The weekend was a whirlwind of activity and we’re only going to write about a few of the highlights. We visited the River City Bangkok which includes a wealth of art from local artists. There are many amazing things to view here and many are for sale and definitely worth a stop if you’re nearby.
Some samples of the great art from local artists featured below.
From the River City center, you can book a river tour so we booked a 90 minute tour through the Chao Phraya River. The river is huge and the largest in Thailand so it’s worth the trip to look at how the hidden parts of Bangkok exist. The cost of our 90m private boat was 2800 baht ($83 USD). There is an evening river cruise that includes dinner on a much larger vessel that costs 2400 baht for two.
Many homes on pillars to keep from flooding. Some sections seem to be abandoned as well.
But there are also amazing temples, parks, bars and restaurants and a market along some parts of the river.
After our River Tour, we asked the captain to drop us off at IKONSIEM which has become our go to place for dining. There are so many food options at this mall that we keep coming back for more. My heart skipped a beat when I found my favorite pastry shop in a hidden corner of the 5th floor. If you’re hungry for cars, there is a Porsche, Volvo and BMW dealership INSIDE the mall.
We also ate lunch at a hot pot place that was amazing. You’re given wooden crates of raw veggies and meats and you cook it yourself in the water pot or the soup mix for added flavor.
The local beer here is different, the image below is of a very sour beer.
The rest of Sunday was wind down time at the two pools at our hotel.
Monday
This post is going out Monday evening here in Thailand and today we spent the morning getting to know the train system. We took a train to the airport on the city link line and paid a whopping $1.35 for the ride. We also took the green line back to the river then waited over an hour for the Sheraton boat that never came, we ended up buying tickets on anther ferry to get us to lunch at IKONSIEM and then another Sheraton shuttle back to our hotel.
An amazing day today visiting The Grand Palace but before we get to that a few words of caution. The taxi & tuk tuk drivers have been fairly aggressive in offering rides. Most of the time, we ignore them and use Grab (the “Uber” of Asia) to get moving but when we landed at the pier and headed to the Grand Palace, several tuk tuk drivers told us the palace would be closed until noon. They offered to take us sight seeing elsewhere to other tourist sites then bring us back to the palace at noon when the ticket office opens. It was all a lie, we kept walking toward the Grand Palace, bought tickets and entered without any problems whatsoever. It was clearly a scam to get us to buy long rides to other tourist areas.
It’s always best to check with a reputable travel agent or book tours through known services such as Viator before falling for these types of scams.
Depending on where you’re staying in Bangkok, it’s likely you will need to ride one of the many confusing boats to get to where you’re going. I say confusing because there are many different classes of boats. The big hotels here have their own boats that ferry people to certain piers. There are also boat taxis, boat tours, and other boats. Depending on where you want to go, you have to visit a specific pier and get on a certain type of boat. Most of the people at the piers are helpful to guide you on your way but it does get confusing.
Outside the Grand Palace (image below)
The Grand Palace (image below)
The detail around each structure is amazing. Some buildings are adorned in gold, others in green emerald colors and some are multi-colored.
Caution: The Grand Palace is mostly concrete or stone flooring and it gets very hot in the area so take plenty of water with you when you go. You can’t wear certain clothes such as short skirts and tank tops so be careful to check before you head out.
There is a ritual to cleanse and water the green emerald Buddha.
Amazing adornment of most of the structures in the Grand Palace.
After a half day spent at the Grand Palace, we headed to Wat Arun Ratchawararam (image below).
The ferry from Than Tien to Wat Arun Ratchawararam is about 20 baht although pricing seem to change and was confusing at times.
You can toll the bells…if you wonder who the bells toll for, they toll for thee…..
The image below shows how busy the boats can get during peak traffic times around noon. It was standing room only on this boat ferry.
After Wat Arun Ratchawararam, we wondered around looking for the right pier to head to Iconsiam which is a large multi-story high end shopping complex. Our goal there was to eat and buy some needed supplies for our aching feet. I picked up a new pair of sketchers sandals after wearing out my walking shoes. The image below shows Iconsiam from our hotel. There are public concerts, water sport games and other activities to celebrate the new year.
It was a long day, we arrived back around 3:30 p.m. so we’re off to get some rest then head for dinner later.
It’s Friday and we wanted to do something fun so we took a Thai cooking class. It ended up being about 4 hours long but it was worth every minute.
Our chef, April, was amazing and walked us through creating four dishes but first we started our journey at a hidden grocery shop in the heart of Bangkok.
After shopping at the produce market, we took a wild ride on a tuk tuk to the cooking class.
Our Thai chef instructor had us make many of the ingredients from scratch. Below is an image of coconut shavings being mixed and squeezed with warm water to make coconut milk and then a filtering processes makes it into a thicker coconut cream.
Below is the final product of spicy basil chicken after putting all the elements together and cooking in a hot wok.
Papaya Salad
Red chicken curry
Sweet Sticky Rice and Mango
Muay Thai Boxing
After our Thai cooking class we headed out for a classic Thai boxing at Rajdamnern Stadium.
We managed to get ring side seats and be up and close to the action through the hotel concierge. We were seated by the stairs into and out of the ring so we high fived the boxers as they got out of the ring after their match. The seats cost 5000 baht total or about $150 for two seats.
The arena looked fairly high tech and modern. The arena has a dome and there are projections on the ceiling that look amazing. During the intermission, they played a video of the history of Muay Thai boxing and it’s origins and how it fits into Thai culture. There were two large TV screens playing the action in the ring as well.
There were seven matches total but only two ended in knockouts and the rest were judges decision.
Above last match, below first match.
There were a total of seven matches with plenty of entertainment in between. The arena offers typical arena food, beer and other snacks. The service was good and several rounds of cleaning took place in between matches to keep floors and trash out of the way.
An observation we’ve made about Thai culture is the attention to detail and pride in keeping areas clean. There are many parts of the city that have trash given the size and population but in general, concerted efforts seem to be made to deal with unsightliness as often and quickly as possible.
Tags: thai cooking
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We wanted to be close to Bumrungrad hospital for our medical visits so we decided to stay at the JW Marriott on Sukhumvit Road, Sol 2 and we’re glad we chose this top notch hotel.
Staff
The staff was always helpful, friendly and ready to take care of any issues we had. Fortunately, we didn’t have any issues with our stay. Our room was clean upon arrival and had our luggage promptly delivered to our room.
Food – Breakfast Buffet
The JW Marriott has a stomach gorging rich and endless buffet. The buffet costs around 990 baht ($30) but if you’re a Marriott Platinum member, it’s free. We ate here almost every morning during our 8 day stay so that saved us about $480.
The hotel does an excellent job catering to its wide array of guests so you’ll find western foods, middle eastern and Asian cuisine at various stations in the restaurant.
Arabic food (pictured above)
Pastries (picture above)
Seafood/Salmon (above)
Fresh squeezed juice bar
Food – Club Lounge
Marriott Bonvoy platinum members also get access to the executive lounge where we enjoyed tea time every day from 2:30 p.m. with various pastries. The club lounge also has breakfast and evening light meals which are also provided free to platinum members. We opted to eat out and try the many restaurants in the area but the meals here are hearty if you’re on a budget and a platinum member.
Facilities
We made use of the hotel’s spa, including the sauna, heated pool and the outdoor pool (photo below). We also received an excellent and amazing massage service at the spa. The only sour note here is the pool area is a bit dated and need of a cosmetic refresh but we did see surveyors on site so perhaps some upgrades will be coming soon!
Location
The hotel is situated in the heart of the city and the Bumrungrad hospital is a short 7 minute walk over a bridge crossing the major freeway.
There is plenty of shopping, restaurants, street food markets, banking, and bars all along the various areas. The area does have heavy traffic and there is a constant flow of vehicles and motorcycles in the area so be aware of loud noise. Our room was in a higher floor and we did not hear much of the noise from down below.
Recommend?
We highly recommend this hotel if you’re doing business in Bangkok, want access to the heart of the city and the medical center at Bumrungrad hospital and Edelweiss dentistry. Note that the tourist areas such as The Temple of the Buddha, The Grand Palace, Wat Phra Chetuphon, and Wat Arun Ratchawararam are further west in Bangkok by the river which is about a 30 minute drive from this hotel.
We did not wish to be stuck in traffic all day long so we switched hotels to be closer to the river and tourist attractions which is why we left the JW Marriott.
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We got an early start at 6:30 a.m. to head an hour and half drive to visit the salt farms and hop on a train to Amphoe Mueang Samut Sonkhram – Mae Klong train station.
Our guide, “Poppy” below and us on the train to Mae Klong.
The market at Mae Klong is famous for being situated inches from the train track so when the train comes, the vendors have to pull their umbrellas and other stuff off the tracks. You can read about it here.
The train ride itself, is fairly comfortable although there is no air conditioning.
After the train and market visit, we headed to a coconut sugar farm. I cook my own bread at home and I often bake with coconut sugar instead of refined sugar. I always wondered how it was made and now I know! We bought some to take back home too. In addition to coconut sugar they also make coconut syrup, oils, creams and gels that have many different uses.
The coconut “cooking” process to extract sugar.
After the coconut farm we headed to the River Market in Damnoen Saduak. I had no idea these river markets were as large as they were. I imagined a single line river stream with various “shops” anchored on the shore but there were many different river streams and shops were anchored or floating with various places to land and experience larger shops. There is one shop in particular that has secret passageways which I can’t get into here but you can always ask if you see us in person 😉
We ended the day with lunch at a nearby restaurant and ordered the grilled seafood pineapple. It was delicious.
It was a long exhausting day but nice to take a break from all the medical visits! We finished the day with another massage. The 1 hour body massage was 600 baht ($17.51).
Tomorrow we move to a different hotel so I’ll be writing our review of our current hotel.
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Today I went to see the dentist in Bangkok. I had my teeth checked out and did a cleaning. Total cost was 1500 baht or about $43 USD. The dentist didn’t need to do x-rays since my teeth had no cavities and there was no visible issues but if you want a holistic view of the offerings watch this Youtube video below.
Incidentally, I went to see the same dentist as the guy in this video. My appointment was at 1:30 p.m. and I was seen at 1:32 p.m. I was taken to the chair and asked if I wanted a blanket or head pillow much like you get in business class when flying.
The procedure was nearly identical to what I get in the United States. First the spinning tool working each tooth followed by manual scrapping then the polish. The process was over in about 30 minutes. I paid using my Visa credit card and headed out. It was one of the fastest and most efficient dental visits I’ve ever had.
Steak Dinner
Last night, we had dinner at New York Steak Restaurant. This restaurant has won Michelin awards the past few years so we were eager to try it and it did not disappoint.
I had an authentic Japanese Wagyu steak which I believe was rated at A4. The wife had an Australian 8 oz called “Little Joe Tenderloin” and both steaks were amazing. We complimented the meat with green beans, steak fries and broccoli.
A fancy dinner at a Michelin rated restaurant will run you about 9000 baht or $250 USD.
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The fastest type of growing tourism around the world is medical tourism. Healthcare in the United States has turned into a total nightmare on so many levels that even the recent assassination of United Health CEO has everyone asking questions on how to fix the healthcare mess.
I don’t have an answer for America’s healthcare mess but for me, the solution has been to travel to Thailand and get excellent affordable care and service in Thailand at Bumgrungrad hospital.
Today I started the day early to conduct a full detailed healthcare analysis to determine if there is anything wrong with my health.
I checked in this morning to start my testing and examinations. The check in area was impressive and it featured people from all over the world being check in. I clearly saw people from India, Middle East, Europe and even a few Americans checking in to get healthcare service here.
For a list of services and packages you can click here.
Check In
There are two check in areas, the first is on the 10th floor and that’s where you present your identification, do initial paperwork then move up to 11th floor where the medical check in takes place (image below).
Fast Service
The most impressive thing about the hospital is the speed of service. My appointment was at 8 am but I showed up at 7 am. I waited 10 minutes then answered a short questionnaire about family medical history. I was handed a numbered fob that vibrates the way some restaurants do when you wait for a table (see image below).
Conveyer “Belt” System
Room 1
The way the process works is you are taken from room to room and each station does some type of examination. The first room below is initial weight, height, blood pressure, temperature and blood withdrawal.
In this room I also did a quick eye test and a color blind test. They took five vials of blood here. By 7:43 I was heading to the locker room to change into a hospital smock.
Room 2
The second room is the EKG room which takes about 5 minutes then back to locker room to put running shoes on.
8:03 am
Room 3
The third room has a treadmill and a machine with wire spaghetti attached to it. The nurses hook me up to dozens of wires and I looked like a fully harnessed horse. I step on the treadmill. it starts slow but speeds up and ascends. The treadmill goes higher and faster but this horse can hold his own.
8:30 done with heart stress test and results are good.
Room 4
The nurses lead the horse to water and make him drink and drink, next up chest xray. I walk into the room with a beast of a machine. The technician makes me hug the machine and positions me to take some chest x-rays. The process takes 3 minutes and I’m done.
I am told to drink more water, next up ultrasound.
Room 5
I lay down and am slathered with gel on my stomach area. The Doc spends lots of time moving the mouse looking device all over my abdominal cavity. Finally moves down to my bladder area and says she can’t scan it properly because I haven’t taken in enough fluids. I am told to go eat and drink and come back later.
Room 6 (Cafeteria)
9 am – breakfast
I am escorted to the breakfast area where I have two coffees, one glass of orange juice, two 6 oz bottles of water and some fried rice, three small pasties, and some chicken breast.
9:30 a.m. – Back to Room 4.
With a full bladder, the ultrasound takes 3 minutes but I had to wait 20 until the technician is finished with other patients. Remember this is a conveyor belt and there’s no slack time for bladder slackers like me.
10 am
Room 7
I sit down at an eye station, the one that puffs air into your eyes to check for the pressure. I then slide onto the station where the eye doc carefully looks at my eyes. Everything checks out (for my age).
Room 8 (waiting area)
After finishing the conveyor belt, I am finally taking to a large waiting area. Here you get to see the scale of the sheer volume of people being fed through the system. It is all fast, efficient and affordable and the U.S. healthcare system could learn a great deal from how they do things here. At no point did I have to wait for nurses to call insurance companies or their intermediaries to find out if something would be covered. The price of everything for this bundle of tests was fixed.
Room 9 (final boss)
It feels like a game and I’ve passed through all the bosses and now must meet my final match, the ultimate final boss, the main doctor with my results.
The doctor sits me down and he turns a large monitor screen and walks through dozens of screens with all my results. Everything is good except for a few minor deficiencies such as vitamin D3, B12, Folic Acid, Omega 3. The doc tells me to exercise more, don’t eat refined carbs and try to shed some pounds. Overall I am in very good health but could improve.
Recommendations:
Vitamin D3 – 5000 iu / day
Vitamin B12 – 500 mcg / day
Folic Acid – 500 mcg / day
Omega 3 – 1000 mg / day
Vitamin B3 – 500 mg / day
no refined carbs – rice, pasta, bread
eat lean proteins 3 to 4 oz.
do yoga 3 to 4 times per week
Exercise daily – avoid running (ruins knees).
If you want to see the process in more detail, I suggest you watch this YouTube which initially gave me the idea. While the hospital is different, the process was very similar.
Cost
The total cost for all these tests was about $1600 and it all took less than 4 hours. The same tests in the U.S. would have costs tens of thousands of dollars and taken months to schedule. There would be endless arguments with health insurance companies about the necessity of such tests and endless back and forth between doctor, nurse, insurance companies and intermediaries, no thanks, I’ll fly to Thailand instead.
Complimentary Bag of Rice
As an added bonus, I did receive a complimentary bag of rice but ironically, my doc said I should avoid carbs including rice.
After the hospital we went out to eat lunch at a Thai restaurant named Charlie’s Kitchen and the food was amazing.
Pad Thai and calamari featured above and stir fried chicken below.
The cost of each plate was about $5.00. Yes FIVE dollars for the entrees.
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We started our day today looking at an apartment to get an idea of the cost of living in Bangkok. We took a look at an apartment in the Asoke area. Below are shots of the facility.
The master bedroom below has a nice view of the city.
Second bedroom below.
Below is the guest bathroom.
Here is the kitchen area features a washer & dryer with fridge and cooking area.
This 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment with a sleeper sofa rents for 35000 baht and is about 65 sq meters. The internet will cost about 600 baht, electricity for moderate use is 2000 baht and water is 200 to 300 baht. The monthly living cost for housing will be 35000+600+2000+300 = 37,900 baht ($1100 USD/month).
This particular apartment is near the train station (see below) which provides access to many parts of Bangkok. An observation I made is that the train and stations are kept very clean. There isn’t a single piece of trash or plastic in the image below nor on the train.
The downside to the train in Bangkok were the huge crowds. The image below I was only able to take after a whole bunch of people exited at a particular stop as my arms weren’t free the minutes before this photo was taken.
Chinatown
We took the train to Chinatown in Bangkok and I was a bit disappointed. I was expecting a vibrant scene of vendors selling their wares, the area filled with the aromas of authentic street food but most of the shops were closed and there seem to be quite a few empty retail sites. We went on a Sunday so perhaps that was bad timing or perhaps Chinatown here is dying a slow death like most retail around the world.
After our visit to Chinatown we took a Grab back to our hotel area. Grab is the “Uber” of Thailand and most of South East Asia. We’ve had hit or miss success with Grab. Sometimes the drivers will randomly cancel our car request after they have accepted. Most of the time, the Grab app will tell you a car will arrive in 8 minutes which usually means 16 minutes. It was actually rare that the Grab car arrived within the estimated time. I don’t blame Grab or the drivers, the traffic here is terrible and I think the algorithm used to estimate time is using traffic free time distance instead of factoring in traffic.
We had lunch at “The QUAD” which appears to be a food court inside an office building. I had an amazing chicken curry and wife had river prawn pad Thai.
After lunch, we couldn’t resist getting another foot massage due to being on our feet all day. The cost in this higher end area though was 300 baht but it was also for 1 hour and we left the massage center feeling like butter.
Great food, great service and lots to do. Tomorrow will be an exciting day so stay tuned…
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After a butt busting 30 hours worth of flights and travel we made it to Bangkok, Thailand. First impression is that the land of smiles really deserves that moniker.
Thai Airways
We flew from the U.S. to Singapore on United and we don’t have many nice things to say about United so we’ll skip that part and move on to our flight from Singapore to Bangkok on Thai Airways.
Thai Airways had great service and great seating. Our plane was mostly empty so we had plenty of attention from the flight crew on our journey. Interestingly, the airplane seats here feature a foot rest that provides comfort for the shorter stature traveler.
Food on the plane was what you’d expect on an airplane but there were several options and the food was hot and tasty.
Bangkok
There is so much to Bangkok that writing anything feels like an injustice. We spent the first two days getting off of our 12 hour inverse jet lag. Night is day and day is night for us now and it’s been rough adjusting but we are almost there. We took the opportunity of our “down” time to get an amazing massage at our hotel spa. A 2 hours massage cost about $120 and included aroma and oil therapy and use of the sauna.
Chatuchak Weekend Market
We spent a good amount of time on Saturday visiting the Chatuchak weekend market. The flea style open market is huge and has all sorts of items for sale and very low prices. We picked up some silk scarves, elephant pants, bowls, pillow cases, spices, clothes and we ate some tasty food. Most items weren’t more than 100 baht. There are plenty of videos on YouTube about Chatuchak so check them out if you want to see more.
We took advantage of the endless massage services at the market and got an amazing foot and leg massage for our sore legs and feet. The cost was a whopping 100 baht ($3 USD). We tipped on generously.
MBK Shopping Mall Center
After Chatuchak we went over to MBK mall which is a multi-story mall featuring just about everything under the sun.
We ate lunch at a Michelin rated restaurant inside the mall and the food was quite good.
We bought a few items at the mall including some Korean face creams and I picked up a fake mini iPhone which is actually an Android phone cloned to look like an iPhone. As a gadget enthusiast, I just had to pick one up and experiment with it.
Traffic
The main drag about Bangkok so far is the traffic. Its bad – end of story.
Heat & Showers
It’s fairly hot and humid in Bangkok. Every time we go out we end up drenched in sweat so we return to our hotel and take a shower and change clothes. I’ve gone through 6 changes of clothes in 2 days but fortunately, the hotel offers laundry service and there are laundry service businesses all over our hotel. It’s fairly cheap to do the laundry and it’s only a 1 day turnaround.
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We sailed on the Havila Capella from August 17, 2024 thru August 23, 2024. These are small but mighty ships so set your expectations right and they ships won’t let you down!
Our journey on the Havila would take us from Bergen to Kirkenes and many stops in between. According to the stats on the ship, it hold 640 passengers in 179 cabins but if the ship was full during our journey we don’t think we saw this many people.
The ship itself only has 9 decks as opposed to 15+ decks on large cruise ships. It’s fairly easy to find most of the main areas on the ship and as far as we know and experienced, there are only two main elevators near the center of the ship that provide access to the other decks. There are many stairways to get up and down in other areas.
We weren’t able to get into the short term passenger area as our key card wouldn’t open the door but I am told there are simply chairs to sit in there.
Short term passenger lounge (we couldn’t get in)
The gym is split into two rooms. One room (image below) contains the weight machines and the other contains the aerobic machines. We tried to use the gyms but as you might image, they were full each time we stopped by in the morning and evening. If you plan on using the gym, plan on being there very early in the morning, during the day or late in the evening.
The treadmills and other machines were full every time we went to use them.
There is a small cafe (image below) in the ship that we used a few times for coffee and pastries. We had one meal there as well because we had a tight schedule with excursions and opted to eat something rather than risk missing a meal. The main issue I have with this cafe are the hours of operation. It seemed to open late and close early. This was a big problem because if you miss the normal dining hours at the restaurants, you’re out of luck in terms of food. There is a bar in the upper deck but it only had snacks such as potato chips and peanuts.
The ship lounge in the promenade is nice and relaxing.
Things To Improve On Ship
There was an eighth to a quarter inch of water everywhere on the ship decks. Havila should have someone dedicated to sweeping the water off the decks. I know it’s a ship out at sea but the amount of water puddles everywhere was a bit annoying.
Covered walkway (water logged)
The aft of the ship, the deck covered in water.
Aft Deck Viewing (water logged)Perpetual Water Puddle in our Balcony
The picture above shows a perpetual puddle of water on our balcony. I should have asked for a broom and I would have swept it myself but then again this was the “Presidential Suite” so why did we have to deal with this?
Laundry
We liked that the ship had washing and drying machines on board however there were only TWO washers and driers. Fortunately, we were able to wash and dry twice without waiting too long as most of the guests didn’t seem the need to do laundry. We had a fairly long stay across Europe so we needed the laundry. These washers supposedly come with their own laundry detergent built in but we used our own washer sheets just to be sure clothes were cleaned.
What needs improvement: One of the driers stopped working with a “clean lint” error message. I tried to figure out how to clean the lint but couldn’t so had to go get help. The staff I found to help said that I shouldn’t have to clean the lint, it should be done by the staff daily and I agreed.
Cabin Service
We had the “Presidential Suite” and while we were very happy with our cabin, some things need drastic improvement. We received a bottle of champagne and periodically had chocolates and nuts provided. We’re not sure if this was supposed to be daily or just random days, it was inconsistent.
What needs improvement: Our shampoo and body wash ran out in our shower. For the price we paid for the cabin, I expect the shampoo and body wash to be topped off every day or every other day, there is no reason for this poor level of service.
The shower in the bathroom only has one slit for water to drain. This works fine when the ship is level however as soon as the ship moves, water pools in all corners of the shower. Fortunately there is a small lip that keeps the water in the shower area but it does eventually overflow when the ship lists left/right up/down while moving. On two occasions, water spilled out onto the broader bathroom floor when it escaped the sunken lip area.
Patio Heaters – Some areas around the deck could benefit from some type of patio heaters. There are some by the bar near the jacuzzi but it wasn’t enough especially for a ship that sails in the cold most of the time.
Ship Needs Entertainment
While most people likely take this journey on this ship to see the northern lights, there really needs to be *some* type of entertainment beyond the majestic landscapes outside and possible northern lights.
Here are some suggestions that we think will fit well with the type and crowd on ship:
Piano bar – have a piano player / singer available in the evenings in the promenade. The promenade is a cool place to hang out but there is nothing to do except look outside or drink at the bar. I would have spent more time here if there were some type of live music.
EveningLounge singer – I would have loved to hear some local music from local bands or groups. At one point we did have an excursion to meet the Sami people or northern Norway and they did sing a few songs. Why not have them on the ship for a song or two?
Library – If Havila is all about eco-tourism, hydro-power, history and exploration then perhaps add an extensive library where we can read about these things from historical genesis to current state of affairs.
Cooking class – The meals on board were delicious and many dishes we’ve never had before so how about a cooking class, recipe book, and local beer/liquor tasting? Hey Havila guys, you can charge for this and we’d pay money. It’s another missed opportunity.
Conference Room – There is a conference room where one of the guides gives lessons and overviews, we loved it and wished there were more of this but barring that this room was mostly empty, it’s a huge waste. The Conference room can easily double as a “movie” room to showcase documentaries about Norway. It can house cultural events from local people like the Sami.
The whole ship feels like a quiet library and I felt like someone is waiting around the corner waiting to “shhh” me for being too loud.
Internet
Like all cruise ships, this one suffers from poor internet connectivity. To be fair, the internet mostly worked but we wonder if this was due to the fact that we hugged the Norway coast the entire time we were on the ship. We did notice that when we were further out at sea, the internet slowed or stopped working altogether. Below is an image of the typical speeds we got during our trip. I tested it almost every day.
Havila Capella Internet Speed Test
Excursions
The irony of Havila is that it’s an “expedition” vessel and while it does a great job of sailing to the destination, most of the time is spent on buses getting to those field locations. Norway is all about the great outdoors: seas, fjords, lakes, fishing, mountain hikes, mountain climbing, etc. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to do any of those things from this cruise as far as I know except see the fjords on some occasions.
I would have loved to do a fishing excursion but for some reason most cruise lines that sail on waterways don’t offer it. Baffling!
The staff on the ship was amazing, helpful and always had a smile. Perhaps Norway is truly the happiest place on earth? We deducted a few points solely because the ship was short staffed. We mostly ate in Fine Dining on the cruise and the same person, attended to us the entire time. At times, service was slow but acceptable and easily fixed by adding more staff.
Entertainment: C-
As mentioned in this review, Havila needs to do better in the entertainment area. The key here is to be creative and not try to replicate the noise chaos on larger cruise lines. I think a piano player at the bar would be a great addition. Using the mostly empty conference room for feature documentaries or films about Norway would be a good use of this wasted space.
Excursions: B+
The issue with excursions isn’t the availability, I think the constraint is Norway’s geography and infrastructure. For example, our first excursion required us to sail to the port, board a bus, take a couple of ferries to make the trip excursion. Perhaps I’m too futuristic or fancy but flying drones or low cost helicopters may make the whole thing better for tourists. We were surprised there were no helicopter ride options for such a beautiful mountain and countryside.
Services/Amenities: B-
We enjoyed the use of the free laundry room however note that there are only TWO washers and TWO dryers for 600 people on the ship. We did laundry the first day we boarded because we had already spent a few days in Oslo and Bergen and wanted to start with a clean slate of clothes. The “Gym” is a bit small but there is only so much you can squeeze into a small ship. There was no massage spa as far as we know and didn’t see any services advertised.
Dining/Food: A+
The food was excellent but if you’re the type of person that expects burgers & fries, pizza and chicken nuggets then you should probably just skip this cruise. We truly enjoyed how Havila sourced local ingredients from the areas we visited to create amazing, delicious, nutrient rich meals. The food alone is worth returning on this cruise for so we’ll be back at some point. We did however tire of the same menu so we’d like to see more options next time around.
Infrastructure: B+
We never got more than 2 mb of internet and it worked great in most places but became spotty as we headed out to sea. The puddles of water all over the deck were annoying and could easily be remedied by having a deck swab, swab the deck! I think that’s why they are called deck swabs!
Our bedroom cabin had plenty of USB charging ports but we would have liked to see some of those same ports at other parts of the cabin like near the sofa in the living room, dining room table, sky lounge chairs, and our personal Jacuzzi.
Epilogue
We had a great time on the ship but the value proposition is out of whack. For the price we paid for the Presidential Suite on Havila we would have had a much higher level of service and amenities on other larger ships. For contrast and comparison the Norwegian Epic during a Mediterranean cruise, we had our own private butler for our cabin, saw Cirque de Soleil shows, had lounger singers, piano bar and many fine dining options.
The Havila is a unique experience and a unique ship. We did like the change of pace of being on a smaller ship and not disembarking with 3000+ other people like the larger cruise ships so there are pros and cons to every proposition. If you plan on traveling on the Havila, be aware of these trade offs and set your expectations accordingly.
