Away We Go: North to the Arctic Circle
The Family Gap Year Begins
Leaving the US Behind
The taxi driver slammed on the brakes. Too late. We hit the scooter broadside. It was white, electric, the kind that a should-be-wearing-a-helmet-but-isn’t person stands on and whizzes along the pedestrian pathway between the street and the Hudson River.
Scooter Guy launched across the path, back arched, like a movie explosion had just gone off behind him. Amazingly, he landed upright ten feet away. The scooter lay on its side with hardly a scratch.
Scooter Guy spun around, enraged. His hands shot up in the air in a wtf gesture. The taxi driver threw his hands up in response. They stared at one another, mouths agape. Then, Scooter Guy picked his scooter up and scootered away without a backward glance.
It was Day One of our Family Gap Year, and it didn’t feel like an auspicious beginning. My husband, Tim, my son, Aidan, and I had taken the train to New York City that morning in order to board the Norwegian Star, bound for Iceland. See its full itinerary here
The Gap Year came about because our lives aligned perfectly in 2024. My son graduated from high school. My daughter, Faith, graduated from university. My husband decided to retire, and I can work from anywhere. It’s not often that life provides a clean break for us all at once. We decided to make an adventure of it and design a trip from the Arctic to the Antarctic.
Since Faith didn’t want to depart right away, she opted to join us a month later in Norway. We three remaining chose to cruise to Europe because it was cheaper than summer airfares. Another advantage was that we wouldn’t experience jet lag. I hate arriving in a foreign country exhausted from an overnight flight.
The Norwegian Star isn't a huge ship by current standards. She holds about 2,300 guests plus crew. Compare that to the largest ship, Icon of the Seas, which holds nearly 10,000 passengers and crew. We splurged for a balcony, and were happy with the room.
Though the Star is one of the older ships of the Norwegian fleet, she underwent an upgrade during Covid. Everything was shiny and new looking. And it warmed my writer’s coffee-beating heart to find the coffee shop at the center of the ship.
A little before sunset, we glided out of New York Harbor with a killer view of Manhattan and music blasting across the upper decks.
In the evening, we headed to the main cafeteria and buffet for dinner. This is where we felt the size constraints of the vessel. The main artery of traffic through the cafeteria passes between the tables on one side and free-floating drinks stations. Guests filling up drinks backed into traffic, which made clots of people stuck against dining tables. It made for a chaotic bottleneck at every meal. More than one drink hit a fellow passenger, and then the floor.
Despite the wait staff circulating, there never seemed to be enough clean tables, or even dirty ones, to meet the demand. As a result, guests were not encouraged to linger at their tables. We were chased out when we tried to play a card game after dinner.
As an alternative to the cafeteria, there were two main restaurants with table service included in the price of the cruise. My preference was Versailles, which gave off a whiff of Beauty and the Beast. Chandeliers hung from a high, decorative ceiling that bounced light from a wall of windows all around the room.
The boys preferred Aqua which had a darker, more intimate vibe.
As for the onboard entertainment, one of my favorite things to do on a cruise is to peruse the activities, note the things of interest, and not attend any of them.
I made an exception for a concert called The Billy Joel Experience. They are a tribute band led by Alexander Broussard of the Netherlands. His vocal range matches Billy Joel’s to a tee.
Since Tim and Aidan didn’t want to go, I sat in the auditorium beside a stranger from Vancouver. Before the show, I asked him if he intended to sing along. He looked mortified by the suggestion. Halfway through the concert, I was so energized by the music that I elbowed my Canadian neighbor to spur him to sing with me. He was a good sport about it, even waving his arms in the air when the singer stirred the crowd to do so. The concert was outstanding.
When we wished to entertain ourselves, we had a difficult time finding any place that had tables to play games, read, or write. The beautiful coffee shop tables were always full. The library was full. People lined the window benches in the hallways day and night. All in all, the ship felt chronically overpopulated for the amount of real estate, and slightly understaffed.
I was looking forward to having a little more space at our first shore excursion in Halifax, Nova Scotia—coming soon to an inbox near you.
Check out the Norwegian Star for yourself:
My completely unbiased and scientific cruise ship rating system says:
SCORE out of 5: Service: 4.2 Amenities: 4 Excursions: 3
My boss just said something about his boys going on Icon with their aunt soon -- I don't know. That seems like a bit much for three under-18s and an aunt, one of whom just shaved his head, dyed what was left blonde and sprayed a Batman symbol on the back.
A bi-polar expedition sounds fascinating! Looking forward to this series. :)