The Apex docked in Tromsø today, the farthest north we had ever been. Today was a little bit of a disappointing day as on the day we booked the cruise, we booked an excursion through Celebrity called "Nature Walk with the Huskies" which would have seen us going off into the wilderness led by a pack of huskies along with a hike through the mountains. Celebrity cancelled this excursion about a month before our cruise and replaced it with a visit to the Polaria museum and a chance to meet the huskies. We did not like that change so we cancelled that and booked Blue Puffin tour's "Tromsø: Why We Live Here" which would give us more sightseeing opportunities and still let us spend time with the sled dogs.

Picking up our tour was a little disorganized. We had been told to look for a blue minivan but the vans that showed up were from another company. There were apparently two tours today so they had arranged for different vans. A group in front of us wanted to be on the same van supposedly but had not booked the same tour, causing confusion. The tour guide called our names as the last two he was waiting for and we stepped in front of the other group while they figured it out. We drove on the bridge out of the city to a view point at Ersfjord for some nice views across the fjord.

Continuing our drive, we arrived at Grøtfjorden where a short hike afforded us some amazing pictures of the mountains and a small fjord lake. Our guide said it was a great place for seeing the northern lights in the winter, but since we were so far north and it was near the summer solstice, there was barely any darkness at all. He told us we would see a short sunset and almost immediate sunrise, but we did not plan to be up that late to see that.

We made our next stop along the roadside at Vandbaever Engen above a secluded stretch of white sand on the western edge of Whale Island.

It was lunch time so we pulled into a spot above Norskesanden Beach where our guide unloaded our picnic lunch of sausage rolls and Norwegian tea while we roamed the beach.

We drove out to the island of Håkøya to a memorial commemorating where the German battleship Tirpitz was sunk by British RAF bombers just off the coast. Part of the ship can still be seen at low tide. Aside from the historical significance, the stop also gave us great views across the fjord and a chance to see Norwegian horses in a field nearby.

Finally we arrived at what our guide said would be the highlight of our day, our visit with the huskies. Nearly 200 working sled dogs were at their kennels just waiting for us to arrive and all of them would come right out to get attention from us as we came to their kennels. We headed to the far back first as the local guide said those dogs do not always get attention because people just go the ones up front. We enjoyed petting them and then got to get up close with two litters of puppies that had just been born. We finished up with cake and juice and Janie had to buy one of the Norwegian mugs as a souvenir. Our guide explained they were made from knots of the birch trees prevalent in Norway.

Our tour had promised a stop at Ishavskatedralen, the Arctic Cathedral but due to road construction, our guide said we would be skipping it. We wondered if this was more because we were supposed to leave the Wilderness Center at 3:45 but then the guide there told us we could go to the gift shop at that time and our guide had a distressed look on his face. We did not care much about the church but the people behind us were disappointed and it was another example of tours changing plans from original bookings on the day of the tour but not giving you a chance to cancel if the site was one you really wanted to see. We did stop at the Gateway to the Arctic, an art exhibit on the waterfront, where you could see the church across the fjord.

We were back in Blu for dinner tonight at 5:30 and service was quick enough we were able to be out in time to get good seats in the theater for the production show Tree of Life. We were very disappointed that on a 14 day cruise there would only be two production shows and it took until day 7 to have the first. Apparently it was a new cast installing the shows, but they train for months in Miami and other casts have told us they overlap with the previous cast when they join a ship so the guest experience is not impacted. This obviously was not the case here and after seeing a small bit of rehearsal while waiting for an excursion, it seemed this cast was not prepared so there must have been an issue with onboarding. The show as good but seemed a little clunky by Celebrity standards.

We headed to the martini bar after the show for a chocolate martini before calling it a night.

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