Måløy (Pronounced Molay), Norway — September 1, 2026

Our first port of call for the approximately two and a half weeks we spent in Norway was Måløy, a coastal and fishing town located on the southeastern side of Vågsøy island, Vestland county, Norway. We took a Holland America tour to the fishing village of Kalvåg (pronounced Kalvog), which we reached by bus and ferry. Cora, a retired principal, was our guide for the tour, and he was a fantastic host.

The weather wasn’t what we had hoped for, but it was about what we expected — overcast and drizzly. We armed ourselves with ponchos and umbrellas and we were off to Kalvåg! Luckily, even though we had some intermittent light rain the day certainly wasn’t a washout!

The ferry terminal was very close to the cruise port, so most of our riding time was after the ferry from Måløy. The roads were interesting…narrow, winding, and with MANY places where only one vehicle could pass. I was amazed by how well it worked. The smaller vehicles backed up to the nearest cut-out to let the larger vehicles pass, and there was no confusion or frustration.

Of course, there were some other obstacles that slowed us down a little, but even those obstacles moved out of the way!🐐

Kalvåg is a picturesque fishing village on the island of Frøya. Everything in the small town is very walkable, and there didn’t appear to be many visitors in the town on the day we were there. Our bus load probably tripled the population! There is a small art museum in town that features unique local art/artists, but Jim and I preferred to stay outside. We enjoyed wandering aimlessly to take in the beautiful scenery and enjoy the fresh autumn air.

The bus ride and ferry back to Måløy were somewhat more scenic since the lowest clouds had lifted and the skies were brighter.

We made an additional stop at the tiny island of Husevågøy. The only way to reach the island is by ferry, and the ferry only stops there when the signal is lit to indicate a vehicle needs to board the ferry. Cars traveling to/from the island get free passage on the ferry because it’s the only way to get there.

Back in Måløy we walked around the town and added to our magnet collection, but we didn’t linger too long — port number 1 of 20 had been great, but our goal was to pace ourselves instead of going all out—all day—every day so it was time to go back to the Rotterdam!

I went out on the balcony before bed, and I could still see quite a bit at 11:00. Up next — Trondheim!

Holland America Rotterdam Cabin 7189

I wanted to talk a little bit about our cabin. This was going to be far and away our longest cruise (the previous longest was 12 nights, and the only 2 week cruise we had ever taken got cut short by my ankle injury). I was really stressed out about how we would manage four weeks in about 325 square feet (including the balcony). I was especially worried about storage since we’d need some warmer clothing.

As it happened, all my worrying was for nothing. Our cabin had plenty of storage, and some of the organizational things I brought didn’t even get used. When I start packing I’ll probably ditch them to create extra space and weight for souvenirs!😆

What I did use that I found extremely helpful were a set of six fabric cubes, hanging shelves, a hanging shower caddy, a five pair pants hanger (we could have used two), and lots of strong magnets. The hanging shelves were fantastic, and big enough to hold my hair dryer, flat iron, chargers, paperwork, and other odds and ends.

We moved the life jackets to the drawers under the bed and used that space for cubes with winter gear in them. We had most of the chunky wooden hangers removed and used a combination of our own felt hangers and ship’s wire hangers. I really dislike the wire hangers, but they helped free up a lot of space! By doing that, we were able to fit almost all our hanging clothes, all our shoes, several cubes with folding tops and workout clothes, and a bag for dirty clothes in the closets and we hung our coats on magnetic hooks in the corner of the room. We used the built-in hooks near the closets for our backpacks.

Voila! Just like that we’re on day 26 of 28. We haven’t killed each other, we’ve managed to keep things organized and put away, and there are more long cruises in our future!

P.S. I forgot to mention the absolute best deal at sea — the unlimited laundry package. We’ve sent laundry out pretty much every other day and it’s really helped to keep things neat and organized. The laundry comes back in about 24 hours — cleaned, pressed (if needed) and wrapped in tissue in a basket. We’re looking forward to becoming 4 Star Mariners so the laundry will be included, but for now $10/day is a bargain!!!

Rotterdam, NL — August 28-30, 2026

We were determined to do a better job of managing our time and jet lag on this trip, so we had booked a couple shorter tours and decided we’d fill in the gaps as we saw fit once we were in Rotterdam.

I woke up predictably early on Friday, and enjoyed the quiet and coffee in the M Club Lounge. We had made loose plans to go to Delft, but when we learned the Delft train line was down for maintenance we switched gears and spent a couple relaxing hours walking around Gouda (pronounced Howdah). Unfortunately it was so early in the day nothing was open, but it was pleasant walking around and enjoying the cooler weather. Rain was threatening, but held off during our time in Gouda.

We got back to Rotterdam with time to relax a while before our afternoon walking tour to Rotterdam’s most photogenic spots. The tour was at 2:00 for an hour and a half, and as luck would have it it started raining hard at 2:00 and the rain lasted about an hour and a half. I’m not going to share too many pictures because we saw many of the same things on Saturday in brilliant sunshine! The most photogenic spots looked much better in the Saturday sunshine than they did during Friday’s downpour!

We lucked into a fantastic Italian restaurant for dinner. It was just across the street from our hotel and next to the train station. It definitely wasn’t in a location where you’d ordinarily expect to find a great restaurant, but this was everything we love — small, authentic, family-owned, and very popular with the locals. We were lucky to get a table, and we had to share or we wouldn’t have been able to eat there at all.

The weather Saturday started out perfect — It was cool and sunny with brilliant, bright blue skies. We took a food tour through Eat Your Way Around and had a fantastic time eating our way around Rotterdam with our guide Fee (Fay). We started at the Food Hall with Bitterballen, then had Japanese Pancakes, Surinamese soup and plantains, and finally ended with Kibbeling. In between stops we got to see all the sights that had been obscured by rain the day before!

The food tour was great, but unfortunately that was the only part of our day that went according to plan. We cancelled our dinner reservations on the other side of town from the Marriott because of the forecast, and we ended up being glad we did because once the rain and wind moved in it was awful! Dinner at the hotel wouldn’t have been my first choice for the evening, but it was dry and convenient so that was the winner!

We woke up to continuing rain on Sunday morning, so we were leisurely about packing up and getting ready to leave for the ship and our home away from home for the next four weeks.

Bryan to Rotterdam — August 26-August 27, 2026

This trip seemed like it was a long time coming, even though it wasn’t as long a wait as it might have been if the A&M Football schedule hadn’t intervened and thrown a wrench in our plans.

On our last day on the Nieuw Statendam last August Jim wheeled me down to the future cruise desk and we booked a 4 week cruise on the same ship — to north of the Arctic Circle followed by Spain and Portugal, I was a little hesitant about the lack of daylight we’d have in November, but I thought it would be good for chances to see the Northern Lights so we booked it. I also realized we’d never been away for that long — heck, we hadn’t even made it through a two week cruise, but staying longer given the current price of international air travel seemed like a smart approach, so we decided to give it a shot!

A couple months later, while I was still recuperating from my ankle surgery the 2026 football schedule came out. There were three games we wanted to attend in November, and we knew the games in September would be beyond hot, so we switched the cruise to the Rotterdam in September — 2 weeks to Norway and the Arctic Circle and then 2 weeks in the Baltics. As a bonus, friends we met on a cruise 10 years ago were on the first leg the trip, and we thought it would be nice to spend time with them again.

We flew to Amsterdam on August 26 on KLM — we booked early and their pricing was considerably better than United’s. The flight was fine — nothing memorable but nothing really wrong either. We just couldn’t get comfortable and neither of us slept at all on the way over.

Much to our surprise, we were through passport control and had our bags only 15 minutes after we got off the plane!😳 We were so unexpectedly early that our ride service had to reassign our driver. It was the exact opposite of last year’s multi-hour fiasco! We found out one reason it was so fast was Schiphol had suspended the use of the EES Kiosks through September 1 to improve wait times, but now that the machines are in use again the waits are back at 2 hours! Just my opinion, but that is NOT an effective use of technology!

We stayed at the Rotterdam Marriott in a Junior Suite. It was a very nice hotel with a spacious room, a fantastic M Club with a great coffee machine, and a terrible shower. I liked the location right across from Centraal Station and we were able to walk or take the tram to get around town easily.

We didn’t do much the first day. We walked around and did a little toiletry shopping (I had decided to buy full bottles abroad instead of trying to take enough for over a month), and grabbed lunch in the hotel. By the time we finished lunch our room was ready, and we thankfully went up and collapsed for a while.

We walked a little way from the hotel for a great dinner at Bertman’s then went back to the hotel to attempt to get some sleep knowing we’d be awake way too early.