| The final call on my Jewel of the Seas cruise was Oslo on the 14th July 2009. I had previously been there on the 7th May when I was on Vision, but bad weather changed plans so instead of sightseeing we spent ten hours at the airport. I was delighted to have another chance and hoped for better weather. Sadly my camera had broken the night before leaving me to use my then partner, Patrick Patton's, awful Samsung with 3x zoom. It did a reasonable job but what a comedown from the 18x with superior quality I was used to! I could still take photos, just not as good as they would have been. Anyway we had a 2pm arrival and a six hour stay. The gorgeous Aurora would be in with us again, docked where Vision had two months earlier. She had arrived for 8am and would be sailing at 6pm. I was delighted to see her twice on this trip and would beat her home by a day. As I spotted her in the distance it made me really miss my camera. A Color Line ferry was nearby. |
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| Shortly after we'd docked, the Color Line ferry departed so I took a quick snap. It's amazing how so many modern ferries look like cruise ships while cruise ships are getting uglier and look like buildings. |
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| Clearance was within ten minutes so we headed down to deck 2 and walked off the ship. I was really pleased the weather was good this time. Before seeing the city, I had more important matters to attend to - photos of the ships! |
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| After looking around the city, we made our way back to the ship via the webcam route and my mission came to the fore once again, much to Patrick's chagrin. He was impatient to go back on the ship but I was a tourist AND ship nut so he'd have to wait. After all, it's not every day I visit foreign parts that aren't Zeebrugge and have other vessels in. I wanted to make the most of my last port day with my favourite existing ship with us. |
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| I went to the Promenade deck for Aurora's sailing since we had a 6.30pm booking in Portofino and it was just a deck up. It clouded over and became a little chilly so I went back to the cabin for my cardigan. Aurora was a little late leaving but I saw her very slowly edging what appeared to be backwards from my angle. She blasted which was music to my ears! |
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| Once she was out she blasted again then began to make the turn. Time was getting on and I was due to meet Patrick outside the restaurant. I was torn between the gorgeousness that is Aurora and dinner. I stayed a bit longer since I couldn't miss my girl. |
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| I went in about 6.25pm and waited for Patrick who was late. As we had a table by the window I could continue watching her as she slowly faded from view. |
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| Later that night we did see her off the coast of Norway beautifully lit up apart from the funnel which was off. She was heading for Kristiansand while we had a day at sea before returning to Harwich. Unfortunately his camera was so crap it couldn't pick her up so I have no photos. To read the review of my cruise, click here. |
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