As with most vacations, the planning for this vacation started over 6 months in advance. Starting early enables you get the best prices, preferred rooms, excursions etc for your trip.

For this vacation, we wanted to go to Iceland. Once we decided on the where, the next thing I did was go on the Celebrity website and find the cruise that fit our needs. They have a 12 day Scotland and Iceland cruise starting out and returning to Amsterdam. Perfect. Since we were going via Amsterdam, we added a couple of days prior and after, to do some additional sightseeing in the area too. With that, I started my grid for the vacation planning.

Must haves: Since our time away from home was close to three weeks, with 13 nights on the ship, I would strongly recommend taking the WIFi package as well as the Laundry package. The WiFi service is excellent, and the Laundry package was really useful.
Do remember to lock all of your credit cards that you are not going to take on your journey.
Also, its a good idea to put AirTags in your suitcases, in case you need to locate them.

Day 0: Houston to Amsterdam

The day is finally here. All the months of planning and anticipation… now we get to start on our summer adventure.
We are up and running on schedule. After going thru our pre travel checks, we head out.
Uneventful drive to the airport, we reach by 11:45 am. We parked at Parking Spot 1 next to the IAH airport, and take the shuttle to the United terminal. We check in our lugage and go thru TSA. The TSA line was pretty short. Once at the terminal, we walked around and had lunch at Potbelly. We were boarding zone 2. Boarding started around 3:30pm and pretty soon, we were in our seats.

Nice smooth flying. Had a nice dinner followed by a bit of rest on the flight.

Day 1: Explore Amsterdam

Once we landed, we went thru immigration. I got Line 2 while the rest of family got Line 1. Line 2 was a bit backed up and it took an hour or so to go thru, Line 1 was pretty quick and the family was out in minutes. We picked up our luggage walked out of the terminal, bought tickets and took the train into Amsterdam Centraal.

Walked to the Luxer hotel. It was at 1pm. They were gracious enough to accommodate an early check in. The Luxer is located in quite centrally, and gave us the opportunity to explore the area.

While they were getting our room ready, we stepped out and grabbed a quick lunch at a Crêpes Mondial. The crêpe’s were excellent.

After lunch, we came back to the hotel and freshened up. Our kids who said they would not be affected by jet lag decided to take a nap around 3pm. We will wake them up at 6pm. My wife and I headed out to locate the Cruise terminal and then we stopped at de volkslust, which is a restaurant we like in the area. We grabbed a bite, had almond cookies and also took some food back to the room for the kid’s dinner.

We went to bed around 6:30pm. Plan to wake up at 7am. Woke up, looked at the watch, OMG it’s just 11:30pm. Looks like the rest of us are up too. LOL…lets try and get some more sleep.

Day 2: Explore Amsterdam

Woke up around 6am. Got ready, had some light snacks and headed out around 9am, to go to the van Gogh museum.

It was a pleasant 30 min walk from our hotel. The museum was amazing. Fascinating life of van Gough. Such a wonderful opportunity to be able to see his work in person.

Once we were done with the museum, we went to Bagel Boy, located a short walk away from the museum. Had a really good brunch. Did some window shopping at a couple of watch stores, on the way back to the room. The staff at Gassan was really nice. I tried on the Glashutte Seventies Chrono, which fit really well on my wrist. Good to know. Maybe a purchase for another day!

In the evening, we walked to the Anne Frank house. It was a pretty sobering visit. It’s a four level building with lots of details about her life as well as life under Nazi rule in Netherlands.

After the visit, we went to Wok Inn for dinner. It was good.

Day 3: Cruise Day 1: Celebrity Eclipse

Today we embark on our cruise… well that is in the PM, so in the AM, we did some more exploring. My son and I headed to the Amsterdam Watch Company while my wife and daughter headed to Tony’s chocolate, store. My son selected a vintage Omega Speedster Reduced, for me, as a birthday gift, while my wife and daughter bought a bunch of chocolate bars. AWCo has a pretty amazing selection of vintage watches and has an amazing staff. You should definitely check them out, if you are in the area, and interested in vintage watches.

It was drizzling as we checked out of our hotel room, and headed out for the cruise terminal. Amsterdam is such a walkable city! The drizzle eventually eased off, and gave us the perfect walk to the cruise terminal.

Check in was pretty seamless. Did the muster station and then walked up to our room. Dropped our backpacks and headed out to the Ocean View cafe for lunch.

6pm, we are leaving port. The ship did a 180, and headed into the Atlantic. This is exciting! After a bit of exploring, we headed down for our formal dinner at 8:30 dressed in my blue khakis and a Polo t-shirt, sporting my vintage Speedy. I start with soup, then some chicken and close out with a fruit dessert. Back in our room after dinner, we are going to call it a night. It’s been an exciting few days already.

Side Note: A bit bummed that we don’t have bunked beds in this sunset veranda room. The 4th bed is a pull out. We will have to manage for the next 12 days.

Day 4: Cruise Day 2: At Sea

We’re supposed to get our UKETA checked out today morning. Our appointment is at 8:30am. Oh, and there is also a time change. Got things mixed up and ended up at the appointment an hour earlier. LOL.

No worries, we went upstairs, had breakfast, returned, this time, at the right time, tovhave our UKETA check done.

The rest of the day was spent at leisure. We walked around, had lunch, set our first load for laundry. We were able to fit 53 items in the laundry bag. Boy, I was so proud of my accomplishment 🙂

Seemed like a good opportunity to take a siesta, so we did! After a short nap, we welt and spent some time at the library, reading some magazines, then, went upstairs to level 13 to play some table tennis,. After TT, we strolled around for a bit, and then headed down for our formal dinner.

A good relaxing vacation day.

Day 5: Cruise Day 3: Scotland: Edinburgh
Destination Highlight: Panoramic Edinburgh

We all had a good nights sleep. Woke up. Showered. Had breakfast, for me that was an omelette, yogurt, and orange juice. The ship is tendered at the Firth of Forth. Got ready around 11am and headed downstairs to take the tender to Queensferry.

It’s drizzling a bit. Bought a “Made in Scotland” scarf, a couple of ponchos and a beanie at the port. Our Panoramic Edinburgh trip will be on bus 36. The tour took us past the Edinburgh castle, Arthur’s seat, Scott monument, Charolette square, with a stop at Hollyrood palace and a final drive by the Royal mile. It was a really good historic tour of the town. It’s definitely worth spending a couple of days in Edinburgh in the future to hike and explore the sites. We have a really engaging guide, who is giving us a lot of details on the historic aspects of Edinburgh.

Note: you have the option to take a bus to Edinburgh and explore on your own. But keep in mind the traffic back can be heavy. So plan accordingly.
Really choppy tender on the way back. Looks like it’s heading towards high tide. Overall, we had a really good time exploring Queensferry and Edinburgh. It was a very good introduction to the two cities.

Back on the ship, there was Mediterranean food at the buffet and my daughter preferred having that vs the formal dinner. So we ended up canceling the formal dinner plans and having the Mediterranean food for dinner instead.
After dinner we played some table tennis and then walked around the deck following which I sat in the library listening to music being played downstairs. Will probably head back to the room in a bit. Want to get a few more steps in before I go to bed. Think I’ve been eating a little generously so I need to make up for it.

Day 6: Cruise Day 4: Kirkwall, Scotland
Destination Highlight: Skara Brae and Skaill House

Woke up by 9am. Had omelet, oatmeal and a croissant for breakfast along with some hot tea. Got ready and headed to the theater. We are group 34. Once our number was called, we got off the ship and on the bus. Headed to Skara Brae a Neolithic settlement located along the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Orkney, a UNESCO world heritage site.
These areas have close ties to Norway since they were once a part of the Viking empire.
We walked from the visitor center to the Skara homes and then the Skaill home. Really nice experience being able to see these homes in person, from thousands of years back and wonder what life was like back in the day. We are done here at 2:45PM.


From Skara Brae we headed to the Ring of Brodgar. Another UNESCO site. It’s a henge monument. Such a privilege to be able to experience such history in person. Done by 3:45PM. Our guide suggested we watch a program called Time Team, about the excavations in the area.

Back on the ship. We are expecting some choppy weather on the way to Reykjavik. 10ft waves. Shouldn’t be a problem for the ship, but might be a bit wavy.

Day 7: Cruise Day 5: Day at Sea

Took our time waking up. No real plans for the day except hanging out and getting some rest. Packed another bag of laundry 43 items this time. Got our laundry bag from last time washed and neatly folded.

Breakfast was split wheat gravy something not sure what it’s called, it’s probably a cousin of grits. And then had eggs Benedict and some fruits along with it. Walked around went to the room around 2 o’clock. Came back up for lunch. Had “create your own stir-fry” with dessert and some cheese. Now drinking tea and hanging by one of the large windows in the ocean view café.
It’s 3:30. We are at the gym. Burning off a few calories. Did 30 min on the treadmill. Ok. What next? Dinner and sleep.
Another excellent leasure day for us.

Day 8: Cruise Day 6: Reykjavik, Iceland
Destination Highlight: The Golden Circle with Lunch

The ship is getting into Reykjavik. The place looks beautiful.
Today is National fisherman’s day in Iceland. The activities director mentioned, it might cause the shuttles to run a bit slow because of that. We will be in port overnight and head out around 1:30PM tomorrow. There are shuttles and a bus route from the port to town. Shuttles end at 10PM though.

Got ready and walked down to the theater. We are group 25. Today we do the Golden Circle tour, which took us thru:
Our first stop is the Hellisheidi Power Station. This is a geothermal energy plant, providing electricity and hot water to Reykjavik.

After the geothermal plant, we drove to the Gullfoss waterfalls, where we first had an excellent 2 course lunch, starting with tomato soup and and then Salmon. We enjoyed the fresh food.

After lunch, we spent time exploring the Gullfoss waterfalls. There are various levels of the waterfalls, and we had enough time to explore all of them.

From there, we drove to see the Strokkur Geyser. The geyser spouting every 8-10 minutes. We explored the area and also watched the geyser come alive a couple of times.

Our final stop of the day is the Thingvellir National park. We park at a higher elevation, and were explained the history of the area, as we walked down. The bus picked us up from the parking lot at the foot of the trail.

Overall we covered ~200 miles today. We had an excellent tour guide. She is giving us a lot of information. She recommends reading the book, The Daughters of Iceland. It’s a good read about the history of Iceland.

Back on the ship. Right to the formal dining room! I’m having the Pear Salad and the Chicken Kiev for dinner.

Day 9: Cruise day 7: Reykjavik, Iceland
Destination Highlight: Reykjanes Unesco Global Geopark

Woke up at 5Am. Got ready. Went up to the Ocean View cafe and had my breakfast. On the tour just after 7am.
Today, our stops take us thru a spectacular drive on the south west part of Iceland.

We start out by driving to the Brimketill lava rock pool.

Our next stop is a short drive to the Gunnuhver Hot Springs,

Following the hot springs, we drive up to the Reykjanes Lighthouse

Our next stop is the Bridge Between Continents,

Iceland continues to fascinate us. Weather is a bit drizzly and on the colder side. We are in layers, so all good. Continuing on our journey, we stop next at the historic Hvalsneskirkja church built 1886. We grab some snacks from the recently opened Kaffi Gola restaurant.

Our final stop for the day is at the Garður Old Lighthouse. There is a smaller and a larger light house here.

Our tour guide tells us we should read the Icelandic Santa Clause Christmas books. They are quite different from the regular ones we are used.

Back on the ship. Dropped our stuff and headed to lunch. A good mix of fruit, salad, protein and dessert!
Had a few min so looked into adding another tour in Amsterdam. Had to move one of the tours to accommodate the new one. We are now doing 3 tours. Windmills, Bruges, and Deft.
That taken care of, I head to the fitness center for a 30 min walk on the treadmill. Have to burn off some of these calories! Ended up doing 40 min on the treadmill. Did a few weights and then came back to the room.
Sitting in the library reading Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games.

Oh, and today we have the dessert we have been waiting for, for 2 years! Dulce-de-leche creme-brule.

Day 10: Cruise Day: 8 Akureyri, Iceland
Destination Highlight: Nature, Folk and Flora

NOTE: Both Reykjavik and Akurai have city tour busses running from the dock. So if you don’t intend to take the cruise excursions you can always take the city busses.

Woke up, had breakfast, walked around the downtown. We got back on the ship at 1pm, had a snack at ocean view cafe and headed to the excursion. Our tour guide today is Lila.
Interesting note, the red on the traffic lights in Akureyri are Red Hearts. Cute! ❤️

Our first stop is a Botanical garden. Back in the day, a group of ladies were getting bored, while the men were out fishing. The city council gave them a piece of land, on which they could create something, and that became this wonderful botanical garden.

Lila is talking about the origin of the Icelandic language, the generations of interaction with Denmark, Norway, Britain
At school kids have to learn English, Danish, traditional Icelandic , French German or Spanish.

Our second stop is at Laufas. We are exploring a traditional home.The homes are covered from the outside with sod, and pretty spacious on the inside.

Our final stop for the day is the Godafoss Waterfalls. The waterfalls are amazing. We explored the various levels of the waterfalls, Took a lot of pictures. This is where the Norwegian king forced the local leadership to throw away their Norse gods and convert to Christianity else face death! Yikes!

After an amazing trip of Akureyri we now head to Seydisfjordur.
Had dinner at the Ocean View cafe, Fajitas, Salsa, guacamole, and a of course dessert!

Day 11: Cruise Day 9: Seydisfjordur, Iceland
Destination Highlight: Skalanes Nature Reserve

There is heavy fog as we enter Seydisfjordur. In fact it was foggy the entire distance from Akureyri to here.

I woke up at 5:15. Got ready and went up to the Ocean View cafe for a good filling breakfast.

Today we tender too.

It’s close to 8am. The fog seems to be clearing out. There is a bit of a drizzle. We took the tender to the shore. We are group 16. Got on the bus. Finally we are able to sit in a single row.

Our first stop is an ancient burial site. There appears to be a small village at this site.
Our second stop was the Skalane reserve. While hiking to the observation area, we encountered Arctic Terns, and then got to see lots of puffins. The pristine beauty of this place is breathtaking!


After the tour, we decided to explore the town. We walked to the famous rainbow street, took some pictures, there was a waterfall behind the town, it’s all so pretty! After spending some time walking around, we headed back to the ship. Once on the ship, we headed straight to lunch.

Hmm I’m having more dessert than food… BUT Dessert is food! Im confused 😁

Went to the fitness center to burn off some of the guilt!
Apparently it’s Indian food tonight! Dang. So much for control. Guess I’ll not eat for one week straight after getting home. 😬

Day 12: Cruise Day 10: At Sea

Got ready and headed up for breakfast around 9:30am ship time. It’s pretty crowded over here. Looks like everyone decided to come for breakfast at the same time.

Had muesli omelet and an almond croissant for breakfast. Grabbed decaf, and headed back to the room.

Put our clothes in for our fourth and final load of laundry. 49!

Italian for lunch and dessert for dinner Yeah! 😁

Was in bed around 11pm.

Day 13: Cruise Day 11: Lerwick, Shetland
Destination Highlight: Jarlshof Ruins and Scenic Mainland Drive

Got ready by 6am, headed up to have my muesli and omelet for breakfast.

We are at port off of Lerwick Shetland, Scotland. Will tender onshore and take our excursion. We are group 13. It’s drizzling a bit here. Took the tender and came to shore. The weather seems to be clearing out as we start our tour. Let’s see what the tour has in store for us today.

Lerwick is the capital of Shetland. We are driving thru Lerwick. It’s a very pretty town. Norse heritage. Driving past North Sea, a quarff, a Voe, kind of like a fjord without the cliffs, the Mosa broch. The guide suggested we watch the Shetland series. Also, Shetland ponies are supposed to be pretty famous.
Was beautiful exploring the Jarlshof ruins. Bronze Age and Iron Age history. Amazing to imagine that multiple cultures people lived here way back when.

Stopped on the way back to take some pictures of Mousa Broch, on the island
Once back at port, we walked around a bit, after which my son and I went to the Lerwick distillery and made a purchase. We are such tourists! Wandered around a bit more and then headed back to the ship.
Back on the ship, had lunch, back in our room, relaxed a bit. Went to the gym, sat in our balcony, with a blanket, as the ship departs Lerwick, and wrapped up with day with dinner. It was an excellent day.

Day 14: Cruise Day 12: At Sea

Our last day on the ship! We had an amazing time. Looking forward to the 3 tours I have planned for us in Amsterdam.

We slept in. Got ready and headed up for lunch. Lunch was pretty awesome.

Packed our suitcases, left them outside, to be picked up for port side delivery.

Went downstairs to get myself an old fashioned, it’s a tradition now!

There was a show going on in the foyer, saw it for a bit, and then headed for dinner.

Dinner was good. Pumpkin soup, followed by a chicken and crembrule. Said our goodbyes to the amazing staff. Maybe our paths will cross again! One never knows.

Day 15: Cruise Day 13: Amsterdam
Day Trip: Zaanse Schans, Marken, Edam and Volendam

Had a bit of a restless sleep. Up at 5:00am local time. We are at port. We got ready, went upstairs and had our final Ocean View breakfast for this trip! After breakfast we went downstairs and finished up packing, cleaned up the room and headed to the gangway. Once our number was called we stepped out. We had a great time, but after 12 days, it was time to get back on land. Crossed the gangway to collect our luggage. One of our suitcases was missing. Luckily we had put AirTags in the suitcases, which helped locate the suitcase, which accidentally was in the wrong block (ripped luggage tag). Took us a good 15 min to locate it. But glad we found it.

We walked from the cruise terminal to the Pension Homeland hotel where we are staying for the next few days. They were gracious enough to let us check into our room early! We got our room around 10:45am, moved our luggage into the room, freshened a bit and then headed out to our tour. We got a really nice suite with two separate rooms. The kids were in one room, and we got the other.

It was a 30 min walk to the Tours and Tickets office in Centraal.

Checked in, got our tickets, wrist bands and headed to the bus. It’s a double decker bus, we got seats on the upper level. Had a nice walking tour of Zaanse Schans. Our second stop was Marken, a tiny fishing village. From Marken we took a ferry to Volendam, spent a few hours in Volendam. Visited a cheese factory and did some shopping. Kids had tomato soup and kibblets (cod fries) for a late lunch.

Our final stop was the another very scenic old town, Edam. After exploring on our own, we made our way to the bus and back to our room.

We had dinner at the Pension Homeland, showered and went to bed. I think I fell asleep immediately. No breaks at night, just woke up in the AM. It has been a long day today!

Day 16: Amsterdam
Day Trip: Bruges

Woke up at 6:30am We all got ready and headed out of our room by 8am.

Had breakfast at de Vondurlust. Bagels, almond cookies and spinach twist.

On the Tours and Tickets bus. Had a really good time in Bruges. This is our second time here. Spent our time exploring and hunting for Belgian chocolates. Had Belgium waffles for lunch and finished it up with some local beer.

Was an excellent and relaxing day. What’s for dinner? Pizza at Il Sogono!

Day 17: Amsterdam
Day Trip: Rotterdam, Delft & The Hague

Woke up at 6, got ready had a quick breakfast and headed to Centraal for the tour. The bus started around 9:35am.

We will first drive to Rotterdam. Drove a bit thru the city. Our guide spoke about the history of the city. We stopped by the Cube houses and Market Hall. Once we took our customary pictures, we walked over and picked up some middle eastern food from one of the stalls outside the Market Hall. It was something we had not had before. It was pretty good. We then walked into the Market Hall, had some ice creme and then walked to the river and took some more pictures. We left Rotterdam at 12.20pm, and headed to Delft.

We start with the Royal Delft museum. We had a guide who gave us a good historical context of ceramics and how the artists now a days are creating products. After the museum, we have free time in downtown Delft, where we walked around, and (of course) picked up some cheese. We were done by 4:30pm.

Our final stop of the day is The Hague. Drove around the various landmarks and made a couple of stops. Also had some time to explore on our own. The bus picked us up at 6:00pm, to bring us back to Amsterdam.

What’s for dinner? Maybe Mediterranean dinner at the Olijfje!

Day 18: Amsterdam, Do nothing day

Most of the day was spent packing and we made a trip to de Volkslust for brunch, got back to the room.

Did some more packing.

Went back out to Tony’s to pick some chocolates, then to the AWC watch store. On the way back we stopped at a store and bought some bitterballen from Frites Huys and finally stopped at the Wok Inn to pick up some dinner.

After dinner we went downstairs and requested the lady at the counter to reserve a cab for us, for 6am.

Day 19: Flight back to Houston

Woke up at 5am, showered got ready, and took the cab to the airport. The Mercedes van that came to pick us up was excellent.

It was a smooth process to get on the plane.

Had lunch, snack and another lunch just before landing.
Looks like we will land around 2:45pm

Summary

Overall it was an amazing family trip. All the people we met on our journey (except one cranky couple) were fantastic! Especially on the cruise and the excursions.

We were fortunate from the weather perspective. The entire trip, the weather was in the 60F plus/minus 5F. The week after we returned, we heard the temperature jumped to close to 100F.

I would strongly recommend the cruise option to travelers who want to truly enjoy a stress free vacation, and not worry about transportation, food, lodging, checking in and out etc. while experiencing multiple places in a short amount of time.

Must NOT Haves: I will not carry my Laptop, AirPods Max or my formal suit. I thought I might have some use for them on the flight/during down times and for the formal dinners, but honestly, I did not use them at all. For the formal dinners, a good shirt and slacks was fine, and there as really minimal down time to use my laptop and headphones. In fact, the little down time we had, I read a book… yes, a physical book! Also, since we had the laundry package, I would definitely reduce the number of clothes I take.

Hope this gives you some good guidance on what to expect when taking the Celebrity Scotland/Iceland cruise. Feel free to post below if you have questions.

Happy Cruising!

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