Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE. As I’m writing this on my phone (obligatory request to excuse typos and grammatical errors) I’m somewhere in the North Sea. We left Norway yesterday (Wednesday) evening and are en route to Belgium. We have a quick stop at Zeebrugge, from which we will travel to Bruges, and then back to Southampton on July 1st. So, assuming all goes to plan, by the time you read this I should be back in Sheffield.
I‘m going to talk about this cruise in more detail when I’m back in front of my Macbook, so for now this will be something of a highlight reel.
This trip can be split into two areas; the time spent off the ship, and the time spent on the ship. Princess, as a company, will not be getting any repeat business from us. The staff have been almost entirely polite, friendly, and professional. There have been a couple of exceptions, but no big deal. The main problem I have with the ship is the food. There’s no way to describe the food other than mostly awful. There have been one or two exceptions but by and large, it’s been barely edible garbage, and on Wednesday evening both Oana and I came down with food poisoning. Neither of us drink alcohol and we ate the same food that day. From Wednesday evening until around 16:30 Thursday we have both felt rubbish. It could only have been the food.
I contacted the Guest Services team onboard to ask how to report possible food poisoning. I’m thinking that someone should be collating this information in case multiple people are impacted, and then a full investigation can be completed. Well, I’ll just leave screenshots of the chat here…
The major concern here is they never asked what was eaten or when it was eaten. If I was involved in food preparation and two people reported feeling rubbish with symptoms of eating something dodgy, you can bet I’d want to at least check what they’d actually had.
As a side note, you have probably tried to view my profile pic on that chat convo. I did a crazy one to see if I could make security laugh as I got on and off the ship throughout the cruise. Here is that photo. If you laugh, you owe me a coffee…
The staff on these ships work incredibly hard. They are generally young, and many don’t speak English as a first language. They are being thrown into a difficult situation and are being let down by those higher up the ladder. We’ve had a number of minor issues onboard which have been exacerbated by poor systems, processes, and training. Take Wednesday morning as an example….
On the Princess app you can view your onboard account for things you’ve bought. Cruise ships are generally cashless; everything you spend is totalled up and paid for with your registered credit card. Since we were incorrectly charged on the first day for some drinks, I’ve made a point of quickly checking the account each morning.
When you buy something onboard you scan your Medallion which then brings up your photo on the crew’s hand terminal so they can verify your identity. If you don’t have your Medallion they can search under your cabin number. Assuming the staff double check your photo, nothing should be charged incorrectly.
Anyway, somehow on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning two charges for the same amount were applied to my journey account. I asked on the chat what they were for; each charge was two glasses of wine. Two one evening and two the following morning (probably just after midnight). Oana and I don’t drink alcohol. We certainly didn’t order wine. In fact, the only drinks we’ve paid for have been coffee, two bottles of water, and two cokes on day one. I’d made it clear in my message to the Guest Services that I was querying two different charges, but it took almost an hour to sort out and get one of the two charges removed. I then had to go back to them and explain, as per my very first message to them, that this issue related to two charges.
Now imagine you are on a two-week cruise, and every single day something like this crops up that takes 30-60 minutes to sort, and it’s easy to see how you can start to feel a little pissed off when you’ve dropped £4k on the cruise, and an additional £2k on things related to the cruise, like trains, cabs, excursions, and so on, which leads me on to the next point….
Crew Appreciation
Princess have a policy where your journey account is charged $16 per person, per day, for “Crew Appreciation.” It’s basically subsidising their pay. For our cruise that’s a total of around $450.
I’m not particularly militant about tipping either way. If I get good service, I leave a tip. I tip my barber £5 on top of the £15 cost of the haircut. I’ll generally tip between 10%-20% for Uber Eats drivers who are friendly and don’t just throw my food at me. If I’d had a great time on this cruise, not had food poisoning, and not had to spend hours dealing with shit that shouldn’t be an issue, then I’d happily pay the Crew Appreciation. Unfortunately this is the only thing I can do to protest the fact that the cruise (at least the part on the ship) has been, well, a bit shit.
The Good Stuff
Norway is absolutely stunning. Words can’t do it justice. The sheer natural beauty of the country is enough to bring you to tears. Words like majestic, awe-inspiring, spectacular, all fall short in describing it. The mountains with their snow-capped peaks, the rolling green hills, the valleys, the forests that stretch as far as the eye can see, the birds that rustle the branches, the water that is as clear as any you have seen. The sights, the smell of the crisp, clean air, the noise of water falling from dozens of waterfalls. I may have been born in the UK, but my soul yearns for these lands. In my life I have seen many great places on this planet. None of them compare to the Norwegian Fjords.
There is more to Norway than fjords though. Across the two cruises to Norway I’ve seen several of their large cities, and they are generally clean, with a sense of pride being taken in making the cities as welcoming, and as colourful as possible. There are flowers everywhere. There is art everywhere, and none of it has graffiti. In Sheffield we have had many murals from prominent artists installed across the city. Within weeks they have been defaced so badly they have been taken down. We can’t have nice things because there are too many people determined to ruin it. This is why we end up with graffiti, vandalism, and general antisocial behaviour. The root cause can be traced back to thinks like economic policy, bad parenting, poor schools, and a lack of social awareness. I’m sure Norway has its problems, but I looked long and hard, and it doesn’t seem to compare.
Take the phone booths present in many Norwegian towns and cities. They have been converted to community libraries allowing people to share books. They are free to use. They are clean, well maintained, and have polite notes from people asking for specific books. Ask yourself if something like this would thrive in your area? Or would it be used as a toilet before being set on fire?
It’s so strange but the surroundings seem to have an impact on how people behave, even the tourists coming off the cruise ships. In the small towns and villages there is no litter. Not a single bit of litter. Some of these places, like Olden, have a population of roughly five hundred people, so you’d expect when over six thousand people suddenly descend on the place from two cruise ships at the same time, that there’d be litter, but there just isn’t. It’s like there’s a switch inside our heads that makes us behave better when surrounded with such incredible beauty.
So as I’m typing this bit I’ve just arrived home in Sheffield. It’s been a long, long day. We arrived in Southampton in the early morning, and Oana and I were awake at 7am. It took a couple of hours to get off the ship and into the centre of Southampton. After some breakfast we caught our first train to Birmingham, and our connecting train to Sheffield. Then, after dropping our bags off at home we went to pick up Poppy! She was happy to see us and we’ve made a bit of a fuss over her since we got back. She seems to have settled back into the apartment quickly.
It’s now back to reality; work, housework, cooking, and all that boring, stressful life stuff. For my regular readers, and those of you who contact me on social media, thank you for indulging these non-FIRE weeks of posts. Next week will see a return to normal service. Before next weekend I’ll be uploading a bonus, Norway-themed, post which will have more detail on the positive parts of the trip, of which there were many. We’ve crossed the Arctic Circle, watched the sun set at midnight over the sea, witnessed whales break the surface of the water, and much, much more.
Thanks again, and check back in the week for the Norway post, and next weekend for a return to FIRE.