Fjords and Kilts and Hot Springs, Day 4 -- Kristiansand, Norway

Day 4 -- Kristiansand Sunny, low 70s

Once again, I was up early to hit the treadmill. For some reason, the gym was very crowded this morning. There was only one treadmill available, so I grabbed it. I mentioned the locker room earlier in the report, and I'm just going to describe it a little more for people who have never used it. The locker room itself is not huge, but lockers line 3 walls and there is a square padded seat in the middle, so you can sit down and face the locker. There's no charge to use the lockers, and you input your own combination electronically, so you don't need a padlock or anything like that. (In fact, you couldn't use it even if you wanted to.) There are two basins with soap, shaving cream and disposable razors available. There are also towels and shower shoes available to use for free, although you're supposed to leave them in the "dirty" bins before you leave. There's also a separate restroom just outside the locker area, and just after the restroom is the shower and sauna room. There are two shower stalls and each shower has three settings: an overhead, oversized "rain forest" shower head, a section that sprays the water horizontally from directly in front of you to shower your torso, and a hand-held shower head to spray any specific area you want. There is also shampoo, conditioner and body gel supplied so you don't have to bring soap from your stateroom. Next to the shower stalls, there's a sauna room (which I never used) and outside the sauna are several padded reclining chairs. I apologize for not having pictures of any of this, but it seemed a little wierd, even for me, to bring a camera into the locker and shower areas.

After working out, I came back to the stateroom to find the usual coffee and croissants on the verandah. I nibbled a little and relaxed while the girls got ready for the day. Around 10:15, we all headed to Cabanas for a late breakfast because we knew that we were going to miss lunch due to our shore excursion, which was scheduled for 11:45. I'm a pretty boring eater at breakfast, so I had my usual stuff. Although they did have biscuits and gravy, which I usually like. I actually wasn't crazy about it on this cruise. It's always a little bit different; maybe because of the different chefs or maybe because on different itineraries, they're restricted to different ingredients -- I don't know. But I didn't like this gravy at all. It was much thicker than I like and too peppery. So I had a chocolate-frosted doughnut to make up for it.

Our excursion was the Kristiansand by Segway tour. We met at 11:45 (I think in Fathoms) and the Port Adventures host told us that we would be done by 1:00 p.m. This upset me because I know from doing similar tours in other places, the first half hour or so is used to train the tourists about how to ride the Segway. That would leave us only a half hour for the actual tour. As it turned out, the tour went from noon until about 2:30 (including the 2-minute walk from the ship to where the Segways were parked), so I was worried for nothing. It was a terrific experience. The training was good with very patient staff. It was the first time for both Molly and Kathryn, so they were a little nervous; but they did great and both enjoyed it a lot.

Training. . .

And after training:

Our guide was good, but not great. He didn't give us as much historical information on some of the important sites (in particular, the Kristiansand Cathedral) as I would've liked, but he was VERY good with the group and the nervous riders. We rode to the shore and a big park with several cool fountains. As was mentioned, we had GREAT weather in Norway and it seemed like this town had been waiting for summer for 10 years. Everybody was outside. We must've seen 100 moms pushing baby carriages; kids swimming in the fountains; people laying out on the grass just soaking up the sun.

People happy to be able to wear shorts (remember, it's only about 70 degrees):

The cool fountains at the park:

The tour then took us through the Old Town, to the city's highest point, an old defensive fort, and eventually ended at a fish market where they gave us samples of smoked and fresh fish. The fish market was part of a wonderful little market complex with outdoor seating for a few restaurants and access to the water, so there were lots of boats parked nearby.

Some outdoor art that we passed:

The Cathedral:

Another statue of King Haakon VII, near the cathedral:

The fort:

The fish market:

After the fish market, we dropped the Segways back at the starting point and Molly headed back to the ship. Kath and I and my sister and brother-in-law walked back to the market and soaked in the sun with some fish and chips.

After our snack, we walked back up through the park with the fountains and to the shopping district. We wandered through some shops. There were several places that seemed to have good deals, but we didn't buy much. We got back to the ship just before the all-aboard time of 4:30. After that, we took some time to relax and read before getting ready for dinner.

This was scheduled as Formal Night, and we were supposed to be in Carioca's for dinner. But we had dinner reservations for Palo! So we dressed in our formal wear and headed to Deck 10. To make it even more special, it was Molly's first Palo dinner!

Dressed up for Formal Night:

Before we get to the meal, just a note for the real DCL geeks out there. Palo has new menus. More specifically, new menu holders. They used to have really cool copper folders that the menus were inserted into. I can't tell you how many times I begged for them to let me buy one. But now, they're a more traditional menu holder:

And here are a couple shots of the restaurant:

We were served the antipasto plate, of course. I think this is pretty much the same as the last time we had dinner. There are meats, cheese, red peppers and olives with some balsamic vinegar drizzled over the top. But then we ordered the calamari, grilled shrimp and caprese salad for our appetizers. All were excellent. I love the calamari. I thought there used to be pizza on the dinner menu, but there was no pizza option this night. They did provide some seasoned flatbread with the antipasto, but it was not a menu option.

For our entrees, I ordered the lasagna. This was excellent, with great depth of flavor to the sauce. It was a little more moist than I would have expected, but I really enjoyed it. I also ordered a side portion of the beef ravioli in wine sauce. It was also very good, both the meat and the wine sauce, but I was glad that I ordered the lasagna as my "real" meal. I liked it better than the ravioli.

Kathryn ordered the Osso buco and it was amazing. She loved it. Cooked wonderfully and the sauce had fantastic flavor.

Molly got the steak with red wine reduction. It was also amazing. She loved it. One of the great things about Palo is that when you ask for your meat to be cooked "rare", they actually do it! Most restaurants either can't do it right or they assume that you don't really know what rare is, so it comes out medium rare. But Molly got it rare!

The ladies also split an order of the lamb chops, just to try them and they agreed that they were also awesome. For some reason, I don't have a picture. Sorry!

During dinner, we were treated to a wandering minstrel. This was one of the guest performers, who did the main show in the Walt Disney Theater one evening later in the cruise. During her stage show, she played the violin and also sang; but in Palo, it was just the violin. This is something that we'd never experienced at Palo and we all really enjoyed it.

Our server brought some sorbet with prosecco between courses:

And then, dessert! Most people swear by the chocolate souffle, but I love the Amaretto Indulgence. Next time you're at Palo, even if you think you want the souffle, get the Amaretto Indulgence. You can thank me later. Kath got the souffle; Molly and I got the Indulgence. Mmmmmmm!

Steve's birthday was in two days, so he also get a special plate with his dessert:

Three final comments about our evening at Palo.

1) We had to wait about 10-15 minutes to be taken to our table. This is unusual in my experience, but it wasn't horrible. We waited in the comfortable chairs between the check-in desk and the piano. The ship's photographer came out to us there and took several pictures for us by the masks and with the restaurant in the background. I really liked this better than being interrupted during my meal, rearranging the table so the glasses don't get in the picture, etc. You'll notice, however, that I'm not sharing any of those pictures with you. That's because they all came out terrible! With the sun pouring into the room directly behind us, all those pictures either have us squinting (facing the sun) or completely in shadow (sun behind us). So we have no good pictures of us in Palo. But if they could figure how to make them come out well, I would gladly have pictures taken while we wait to be seated, instead of during the meal.

2) They had a special order available, if you really like steak. It's a step up from Kobe beef, but I can't remember the name (from my Google search, maybe it was Wagyu?). It was a mere $55 for a 2 oz. portion, or the bargain price of $100 for a 4 oz. portion. I like a good steak as much as anybody, but come on. That's crazy expensive.

3) Kathryn asked the server to walk her through her wine choices to go with her meal. He went over some of the items on the wine list, and recommended one, which is what Kathryn ordered. The price wasn't noted on the wine list, but when we got the bill, her one glass of wine was $25. I think I would've liked a heads-up from the server about that. If you're going to recommend a selection that's almost twice as much as most of the comparable choices in other venues, I think the server should let you know that it's not your "typical" glass of wine.

Our dinner started at 7 pm and we didn't leave the restaurant until about 9:00. So we missed both performances of Villians Tonight. It's not my favorite show, but I had actually wanted to see it. Sometimes it's really good and I wanted to give it a shot. I have to say, though, that Villains Tonight does not seem like a show that you'd want to schedule for Formal Night. The best show for Formal Night is Golden Mickeys; which is, of course, the best show period. But it's no longer showing on the Magic. Not that I'm bitter. . .

Instead, we all went up to the D Lounge (formerly Studio Sea) to see The Dreamers. I had liked them a lot when we heard them earlier in the cruise and I was looking forward to good songs done with good acoustic guitar arrangements. (Can you sense a "but" coming. . .?) BUT they were doing a family dance party with lots of electronic background tracks. There were kids everywhere, of course. It was crazy and not what we were in the mood for after Palo, so we didn't stay. We spent some quiet time walking Deck 4, which was still bathed in bright sunlight well after 10:30 p.m. Great night.

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