Skagen, Denmark
Our first day and nightt onboard the Azamara Journey was pretty typical. After boarding, completing the safety drill and meeting our stateroom hosts we had a nice dinner and watched the show in the lounge. The Journey is a small ship (under 700 passengers compared to the mega-ships with over 4,000) so the show venue is small and the performances, while enjoyable are pretty limited. The live music was wonderful.
Our cabin on the ship is all of the way forward so when the ship comes into port and turns around, the engine noise is loud and everything shakes. It is a good thing we are not late sleepers as you could not sleep though the maneuver,
Our port time in Skagen, Denmark was one of the shortest on our trip, just 6 hours. We didn’t plan any excursion for Skagen so we headed into the town for a walk. Skagen’s docking is all in an industrial port area. You could walk the 1/2 mile or so to the town or take a shuttle bus provided by the cruiseship. One thing we have noticed is that we are some of the younger people on the ship so it;s a really good thing the ship provides a shuttle.
Skagen is a very small city. The homes and most buildings are simple yellowish-brown stucco structures with orange clay roofs. It is quite picturesque. We spent a few hours visiting galleries, and a shop where you can watch the hard candies they sell being made.
Back on the ship we had lunch in the buffet and enjoyed the sail away from Skagen. The weather has been really nice so far but a bit windy so out on the open deck it can get a bit chilly.
Mid-afternoon we were treated with tea and scones in our cabin. The scones on the ship are delicious but we can’t be doing that every day with dinner a few hours later.
We attended a bridge tour before dinner where we got to meet the captain and the senior officers. The locked box says to only open in case of a total power failure. It is for navigation
Dinner was in Aquilina, one of the 2 specialty restaurants. The show for the evening was moved to a smaller venue because of a water leak so we decided to skip the show and head back to our cabin.
As we head farther north, the sun sets later and later. Tonight it set at 10:30PM.
Tomorrow we will dock in Stavanger, our first port in Norway.