I don’t know about you, but as soon as I hear the name “Tom Cruise,” I’m first in line at the local theatre to watch his next movie. The man, while possibly a bit unhinged in real life, certainly knows how to pick and exploit his acting roles.

So somehow when I heard the word “Cruise,” I ended up assuming we’d be roommates or at the least spend a bunch of time with Tom Cruise as we explored Norway. See how much fun old age can be? Sometimes I like to act befuddled on purpose just so you can’t tell between the times I’m playing at it and really am befuddled (hint: which is most of the time nowadays).

Long story short, all we got was this lousy photo op. Pfft. I could’ve probably Photoshopped that picture instead and saved the 500 euro photo op fee. Well, lesson learned; now all I had to worry about was enjoying the Harrison Ford Ship as well as waiting for the right moment to infiltrate Russia and take Putin down.

We selected the Havila Cruise Line (and by we, I mean Tim and Susan, who pretty much intimidated and threatened us into showing up at a Norwegian dock at a particular time) because the ship is actually a working vessel, and very eco-friendly besides. In addition to ferrying a bunch of chilly cruisers well beyond the Arctic Circle, it delivers and collects goods all up and down the Norwegian coastline (which is, by the way, the second longest country coastline in the world, after Canada).

In the winter, you’d have a hard time jumping on the freeway to drive from Bergen to Kirkenes. What with the snow and fjords and mountain trolls, there just isn’t an easy way to do it. Fortunately, the ship is powered mostly by battery, so there isn’t even any engine noise. As a result, pulling into a port for a short visit to exchange goods is hardly even noticed by the passengers. Unless the Captain was drinking again, of course.

BAM! “Oops.”

The ship itself is small-sized for a cruise ship, which kinda matches Tom Cruise’s stature as well, so I guess we had a little piece of him in our hearts after all.

It’s actually a fairly new ship (we could see the dealer’s tags still on the license plate on the stern). But my fears about it being a working ship were quickly allayed once I saw there were no crates of live squawking chickens we’d have to step around to get to our cabin.

Before we set sail, I inspected every cubit of the ship for proper safety protocols, including having enough lifeboats for our class (who cares about the people in steerage, am I right?) as well as the proper flotation devices should the worst occur. Yellow is a good color to be seen in when you’re stranded in an ice cold ocean.

Of course, you can have all the safety protocols in place you want, but if your passengers are 1) Inclined to sneeze in a shirt when they think no one is looking or 2) put on their shoes before they put their pants on over their long underwear, well, y’know, you just can’t save ’em all.

And yup, this is not one of those glamour-shots kinds of blogs.

I took this shot of Susan and Carolyn from outside the ship, braving frostbite and being hurled overboard just to get a photo. I think they were arguing over who was the cutest, Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford. I took the other shot of Carolyn walking because it was a little wavy out on the ocean and she was tottering from side to side as if she was on her second wine bottle (which, for the record, she wasn’t, there was still a little left in her first one). Since it’s a photo and not a video, you have to zoom in on the photo, and then take your device and sway it around to get the effect. Trust me, it’s hilarious!

I had been driving my travel companions a little batty with my expressed desire to experience reindeer meat. It’s not that I have anything against reindeer, I’d just never eaten it, so how do I know it might not surpass ice cream as my favorite food? Lo and behold, the menus in the restaurant changed every three to four days, so I was delighted when I saw reindeer broth on the menu. Let me tell you, it tasted just like… well hell, I dunno, broth. I declared that my search for real reindeer meat was still on; the broth had not sated the desire. Besides, there was no actual meat in there, so I’m thinking they just wrung out reindeer hides into the pot to get the dark color.

Well wouldn’t you know they followed that up with a reindeer… uh, what do you call a plate of something that looks like Rudolph got into some bushes and ate something he shouldn’t have? Who knows if the Norwegian translation of the dish was really “Reindeer Poop Stew?” Anyway, we downed it because we didn’t want to starve and waste away to nothing. So I checked the reindeer thing off my bucket list without being able to say anything like, “It tasted like chicken,” or “it was a bit gamey,” or “I wouldn’t eat that again if they turned it into ice cream.” You know, all the normal phrases for something like this. It was actually fine, just not remarkable (he says after just spending a whole paragraph remarking on it).

You know, they didn’t say the reindeer was from contented reindeer, so they may have died a gruesome death just to fill our stomachs. Otherwise, I always feel like the taste of a contented animal is much better than the taste of one that goes down screaming and squealing like a big baby. You’re food, deal with it.

Other than fine cuisine, the ship offered a ton of entertainment options, such as free wifi. Actually, that’s about it. I mean, what more do people need nowadays other than being able to stick their nose into their phones anyway? (To be fair, they did have a jigsaw puzzle as well). Despite what it looks like, the four of us gabbed incessantly. We learned more about each other than I knew about Carolyn before I married her (more or less), and parted ways after the voyage still speaking to and liking each other! I mean, what are the odds of that?

They did have an entertaining little ceremony with a guy dressed up as someone like Belsnickel, who is a German Imp that mimics Santa Claus, and was played by Dwight in The Office (season 9, episode 9 just in case you don’t believe me). Except in the Norwegian version, this Belsnickel-wannabe pretends that it’s a good thing to have ice water poured down the back of your neck while sailing the Arctic. We refrained from such frivolity because we easily total over three digits after adding up our four collective IQs.

Much of the entertainment actually comes from the expeditions available at the various ports of call. And if you do any of them, or all of them, or none of them, you can still buy yourself a Polar Certificate to commemorate the fact that you’re no longer bipolar.

While Carolyn isn’t bipolar, she’s certainly biclumsy, because there rarely seems to be a trip we take where she doesn’t damage something on herself. This time it was a slip and fall on some ice. Keep in mind that 1) We had already purchased cleats to put over our shoes in order to avoid exactly that happening, 2) We had the cleats with us, 3) We hadn’t put them on, and 4) The accident occured after the ladies insisted they knew the way back to the ship over Tim’s objections, leading them right into an ice field where Carolyn rather unceremoniously landed on her rump. The result was the change of our next excursion into a ride in a cab to the hospital, where we were treated to the inner workings of Norwegian medicine and where we learned she had a small cracked bone in her wrist, a bruised elbow, and bad hat hair. Oy vey. She’s fine now; the doctor says she’ll live at least another few months. We did make a habit of checking out the location of every ambulance at every stop after that.

Now you know why the title of this entry is about cruising being a risky business.

Fortunately, throughout our ordeal we enjoyed the attention and expert services of Éirinn (I think that’s at least close to the right spelling… we just called her “Erin”), who was of immeasurable help, even accompanying me to a rushed visit to a pharmacy while the ship was docked for only half an hour. As so often happens, the people are what make so many trips special, and “Erin” certainly did that for us. We miss you Erin!

No tour of a ship would be complete without a visit to the bridge. It was a bit of a treat to see all the high-tech gear, sophisticated electronics, and hidden room cams the staff all used to control the ship and entertain themselves. I spoke with the Captain at length about cubits. I also told him not to ram any icebergs, which he agreed to, and ultimately upheld his end of the bargain. However, despite his obvious good looks which won him points because he kinda looks like me, he didn’t understand my Tom Cruise jokes, so pssht: the worst Captain we’ve ever had on a Norwegian cruise during January 2024, hands down.

But we were on our way!