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9.27am – I took a little while getting off to sleep last night, but woke feeling refreshed this morning. It’s a bright, sunny day, but it’s very chilly and breezy out on our balcony. We’re just getting ready for breakfast now and need to decide where we’re going for it. The Grand Dining Room is always table service but The Grill, which we’ve visited twice now, is a more relaxed buffet service affair. I’ll let Helen decide – I feel very chilled about those options.

11.40am – After a delicious, leisurely breakfast in The Grand Dining Room we went to The Playhouse to attend a very informative lecture about the history and culture of Norway and an introduction to the city of Bergen, which we’ll be visiting tomorrow. We now have a much better appreciation of Bergen, where everything is and how fabulous a city it is. We can’t wait! We’ve been given some information about local culinary ‘must-tries’ – whale meat (not sure about that one), reindeer sausages, pickled trout and a breakfast cheese that apparently tastes like a fusion of condensed milk and salt caramel!

After a (breezy) walk around the Promenade Deck we are currently sitting in The South Cape Bar having a cup of coffee to warm us up again.

1.55pm – OMG but I’m full! Having decided that we only wanted a light lunch, we failed miserably! I blame Helen myself! Whilst I went and got a fish salad (smoked salmon, smoked trout, rollmop herring and raw trout), Helen went for a full Sunday roast dinner! The food once again proved to be exceptional. A few laps around the Promenade Deck are going to be needed to work that off – I’ll see you when you get back Helen!

Ps: Alright, alright – I confess. At Helen’s suggestion (insistence? I can’t quite remember), I had a slice of beef after my salad. It truly was delicious!

Pps: If it hasn’t already become obvious, cruising is just one long gorge-fest! If you wanted to you can literally have food at any time of the day or night (the in-cabin food service alone is 24/7 and has many full meal options on the menu!) Cruising is probably not for people who wish to remain slim – especially on an all-inclusive cruise like this one!

5.02pm – It has been a very relaxing day so far. After lunch we had some quiet time relaxing in one of the ship’s lounges before attending the second part of this morning’s orientation presentation in The Playhouse at 3.30pm. This afternoon the speaker covered Flam and Skjolden which we’ll be visiting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Once more we were treated to some wonderful visual images of the spectacular locations we’re about to visit and useful information to help us make the most of our visits.

After the lecture we made our way up to The Britannia Lounge on deck 12. It’s the largest lounge and has panoramic views out over the sea. The singers from last night’s performance in The Playhouse are currently holding a sing-a-long session for a group of passengers. Although Helen and I didn’t sign-up for this session we’re pretty-much joining-in with the singing.

11.38pm – Goodness what a great evening we’ve had! This was our Gala Night and so everyone onboard had dressed up for the occasion. Men were required to wear suits (with ties) or dinner jackets with bow-ties. I opted for a jacket and trousers with a smart shirt and tie. Helen looked lovely in her calf-length pink dress with black polka-dots.

Our dinner in East to West was delicious and we were placed next to a couple that we’ve met several times already now, so we spent the evening with them.

After dinner we accompanied our new friends, David and Maureen up to the Britannia Lounge for the entertainment. Four of the resident singers we saw last night were on again till 11pm and then they were joined by a live group. It was very well received and the entertainers were extremely good.

We’re due to arrive in Bergen at around 10am and Helen and I are just organising our stuff for the morning before settling down for the night. The image below is our final position for the night. Although it shows us to be quite close to the Norwegian coast now, there’s still no sign of land yet. That will all be different when we awake tomorrow!