The Sun. That is the possibly the most significant impression I have of Iceland, or possibly, more accurately, the light. That light had the effect of making all the colours so vivid, the blue of the ocean and the sky, the black of the lava rocks and the coloured houses. Then with our latitude it was almost constant. A sun that also stayed with us throughout.....anyway to start at the beginning
The big white shape of the ship loomed through the deluge and the double speed windscreen wipers. We had arrived at Southampton in early July, the height of the English summer, with flood warnings and we were escaping to the north and the sun of Iceland and the Norwegian fjords.
Check in was smooth, drop your luggage, park the car and then walk back to check in. We were on board by 11.20. We had booked this cruise the day it went on sale in March 2011. We had carefully picked our room, a huge balcony, on the 'hump' with cover, which we felt would be essential for this cruise and itinerary. We had been 'upgraded' 3 days prior to sailing, to an aft, no cover to the balcony which was a quarter of the size of our original room. DW was not happy. We thought we would get no usage at all from this balcony. How wrong we were to be.