Our first port of call was Oslo. Our plan for the day was to visit the Fram Museum on the island of Bygdoy.
From RCI Port Information:
“Ship clearance expected at 11:00 am and all onboard is set for 4:30 pm
Ship will dock at Akershuskaien (Oslo Cruise Pier), located within walking distance to the city center, approx. 500 meters (15 minutes walk).
No shuttles are provided at this port, limited taxis are available at the terminal.”
Our first cruise on Royal Caribbean took us to Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, St Petersburg, Tallinn, Stockholm, Skagen, Stavanger and back to Southampton.
Day 3 Tuesday 25th June: Oslo, Norway
We woke up as the pilot boat came alongside at 6.35 am. This meant that Explorer was about to enter into the Oslo fjord. We went back to sleep as we knew the ship would be docking in Oslo much later in the morning. We then had a late start and this meant that we had breakfast in the Windjammer Market on Deck 11.
There was a very keen crew member making sure that everyone used the hand sanitisers as the walked into the restaurant. “Washy washy” was her song as she danced backwards and forwards catching anyone who didn’t used the sanitiser stands.
After working out where the forks and knives were kept we went down the generous buffet and selected our (way too much) food. For future reference we noted that the buffet counters at the front of the restaurant had an omelette station and appeared to have a greater selection as well as more tables available.
The hot food in the buffet (scrambled eggs, American bacon and mushrooms) were not hot but rather cool – strange from a ship’s buffet.
We picked up a carton of skimmed milk and a handful of teabags for our cabin. The full fat milk left by our cabin steward just did not taste okay in a tea.
Walking to the water taxi in Oslo
There were no queues and we left the ship at 10.45 am. Explorer was close to the Askershus Castle and we could see the town hall from the quay. After leaving the ship we walked along the quayside towards the town hall piers. This statue remembers the fire on the MS Scandinavian Star. In the fire 159 people died. Behind the statue is a plaque with the names of all the dead.
On our left we past these murals painted on the side of buildings.
Behind us we had a clear view of the docked Explorer of the Seas.
Docked further down the quay was the preserved Norwegian minesweeper, KNM Alta.
At the quayside was this mural very easy to miss if we’d stuck to the road.
Water taxi to Bygdoy
At the town hall piers we looked for the water taxi to Bygdoy. This is the museum island of Oslo. At one of the piers we could see a water taxi waiting to pick up passengers and after buying our tickets we were soon on board and once the boat was full we left the pier.
The trip across the open water was calm and after the first stop we were almost alone on the boat as the majority of passengers had left to go to the Viking ship Museum at Dronningen.