‘Below Deck Adventure’ in Norway Is More Bungee Jumping Than Beach Picnics, Faye Clarke Teases [Exclusive]
Instead of beach picnics and slides, Below Deck fans will see more heli-skiing, cave exploring, and bungee jumping on Below Deck Adventure in Norway.
Chief stew Faye Clarke told Showbiz Cheat Sheet the extreme Below Deck series, set in a cold water location, paved the way for land excursions designed for adventure seekers.
“I remember one of the best excursions was the paragliding,” she recalled. “And I sat at the top of the mountain for probably six hours, just making sure all my guests were safe on top of the mountain. And then I had to get back down the mountain and make sure they all landed and that they were fed and watered. So it was pretty full-on.”
Cold caves in Norway instead of beach picnics on ‘Below Deck’
Creating the perfect experience means that the crew has to secure the right (and safe) equipment for the extreme experience. But they also have to deliver food, drinks, seating, and more to the locations, which are sometimes not in the easiest areas.
“There was one point where one of the guests not only wanted to go to a cave, she went to do lunch in a cave and she wanted a photoshoot in a cave,” she said. “So I’m organizing all the clothes for the photo shoot, the photographer. Just getting them to the cave, the fact that it’s freezing in the cave, and, all the food and stuff. On Below Deck people usually see them taking [the guests] to the beach. But yeah. It was tough.”
The ‘Below Deck’ crew goes on the extreme guest encounters
“We wanted them to have something different, something they’ve never experienced before,” Clarke said about Below Deck Norway encounters. “So that kind of experience was onshore. So it was like the logistics of getting them off the boat in a tender. Taking them to shore, driving maybe sometimes miles to a cave or the top of a mountain or to a helicopter place.”
The crew will often experience extreme encounter adventures with the guests. “We take it in turns, basically,” she said about which crew member accompanies and participates in certain excursions.
“Some days I was like, OK, so this is horse riding, for example. I know [stew] Oriana [Schneps] is really good with horses because she grew up with horses. So I’d send her on that one. And I talk to the guys and girls and see what kind of excursions they like, that they feel like they’d be confident in. And that’s when I would say, you’re on this excursion, you’re on that excursion. And so I have to kind of make sure everyone fits in with the excursions.”
Norway offered a different challenge for the ‘Below Deck’ crew
The Below Deck excursions in Norway are not for the faint-hearted, especially for the crew. “Back in the day, I’ve done bungee jumps and skydives. I’ve practically hitchhiked around Vietnam and Cambodia. I was a boxer for eight years, trained in Thailand. So, there’s not much that hasn’t been thrown at me. But I think as you get older, you get a little bit more wiser, don’t you? Now I was just making sure that none of my guests broke an ankle or things like that because it would just ruin everything, you know?”
Beyond the extreme adventures, a Below Deck series in Norway posed another challenge. “I’m not going to lie because it was Norway, because sometimes the weather was really bad,” Clarke said. “And not only that, the sun didn’t go down. So people were getting up and not going back to bed till like the next day.”
Below Deck Adventure Season 1 premieres on Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
