Norway Part 2 - Boat Impressions in Magical Realism

After the weirdness at the airport, we all arrived at the hotel (yes with the non-household sharing roommate pairs rooming together per the original assignments.) In the sprinter van we were briefed on the local quarantine rules. These were looser than I would have anticipated, especially coming from NYC where we had been living much more strictly at the time. We received all our meals (which were very nice) delivered to our rooms as we were not supposed to eat out at public bars/restaurants until the 3 day quarantine had finished. The guidance from the government specifically said we were okay to be outdoors maskless to take exercise as often as we wished including hiking/swimming as long as we were distanced from people outside our group.

The production team organized a “cultural experience” for us the day after our arrival at the TeaterFabrikken a neat local space that had been reserved for our group along with some performers and the owners. Production had our quarantine dinners delivered to the theater and we spent time indoors and outdoors without masks, but the indoor space was very big and we were always distanced from the performers so it felt fairly comfortable. We had also been told that everyone we had interacted with were vaccinated and periodically tested. After dinner there were drinks and live music outdoors which was fun but then the theatre owners got completely trashed and invited a random young German couple in to the garden off the street as they were road-tripping and their camper van had broken down (!) which did not seem smart or safe so we left, kind of pissed off.

Other than that one event, we didn’t do much. The show’s nurses came to our rooms each morning to take covid tests - we never saw the results of these but were basically told “no news is good news,” and if we didn’t hear anything we were good to go. We brought our dinners outside one night for a picnic with was nice but overall we didn’t do much during the “quarantine” days. Mostly caught up on rest, worked remotely, met up to swim in the harbour once a day and hiked up the biggest hill/scenic overlook in town which was nice. We found out that the lighthouse in the harbour was actually a hotel room for our hotel, I looked at the lighthouse room specs and it was super cute. The hotel itself was really well positioned for swimming - right on the water with ladders right in. We swam and walked by the boat we would be getting on which looked nice too. On the second to last day they brought us to a local medical facility for a last PCR test.

On the fourth day they told us we had cleared quarantine the next day and would board the boat at noon. In the morning there was a formal briefing with the production execs and the sound technicians showed us how to put our microphones and battery packs on under our clothes, things to say/not say, etc.

We walked around a bit, did a spot of last minute shopping, and got gelato. Then we waited on our hotel dock for the tender to come pick us up. They made a weirdly big deal about this, that this would be the first time in the franchise that all guests would board via tender rather than a gangplank.

The first people we met were two male exterior, the bosun and a deckhand. Both were very short but muscle-y. The deckhand made awkward small talk, kind of a cross between a comedy routine and cheesy pick up lines. I got that he was trying to break the ice/ingratiate himself but it was weird considering the youngest of us must have been 20 years older than him. They both seemed super stressed and almost dropped one of our suitcases into the water transferring us to the main boat.

We boarded and started to shake hands with the crew (without gloves) but then heard the sound of breaking glass. One of the interior crew had dropped the entire tray of champagne glasses. We all had to pause in place for about 20 minutes while they cleaned up and got everything set up again to re-film the handshakes. Not an auspicious start!

We chatted a bit with the crew members we would be interacting with. The boat captain was Aussie and very personable, we told him we were moving to Australia and he gave us some tips on slang and stuff which was funny. I liked the chef the most, she jumped right in confirming she had read and planned an awesome menu, which I thought was very professional and kind of her. We met the steward team and the chief steward had an odd appearance - very short and curvy with long wild hair and very thick orange-y makeup. It almost looked like greasepaint or stage makeup. The hair was odd to me too, people who work on boats in the salt air generally wear their hair in a neater style. The younger stews, both dark brunettes and American, looked like they hadn’t slept in days with super dark undereye circles. Ours was only the third charter and it seemed like they had already been through the wringer. We had noooo idea.

The chief stew brought us around for a tour of the boat. I had looked at the boat online before signing the paperwork and we had walked by the boat in the harbour a few times so I knew what to expect, but it was interesting to see the spaces you don’t see on tv, the little signs for the crew and camera people and things. It was also a bit strange, to be on the boat in relatively close quarters with people just filming us all, not interacting, but made sense. Then we got a negative surprise.

This show in particular always makes a point of showcasing the primary suite as it’s usually really nice, with a sitting room and generally larger than the other guest cabins. Instead, the chief steward lead us all downstairs, pointed to one of the (four identical guest cabins, 2 queen, 2 x 2 twins) and called it the primary cabin. A and I looked at each other, confused since we had seen the actual master suite in the brochure so were not sure if it was some sort of mistake or if they were messing with us. (A lot of the briefings since the casting interviews seemed centered on trying to coach us to be demanding and critical of the staff so I had the thought they were doing it intentionally to make us complain. But no, when we went up to look we saw they were using the master suite for a technical control room - such a letdown and very misleading.)

We went up to the top back deck where prepackaged chips and things had been laid out for us with a tub of beers. No soft drinks or water, just beers. Things were generally kind of disorganized and my guests were being a bit impolite, rushing at the staff to ask for random things before everyone else even had a drink, and one in particular kept screaming that she wanted to go swimming before we had even left the dock. (They were not even drunk or anything, just annoying.) I asked them to please bring some soft drinks and water and even that took like 45 minutes.

After a few hours things hadn’t improved. As one point we went to grab some warmer clothes and realized they had put all the luggage in the wrong rooms. We remedied it on our end but everything was just so disjointed and awkward - in general on a trip like this the staff is responsible for unpacking suitcases unless you prefer otherwise so to not even have the cases in the right cabins was below par.

Then my same guest kept causing trouble by running up to the staff and captain and telling them what she wanted to do for dinner, our activities, and demanding to swim while we were motoring. I didn’t know if she was nervous or what but her behavior was really grating on me (just the sound of her shrieking was awful) so A quietly/politely had a word with her to please calm down. This did no good at all.

It got to a point where I was too stressed to be around people anymore so A and I went downstairs to the front deck one level below to relax by ourselves. This part was really nice, we just kind of cuddled and watched the beautiful fjords and mountains and water. The boat’s course seemed a bit odd, going down into one of the fjords with no outlet instead of into the ocean as planned, but we didn’t think too much of it at the time. Then the boat went in a circle and back on course. Once we went back into the open water, the captain came down and let us know we would be able to have a swim in about 30 minutes, so we changed into swimsuits and bathrobes, topped off with knitted caps since Norwegian summer is still quite chilly.

We were hanging out in the upstairs lounge with the rest of the group when one of the staff pulled me aside and brought me out to the outdoor forward top deck where she asked me to put on a mask and told me I had tested positive for COVID. After being on the boat and filmed for 8 hours. Twice in less than 30 days!

FML.

Last updated February 08, 2023