Fjords and Kilts and Hot Springs, Day 8 -- Reykjavik!

Day 8 -- Reykjavik Overcast, High 60

We did not plan any excursions for our second day in Reykjavik. We planned on simply exploring the city on our own. Since we didn't have to rush off the ship in the morning, we had breakfast in Lumiere's. There's something really nice about being waited on in a fancy restaurant to start the day. I'm not a huge breakfast person, so we don't usually do this a lot during our cruises. But for the few times that we do, I really enjoy the experience. I had the French Toast pineapple stack, served with a strawberry compote. Delicious! And Kath had the Eggs Benedict, which were great, as usual.

After breakfast, we disembarked and took the free shuttle into town, about a 5 minute bus ride. As a side note, we heard that Disney was the only line that had free shuttles for its passengers. The other lines that came into port had shuttles, but they weren't free. I wasn't able to verify that with anybody from the cruise line, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true.

Once in town, we found a stand of local tour operators and hired one to take us around to the city's major sites. We picked up the tour at this downtown building. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the windows have different colors and it's really interesting to look at. (That's my brother-in-law, Steve, at the bottom left.) And I just loved the sculpture and the background:

Our first stop was a large mound that was made by Olof Nordal as a piece of art. You can walk up to the top and have beautiful views of the downtown and the water.

We also stopped at Reykjavik's City Hall. It was an interesting-looking building and our guide gave us a little history and geography lesson as we stood around a giant map of the country:

We also went to the legislative building, with a statue of the first woman to serve in the Parliament:

We stopped at Christ the King Catholic Church. Iceland has a deep tradition of Lutheran Protestantism, but there is a Catholic minority. We didn't get to go inside, because they were in the middle of services.

We stopped at the city's main park. It's not nearly as big as New York's Central Park, but it's kind of the same idea. Lots of open green space for general use. The thing I liked most about it was that it was littered with dozens of sculptures and statues. I have lots of pictures of the park, but I'll save them for later.

Our last stop was the Hallgrimskirkja church. This is the biggest church in Iceland, and the main landmark of Reykjavik. It is designed to resemble lava flows that are common in Iceland. This was probably my favorite part of Reykjavik. We arrived just as the Sunday service was ending and after waiting just a few minutes, we were allowed to go in and wander around and take pictures.

This statue of Leif Ericsson was a gift from the USA to Iceland and stands in the courtyard in front of the church:

As I said, we also went into the church and I have a ton of pictures of the interior, but I think I'll post them after the main report. The tour dropped us off where we started and we grabbed the shuttle back to the ship for lunch.

We ate at Cabanas and sat inside. It was a little too cool to eat outside, so we found a table near a window. They served fried calamari, which I don't ever remember seeing before on the Magic's buffet. It was really, really excellent, too. I was very surprised, but the breading was tasty and the calamari was very tender. It was almost as good as Palo's calamari. (Almost. . .) I also tried the chicken Thai curry on rice. It had a good flavor, but it was too spicy for me. If they had kept the same curry flavor, but taken out some of the heat, I would recommend it; but for me, it was too much. However, I loved the grilled spiced chicken with couscous. It was excellent. I also had some peel and eat shrimp. And then for dessert, I got some mint chocolate chip ice cream on a chocolate chip cookie. Overall, this was probably the best lunch menu for the whole cruise in Cabanas.

After lunch, Kathryn, Steve and I took the shuttle back into town. We walked back to the city park, the Parliament building and to some of the other local landmarks. We did a little shopping, and were back to the Magic by 4:30. All-aboard was 4:45, so we were back with no problem. Here are some random pictures from our walk.

And Rejkyavik Int'l Airport:

There was a little shop at the port, and I bought a couple postcards and mailed them. We had no problems or lines to re-board the ship, even though it was pretty close to the all-aboard time. We had plenty of time to get ready for dinner back in Lumiere's.

On our way through the Atrium, look who I met in Icelandic garb:

Our serving team was very good throughout the cruise, although I would say they were not consistently excellent. Our Server was Allen (from India). He was excellent, very engaging and made very few mistakes, other than not pouring the sauce for Kathryn's souffle early in the week. Our Assistant Server was Francesca (from England). She was pretty good, but not excellent. She got off to a really bad start on our first night. She just seemed unhappy and didn't engage us at all. She definitely got better over the next couple days, and eventually, we liked her. Usually we feel closer to the Assistant Server by the end of the cruise, since they spend more time with us than the Servers do. But this time, we definitely clicked more with Allen.

That night, for appetizers, Kathryn and I had the crab cake, which was excellent. Great flavor and not as bready as it was on our last cruise. Kath makes them more crispy at home, which I like; but these were terrific. Molly had the spicy empanada (Argentinian beef). It had good flavor, with a bit of heat, but not overpowering. Molly had the Canadian cheese soup, which was very good and not as salty as it has seemed in the past. Kathryn had the South African Pear Salad, which was served with a Garam Masala syrup. (Garam Masala is a spice mixture that is used in a lot of South African recipes.) The syrup was a balsamic vinaigrette base, so unfortunately, the Garam Masala flavor didn't come through very much. This salad would not have been served in a real African-cuisine restaurant like Jiko at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

For entrees, all three of us got the Indian Prawn curry, and it was very good. The curry was not spicy and the portion size was reasonable for once.

The desserts didn't interest me, so I passed. But there was a Canadian Ice Cream sundae with butter pecan ice cream and a maple cream. Molly asked for just the ice cream, which she liked. Kath got the passion fruit creme brulee, which was very good.

It was Steve's actual birthday, so the serving crew came to the table and sang, and brought a little cake for the table to share. For some reason, I have no pictures of our food, but I remembered to take pictures of Steve's cake.

The show that night was "Ice! Fire! Strings!", featuring Greta Salome. She's the person who played the violin during our meal at Palo, earlier in the week. She's a native of Iceland and advanced to the last stages in a European version of "America's Got Talent". She plays the violin and sings. As with the acrobats (Rebecca and Donovan), I felt the show would be better without her vocals. She is obviously very talented, but it wasn't my kind of show, personally. Her song choices for the violin weren't great. A couple Disney numbers and a classical medley where she shoe-horned some Disney melodies into it. Dueling banjos isn't my cup of tea, especially on the violin. As I said, she's clearly very good and talented, but personally, I would've preferred to hear her perform some great classical music. It just wasn't that kind of show. I think the vast majority of the audience liked the show more than I did, to be fair.

After the show, we relaxed and wandered Deck 9 for a while. Then at 11, I headed to O'Gills for the Women's World Cup Final. It was also shown on the Funnel Vision screen, but it was too cold to sit on deck for 2 hours. The ship was only granted permission to show it that day, so I don't think it was even listed in the Daily Navigator. When I got to O'Gills, the Irish pub band was playing and they apparently didn't realize that they were supposed to be done at 11. So they played right through the first goal, unfortunately. The crew finally shooed them off-stage, they lowered the big screen and we watched the rest of the game. The place was pretty packed and LOUD. And of course, they had nachos, wings and pigs-in-a-blanket because, you know, we hadn't eaten in 3 hours. It was a really fun way to end the day.

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