2025 Greenland

We crossed the Arctic Circle about 6:30 this morning. We loved the views along the way.

Today we went to a Kaffemik. This is a Greenland tradition- a social gathering in someone’s home where guests enjoy coffee or tea and a small snack.

We took a zodiac from the ship to the shore and then walked up a hill to a house. The owner spoke with us and answered questions. We were offered tea, coffee and a piece of cake. There were a number of excursions and they went to different houses. Our house was higher up the hill and had an amazing view.

After the Kaffemik, Tibor went on a hike while I went back to the ship after a walk around town.

No aurora tonight- it was too cloudy.

There are many steps & stairs in town since the houses are built on steep rocks. The house are very colorful to stand out in the snow

Today we had our first excursions from the boat. I went on ”Inuit Storytelling” and Tibor went on “Traditional Tastes of Greenland”.

Tibor went for a walk(saw sled dog puppies) around Nuuk before going to get his Traditional Tastes of Greenland. He had whale meat, dried sardines, dried cod, snow crab, reindeer, musk ox, lamb, smoked salmon, and smoked cod to name a few. Plus he got to wear a polar bear skin.

I took a van to a little hut where we had traditional Labrador tea and listened to two Inuit women talk about some of their history. The hut was built in a similar style to the original huts used but this hut was made of wood which was not available in Greenland. After the visit to the hut we went to a Hostel and had a bowl of halibut & shrimp soup with bread and heard more information. The soup and bread were delicious but my lips swelled up from the food but after washing my mouth and lips and waiting a bit, the swelling went away. Not a story was told during this excursion and I picked this excursion because really wanted to hear stories. Sad part is that Tibor’s excursion included a couple of stories.

When we got back, we had our AECO briefing (rules of conduct for Artic travel) as well as a Kayak training on how to get into the kayak from a zodiac. Both were very crowded with lines and waiting- probably because so many of us arrived late yesterday.

It was a frustrating for me because staff kept saying that ‘you heard about this in the app’ or ‘you learned this in the talk’. Well it wasn’t in the app at all and since we were late arriving yesterday we never heard the talk.

Long, long, long day today. We got to bed about midnight and were woken up by a very loud chime/bell at about 2am. It was a phone call letting us know that our departure time of 3:40am had been changed to a 6:30 departure time. Changed our alarms and went back to sleep.

Got up, had a little breakfast and drove back to airport terminal. Again it felt like we drove around the entire airport before getting to our terminal.

Tibor and I were the very last ones that were checked-in at the terminal. We were at the terminal by 7:30am but the terminal seemed empty and we were quickly thru security.

Our flight was delayed a couple of times but we finally left about 10:30am for our 3 hour 26 minute flight to Nuuk, Greenland. There is a 3 hour time change from New York.

Lots of waiting around to board the flight, exit the flight, and go thru customs. More waiting for the bus to arrive and then waiting to exit the bus at the ship before checking into the ship. It was a bit windy and slightly rainy in Nuuk and it was snowing at the top of the hills. More waiting to get the Safety briefing. We finally got to our room at 7:30pm.

Unpacked and got settled and went for dinner at 8:50 to discover that the dining room closes at 9pm. We quickly filled our plates and enjoyed our first meal aboard the Viking Octantis.

Didn’t sleep too well- new bed, new noises, too warm, too cold, too light, too dark- you name it. And the ship started up the engines about midnight to move away from the dock.

Finished packing, in bed by midnight and we left home 4am. Easy drive to San Francisco Airport; smooth check in and bag drop. And we were surprised and happy to discover the Delta lounge opened at 4:30am and we had the correct credentials and flight type to be allowed entry. Tasty little treat for breakfast. Boarded plane and left a few minutes after expected time.

It was a direct flight and we arrived on time to New York about 4pm; exited the plane, found our luggage and the Viking Cruise representative. After a short wait we got onto our coach for a 10 minute drive to the TWA hotel where we are spending the night. I felt like we circled the entire airport before getting to the hotel.

What a fun hotel- it has a 60’s theme and mimics an airport. It also has lots of memorabilia from TWA- an old airline that no longer flys. It had a full sized TWA airplane on the grounds and the hotel check in was an old TWA check in counter. I was bummed that I didn’t realized they had a rooftop infinity pool until it was time to leave- will have to come back.

The stay included a dinner that was served from 6pm to 9pm but Tibor and I left about 5:45pm for our whirlwind visit to New York City.

We took the airport train to the subway. After about an hour on the subway we exited and walked 10 minutes to the Staten Island Ferry Whitehall terminal. We were so excited with how quickly and easily it all went because we were on the Staten Island Ferry at sunset and got to see the Statue of Liberty with the setting sun. After about 25 minutes we got to Staten Island where we got off and walked right back onto the return ferry. It was significantly more crowded than the trip to the island.

On the way back we got to see the lights come on the city buildings.

Hoped back onto the subway and headed to Penn Station where we exited the subway and walked to the Empire State Building. We had tickets to go to the 86th floor. There were no crowds and we skipped all the displays and went right up to the 80th floor; took some pictures which didn’t turn out too well because of the glare of the glass. Then up to the 86th floor where we had much better pictures because it was open air observation deck with no glass. I was happy there were bars to prevent folks from falling.

Since we were way past the time where the free dinner at the hotel was served, we stopped for pizza and beer. We’re telling ourselves that we had New York Pizza but I’m not convinced that was the type of pizza we had. In any case, it was delicious. Tibor had a large beer and I had a small beer and neither were New York Beer. Tibor had Sam Adam’s and I had Dos Equis. Turns out the large beer was huge- 32 ounces!

Walked back to Penn Station and took the subway and airport train back to our hotel.

Felt safe the entire evening and there were many restaurants and stores open when we finished our pizza about 10pm.

We arrived back to our hotel about 11:15pm after throughly enjoying our visit to New York.

We are to leave tomorrow from San Francisco International Airport to New York City, New York. Our flight was originally scheduled to leave at 1pm and we were going to take the train to the airport but plans change. We got an email a week ago that our flight changed and we now leave at 6am- way too early to use public transportation. Jennifer offered to take us to the airport and we said yes.

As part of the schedule change, we are now spending the night in New York City before boarding a charter flight to Nuuk, Greenland. In our 11 hours in New York City, Tibor and I decide to go on the Staten Island Ferry and visit the Empire State Building.

Today we are celebrating Eric’s birthday and Jennifer is spending the night since we leave about 4am for the airport.

Today about 5pm we got another email with a schedule change with a handy link to the new information but link didn’t work and took us to either a page that said ‘error’ or to a page that said ‘hope you’re having a good time on your trip’. There was a phone number to contact while on the way but of course we’re not on the way yet. Now I’m freaking out because I haven’t finished packing yet and I don’t know when we’re leaving.

Eventually I find the airline site and our flight information- yes indeed our flight changed and we are now arriving New York less than 10 minutes from original time. All that angst for nothing and I have plenty of time to finish packing.

Viking has a tiered approach for how early one can sign up for excursions. The folks in the most expensive cabin can sign up before folks in cabins that are cheaper.

Our cabin wasn’t the least expensive cabin available but it had the same time-frame as the least expensive cabin.

I logged in and was at the excursion page the instant I could sign up and I still couldn’t get our top two excursions- “Inuit Storytelling” for me and the “Sisimiut Mountain Hike” for Tibor.

Complications arose when I had the “Inuit Storytelling” excursion in my cart and entered the payment information and clicked “process payment”. The Viking site reported an error saying my payment information was incorrectly entered and required me to wait for up to 5 minutes before I could try again. I tried again and double and triple checked the payment info was entered correctly but the same error occurred with the same wait time.

Finally I went back to the beginning and noticed that no more openings were available for “Inuit Storytelling” even tho it was in my cart. I figure someone else had purchased the excursion that was in my cart and there were no more openings available for that excursion when I actually pressed the “process payment” button. The Viking error message incorrectly said it was a payment info error rather than noting the excursion was no longer available.

The same error sequence occurred when I tried to purchase the “Sisimiut Mountain Hike” for Tibor.

My next excursion ‘purchase’ failed with an error “you haven’t paid your final payment yet so you can’t book any excursions”. I called Viking and they said my payment was declined and I hadn’t paid for my excursion! I gave them the same payment info I had entered every time and they were able to process it and sign me up for the excursion.

By now I was pretty frustrated but stuck with the process and managed to signup for other excursions that we were interested in.

Two days later I received an automated email from Viking noting that an excursion time had changed. There wasn’t enough info in the email to determine which excursion had changed so I checked all the excursions we had signed up for and the timings were the same BUT I did notice that there were more openings available. I successfully signed up for a number of additional excursions, including “Inuit Storytelling” for me but Tibor’s “Sisimiut Mountain Hike” was still unavailable. We got the “Greenlandic Taste & Tales at SØMA” for Tibor instead.

We did decide not to take the submarine excursion- it sure looked tempting but was too pricey for us. Shortly after we signed up for the Greenland excursions, Tibor got an email reporting a Greenland shark can live up to 800 years but we didn’t change our mind about the submarine- figured we’d never see the shark anyway!

One thing I was looking forward to with my retirement earlier this year was to be able to travel at a whim. I wanted to take advantage of the last minute deals people kept telling me were available.

Over a year ago I researched cruises to Greenland and made one of my spreadsheets. It included the cruise company names, the length of their trips, their prices, their routes, their ship sizes and other information that I felt was important. At that time one cruise company and their route was a clear winner in almost all categories except price. And since I didn’t want to spend that much money and I didn’t have vacation time anyway, I didn’t sign up.

Recently I got an email from Viking Cruises and it had a cruise to Greenland, I clicked on the link and my ‘winner’ cruise appeared with a significant price reduction from the earlier research plus it offered free airfare. I didn’t actually believe it so I waited a day and then clicked the link again- the same price and deal appeared. And there was a cabin available on a date I could go.

It didn’t take much convincing before Tibor agreed to come with me and we signed up for this Greenland cruise.

And we actually did get free round-trip airfare between San Francisco, California and Nuuk, Greenland. The flight time was reasonable too and we get to use Delta and our perks on the way to Greenland. Although I did paid extra for seats with more leg room on the return flight.