champagne. I said, “I thought you hurried in to get a towel to clean up the spill.” To which he responded, “I ran in here to get you a new drink! We’re not worried about that spill.” The. Consummate. Host.

I think their cabin concierge came in to bring in at least two more rounds of champagne. The corks in the last picture were just from the last batch. It was a great party. It went fro 6:00-7:00 at which time we had to head down to the day’s BearCruise Cocktail hour.

7:00 pm: Cocktails, The Dock House Bar, Deck 7

I love some salty treats when I’m drinking, so I grabbed a bag of popcorn on the way down from the champagne party to our cocktail hour. As the cocktail hour comes to a close, our fabulous cruise director, Al, starts rounding us up in groups of 4-6 to head down to tonight’s dinner restaurant.

While getting another round of drinks, a guy across the bar caught my eye, as I thought it was someone I knew—but who wasn’t on this trip with us. I checked his Facebook timeline to see if there was any evidence of him being on this cruise and there wasn’t.

Then, I noticed him doing what looked like the same thing. And, of course, my timeline is drenched with posts about being on the ship, and I saw him smile, look up, and then Eric Ellis came over to say hi. I’d say, “Small world!” but it really isn’t, and that’s a cliché, which I try to avoid.

8:00 pm: Dinner Restaurant of the Night: The Test Kitchen, Deck 6

Ship Shows and Activities

10:45 pm: Scarlet Night Pool Party, The Manor, Deck 6

I actually stayed up for this party, and it was a grand one—outside around the pool. It began with a show by the ship performers, and eventually everyone was encouraged to join in.

SexyBack
My Moon My Man
Possible original cast song
How Deep is Your Love
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Dominican MayDaze BearCruise | Day 3 | Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

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It’s Sunday, May 28, 2023 and we had a 9-hour port call from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

Cruising into Puerto Plata

Most of our group went on this excursion:

Excursion: BearCruise Private Catamaran Shore Excursion | 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. (4 hours)

Hop on board your own private catamaran as we set out on a fun-filled day of relaxation under the Caribbean Sun. It’s a 4-hour snorkel, swim, and sail expedition with lunch and an open bar!

Your day will begin as we sail from Puerto Plata down to the largest living coral reef on the north coast. As the staircase lowers into the cool sparkling waters the underwater garden awaits your discovery. Guaranteed to create memories that will last you a lifetime.

Swim among the colorful fish and vibrant coral at Sosua Bay and enjoy lunch onboard while sailing down the coast. Relax on the deck in sun before heading back to shore.

Bob and I did not go on that excursion because we took someone’s place on this cruise at the last minute, and the excursion was sold out—oversold, actually, with a couple of people on the waiting list. However, here are a few photos shared by some of the folks who did go:

So here’s the excursion Bob and I did go on:

Excursion: Puerto Plata City Tour | 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. (4 hours)

We had a private tour with Edwin with a stop at the Ron Macorix House of Rum distillery, where we had a distillery tour complete with a tasting of 6 rum varieties, including pineapple, coconut, and apple flavors.

We walked through Independence Square in downtown, stepping into the Cathedral of St. Philip the Apostle, seeing City Hall and the statues of Juan Pablo Duarte and General Gregorio Luperón (two important military leaders).

We took a stroll down El Paseo de Doña Blanca and the Umbrella Street. And not being shoppers, we passed on the jewelry stores and cigar shops, but we did step into a coffee and chocolate (Dominican Republic specialties) shop and made a couple of purchases.

Our final stop was at the Fortaleza San Felipe, where we did a guided tour by headphones.

BearCruise group activities

5:00 pm: Pool Hot Tub Takeover – Deck 15 (Pool Deck)

Bob and I enjoyed the hot tub, but it wasn’t during “takeover,” as the bears were not back from their catamaran trip then.

7:00 pm: Cocktails, The Dock House Bar, Deck 7.

8:00 pm: Dinner, The Dock House Bar, Deck 7; Restaurant of the Night: The Wake, Deck 6 (access from Deck 7)

This is one of the best restaurants on the ship, and our meals did not disappoint!

John’s choices:

Bob’s choices:

Table choices: Bread shared by all, twice-baked potato shared by Bob and John, and dessert of one of our tablemates.

We watched a movie in our cabin compliments of Virgin Voyages Entertainment:

The Guilt Trip (2012)
Watched: 05/28/23     Provider: Virgin Voyages
10-word summary:  Cross-country road trip chronicling a sometimes-explosive, ultimately poignant mother-son reconnection.
6-word review:  Well-done exposition of complicated relationship dynamics.
Rating: ★★★★
Note:  Starring Barbra Streisand, Seth Rogen
Ship Shows and Activities

11:00 pm: BoomVang Nightclub and Dancing, The Manor, Deck 6

This was a ship event, and it’s hard to understand what a boom vang suggests with respect to a dance party. But from what I’ve been able to find out, it essentially was just another nightclub party. We didn’t attend it, so I don’t have any pictures.

Dominican MayDaze cruise | Day 2 | At sea

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It’s Saturday, May 27, and we have an “at sea” day today, which means no port call and extra BearCruise-organized activities!

Bob and I had breakfast in The Galley, which is essentially a food hall, with lots of different stations of different food choices.

We chose coffee, juice, omelets—mine with ham and cheddar and Bob’s with bacon, cheddar, spinach, hash browns, and multigrain toast for John.

Talk about a room with a view. This is pretty much the prettiest men’s room either of us has had the pleasure of peeing in. Fortunately it’s on deck 15 so that when we’re in a port, people right outside that window don’t get a free show.

Men’s room with a view

BearCruise group activities

Noon: Bear Lunch. If you want to join others for lunch, meet at The Galley Food Hall, Deck 15 Aft. Note that these restaurants are also open for lunch if you want to try them: Razzle Dazzle, The Wake, The Dock / Dock House, The Social Club, The Pizza Place, and The Sun Club.

Bob and I got up to The Galley at just before noon and found a table for 8 that we grabbed to have other group members join us.

I ended up getting a hamburger and fries (not pictured), and wanted a salad with it. I would’ve preferred a small side salad, but that wasn’t an option so I got a big one. (It’s all free anyway.) Bob got The Curry Ramen. Here are some pics of the food and a few of our new friends.

We availed ourselves to an after-lunch sweet treat from the ship’s ice cream shop, “Lick me till…”

You got to chose from 3 types of waffle cones: red velvet, chocolate, or vanilla, or to have it in a cup if you prefer. Bob chose a chocolate cone with 2 scoops of vanilla, and I chose the red velvet cone with a scoop of vanilla and one scoop of strawberry.

4:00 – 5:00 pm: BearCruise Birthday Party! – The Dock, Deck 7. Half of the area will be roped off for our guests, and cocktails are on us for this happiest of hours!

We got wrist bands for the bar indicating that BearCruise was picking up our drinks for the birthday party happy hour from 5-6 p.m. We were celebrating the 10-year anniversary of BearCruise.com organizing cruises especially for the bear subculture of gay men.

Group shot!

5:00 pm: Pool Hot Tub Takeover – Deck 15 (Pool Deck)

We didn’t attend this event, so I don’t have any photos of it.

7:00 pm: – Cocktails and Dinner, The Dock House Bar, Deck 7; Restaurant of the Night: Extra Virgin, Deck 6

Al led the group down to tonight’s Extra Virgin restaurant, described as: Deeply rooted in Italian culinary traditions, oiur trattoria serves regionally inspired food punctuated by our fresh, handmade pasta. Start with a shared antipasti—and follow that with any of our pasta-centric favorites and worship the carb gods like a good vacation begs of you.

Here are some pics of our selections. Bob’s are highlighted in green and John’s in blue in the menu. I only got a photo of Bob’s salad. You can see the descriptions of his other two items on the menu. We were full so passed on dessert.

Ship Shows and Activities

11:00 pm: Heartbeat Dance Party, The Manor, Deck 6

Brought to you by the House of Yes from Brooklyn. Heartbeat is an epic dance party—a celebration of artistic expression through our mirrored halls and into The Manor. With mixes of house, groove, funk, pop, and disco on the dance floor—no matter what your favorite era of music is, you’ll hit the dance floor knowing you’ll get to vibe to it.

The entrance to this venue is a shimmering, mirrored hallway, which can be confusing after a few drinks. I made a turn when leaving that wasn’t really an exit and got startled by finding another person coming at me. It turned out to be me.

This nightclub/bar exits into the casino hosting these goings-on as I passed through back to our cabin.

Dominican MayDaze cruise | Day 1 | Travel & Miami

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It’s Friday, May 26, 2023, and as we usually do, we had a very early morning flight to make sure we made our ship’s departure time of 6 p.m., allowing for possible unexpected delays.

Many thanks to our friend Neal for taking us to the airport at such a godawful hour. We appreciate you, Neal.

We caught a Lyft from the Miami Airport to Port of Miami, Terminal V, Virgin Voyages, 718 N Cruise Blvd., where we boarded Virgin Cruise Line’s Scarlet Lady ship at 3 p.m.

Our itinerary
Friday, May 26: Depart Miami | 7 pm

Saturday, May 27: Sailing fun with Bears at Sea

Sunday, May 28: Puerto Plata port call | 9 am – 6 pm

Monday, May 29: Sailing fun with another at-sea day

Tuesday, May 30: Beach Club at Bimini, Bahamas port call | 8 am – 8 pm

Wednesday, May 31: Return in Miami | 6:30 am

 Dominican MayDaze BearCruise itinerary highlights
Home for the next 5 days

On all of our previous cruises, we’ve had balcony suits, but since we bid on this cabin just 4 days ago from a couple of guys who had to drop out of the trip/group at the last minute, they had a “Seaview” cabin—so no balcony, only a porthole—but it was just fine.

BearCruise group activities

3:00 – 5:00 pm: BearCruise Hospitality Desk – On the Rocks, Deck 6. Come check in with us if you did not check in with us on the bus or at the hotel.

We finally boarded at around 3:30 p.m., checked in with the bear group, and since we’d last eaten (breakfast) at 4 a.m., we immediately went for grub at the Pizza Place on deck 7, where I had the White Truffle & Egg pizza and Bob had the Pepperoni Pizza.

6 pm: Sail Away–Aquatic Club Bar, Deck 15 (Pool Deck). Wear a hat and/or a t-shirt with a bear on it it to help us find you in the crowd. Don’t miss sailing out of Miami. It’s one of the most interesting ports to sail from.

7:00 pm: Cocktails at The Dock House Bar, Deck 7.

This is where we will meet for happy hour and dinner each night. From here, we’ll go to the reserved specialty restaurants in groups of 20 or so starting at 8:00 pm, 8:15 pm, 8:30 pm, and 8:45 pm.

Today’s happy hour was very-well attended, and although I didn’t get any pictures of the group, here are a couple of pictures of the bar, including the entranceway which we filled up with bears.

We kept the bartender super busy, and she was amazing remembering our orders and making them as quickly as possible. We warned her that we were going to be coming to this ship’s bar for our happy hours the entire cruise.

As happy hour wound down, our cruise director extraordinaire, Al Parker, broke us into groups of 20 to head down to the restaurant in shifts, where we were generally seated at tables for 6 or 8.

8:00 pm: Dinner—Restaurant of the Night: Pink Agave, Deck 5.

The Pink Agave is one of the specialty restaurants. Unlike on other cruise lines in whose specialty restaurants you have to pay, they were complimentary, the biggest difference being you had to make reservations for them.

We sat with 4 other members of our group, and among the 6 of us, 3 were nurses. Our server was great, and she recommended that we eat “family style” for choices she’d make of the small- and medium-plate selections, and then that each of us make our own choice from the large plate section. It was all delicious.

I regret that I failed to get a group picture of us, but here’s the food. Note: The seared shrimp of the Camarón Amarillo dish was on a separate plate, which I didn’t get a photo of.)

Ship shows and activities

10:45 pm: PJ Party—The Athletic Club, Deck 16

I fell asleep and missed this party, which was a ship’s party and not one of our private group activities. Obviously it was very popular: