I woke up at some point during the night because the whole ship was rocking quite a bit. Everyone told me that Hurtigruten is like a river cruise, where you're always close to the land and therefore there's no rocking. I can't confirm that, it was rocking both from side to side and up and down. At first, I was afraid of getting seasick, but after a few minutes, I was gently rocked back to sleep. And Dad, who even ordered "anti-vomit patches", didn't notice any of it. So I would say: we can handle being at sea, the patches won't need to be used, which means we can continue to enjoy a beer or a glass of wine for dinner (and maybe one afterwards). Phew ;-)...
FIRST BREAKFAST ON BOARD & VISIT TO ALESUND
The next morning, I overheard a British passenger proudly talking about watching the sunrise at a quarter to 3. Who needs that? That's where my motivation as a Norway explorer clearly ends! I was already awake at 7 o'clock, but that didn't qualify me for the early riser prize. Dad was already ready in the cabin, and he took his morning walk around the decks, for example to inspect the two available whirlpools. I'm not sure if I'm going in there yet. And for me, there was enough space in our cozy small cabin to get ready for breakfast.
And it was really great as expected! The buffet is huge, there's a lot of cheese (good for me), a lot of fish (good for Dad), delicious coffee, although from a machine (good for both), eggs in all variations with bacon (yummy), fluffy homemade bread, and sweet treats like cinnamon buns (only interesting for me). But I had to hurry a bit because we would only stop in Alesund for half an hour. That's not much, but enough for a quick walk around the beautiful Art Nouveau port. So I quickly finished breakfast and ran to the exit on Deck 3 with the chip card.
Alesund is definitely a great city to spend more than 30 minutes in, but we made the most of the little time we had.
OUR EXCURSION BEGINS
We were repeatedly told that we had to be ON TIME at 1:30 pm on Deck 3 so that the excursion "Geiranger with Trollstigen" could start properly. We followed that and were ready to disembark along with many other passengers of all nationalities.
But as always with all the boarding and disembarking, it took quite a while before we were on the ferry that would take us to the shore. Because the ship cannot dock directly at the shore of Geiranger. We had to make this experience together with an MSC ship and the Queen Elizabeth, which had also just arrived. We feared the worst! That means a small town next to us will be overrun by two other ships.