There's an App for that

Full disclosure: Nikki is much better at apps than I am. She's got the "holiday countdown" app on her phone home screen, telling us how many days are left to every trip we've booked. She does the fitbit thing. She Google Mans everywhere we ever travel (she already knows how to drive around the back of the hotel we're staying in the night before we set sail, and find the parking, and how long the walk is to the nearest fish and chip shop :o))

So it's not surprising that we're all set on the app front for this trip.

BBC weather app

(Other weather apps are available). I've seen crisp, bright, dry days in January. I imagine they have them in Norway too. I've also seen damp and foggy days, and piss-wet-through-in-seconds days. Now, as you'll have noticed with all the posts on clothing, we're good to go whatever the weather. But it would be nice to know, from day to day, how much of the seven-and-a-half tonnes of clothing we actually have to put on, to be comfortable, warm, and dry (I suspect the reality, as with so much of life, will be closer to "choose any two from those three"). So we'll be relying on the BBC Weather App to tell us what to wear before leaving the ship for the day. Assuming we do.

AuroraWatch UK

One of the main reasons for going is to see the Northern Lights. So we thought it would be good to have an early warning. This app is updated by Aurora watchers in the UK, definitely as far up as Shetland, so we figure if you can see the Aurora there, you'd be able to see it a few miles further east.

There's also the "Aurora Borealis Forecast & Alerts" app, which does attempt to forecast the chance of seeing something, rather than rely on users shouting "Hey! Guys! GUYS! I can see them!!"

We will also get on-board alerts (via the phone in the cabin) of course, and then there's the...

Hurtigruten App

This only works on the ship, but it allows you to set up a daily calendar, keep track of events and expeditions that are happening that day, discover the location of on-board services, access bookings for meals and lectures, check out the restaurants' daily menus, and even keep an eye on your expenditure so far.