We arrived in Ísafjörður (I just loved saying it “issa-fyord-or”) in the morning. Initially we didn’t have any specific plans – no excursion, no independent tour. Since it had been easy to drive around Reykjavik, I thought maybe we’d be able to rent a car and tour the area (the actual town is very small and most of the cruise excursions involved traveling to other parts of the northwest fjords of Iceland). We first stopped at the visitor center to see if we could maybe book a last-minute tour (bus) but they were all full. The person at the counter suggested trying the nearby hotel as they sometimes have car rentals. I had never really heard of this but thought it couldn’t hurt.
So, somehow my entire post did not save and I lost a fully completed post. I’ll re-write it but suspect it won’t be close to the same. In my frustration, I may also shorten it and just throw in a bunch of pictures.
My parents wanted to take D and I on a vacation this year and we eventually settled on a cruise to Iceland. My parents are world travelers and we wanted to find somewhere they haven’t been so the options of places that we wanted to see and they haven’t been were limited. My parents are also pretty big cruiser takers and they suggested a 2 week cruise. I have had some experience with cruises, having been on 6 different ones to various places (Alaska, Hawaii, Caribbean, Mexico) and various cruise lines (Carnival, Princess, NCL). All the previous cruises I’ve been on were 7 days or less so a 2 week cruise was new to me. Also we would be cruising with Holland America, which is known for an older demographic (think retirees). D had never been on a cruise so this was going to be her first experience.
Our itinerary would start in Amsterdam and take us to Scotland (2 ports), Iceland (3 ports) and Norway (2 ports) before returning to Amsterdam. We decided to stay a few extra days in Amsterdam since D hadn’t been there before either. To not be too rushed/stressed about making sure we arrived in time to board the boat, we decided to head to the Netherlands a day early. We had one connecting stop in Seattle and I managed to get a decent shot of Mt. Rainier (I think it was Mt. Rainier).
Our flight from Seattle to Amsterdam was smooth enough though I was stuck in a middle economy seat so wasn’t the most comfortable. I was glad they had individual monitors and I was able to watch a bunch of movies since I couldn’t sleep that well. On arrival, my mom surprised us by actually waiting outside of customs and accompanying us to our hotel for the night (Hyatt Place Airport – actually in a nearby town called Hoofdorp). After getting checked in and taking a quick nap, we walked over to Hoofdorp to get some dinner. We managed to find a Chinese restaurant (which is a cuisine I know my parents are comfortable with and I figured that we wouldn’t have much opportunity for Chinese food while on the cruise).
The walk through town also revealed a quaint little main street area with shops and restaurants. The houses were also quite cute.
StewsCat 