For the first time since December 2019, I am going to serve as a cruise ship priest this summer. I am assigned to the Nieux Statendam (this was the Oprah ship I served on four years ago.) On this trip, we will visit four countries: Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Scotland.
Our cruise departs from Copenhagen, Denmark on June 22. After an “at sea” day, on June 24, we will arrive in Bergen, Norway. On June 25, we will arrive in Alesund, Norway (where I had the best version of Norwegian fish soup on my two-week Norway cruise four years ago.) After another day at sea, we will begin to circumnavigate Iceland. Our first stop on June 27 is Akureyri, a city on the northeastern coast of Iceland. On June 28 we visit Isafjordur, and on June 29, we will arrive in the capital, Reykjavik, where we will spend two days. By July 1, we will have come to the southeastern coast of Iceland, stopping in Djupivogur, and we will have completed our circumnavigation. The next day is another at sea. On July 3, we arrive in Inverness and Loch Ness in Scotland. On July 4, we will visit the capital, Edinburgh. One more day at sea, and we return in the early morning to Copenhagen.
I have served five years on the administrative board of Apostleship of the Sea-United States of America as the Cruise Ship Priest representative. We place our priests on every Holland America voyage and for Christmas, Lent, and Easter on Royal Caribbean. We also service Seabourn Luxury cruises at Christmas and Easter. The Easter and Christmas cruises are very popular with our retired priests.
Our program is to establish a Catholic presence on these ships. We celebrate Mass every day for the passengers. It is not uncommon to have 40-50 people at weekday Mass and over 100 on the weekend. Since some pandemic restrictions have not been lifted, we are not able to offer Mass for the crew, but we are hopeful these restrictions are lifted soon.
I use my vacation time for this ministry and pay my own way to travel to and from the ship. It is a good way for me to use vacation, even more so now that I am uncomfortable with driving long distances. This way I fly, and I sail, and I Uber!
It is possible for you to join me on the cruise if this sounds interesting. In 2015, one of our couples at St. Brigid joined me on a fourteen-day Baltic cruise and it was a great way to get to know them better. Contact me if you would like to know more. I am excited to return to the sea and this unique apostolate, in which I can travel, relax, evangelize, and offer the sacraments to myriads of people. What a blessing! Fr. Gary
