kitkat343

My three favorite ports were Geiranger, Olden and Flam. You'd get two of them on Cunard. Flam is really lovely, but on any of those days you might have tough weather that makes it hard to appreciate the spectacular beauty of Norway, so on the Cunard cruise you have two shots at clear weather so you would be able to appreciate the most beautiful fjords. If you do chose the HAL cruise, make sure you plan to do both the Flam railroad and Stegastein Viewpoint (if the weather is clear you can go to the viewpoint. You should do the railway either way - we went with some rain/cloud cover and the railway was still lovely). I've sailed Cunard and HAL twice (heaven help me both times on Cunard and once on HAL with small children). I don't necessarily recommend either line for kids, but if you aren't crazy enough to bring kids with you on those lines, Cunard is a lovely line with excellent food. I actually prefer Cunard to HAL. They do generally take formal night quite a bit more seriously on Cunard than HAL, with dress codes applying to most of the ship, but I throw on an ordinary black dress and given the fact that I am chasing small kids no one said anything (on the second Cunard cruise I went all out and put a sparkly silver belt that did not match my ordinary day dress at all but at least was an attempt at the black tie required for Xmas/New Years Celebration).

This is a pretty good itinerary. And the thread title is hilarious. Hopefully all the nudists will have a. great time!

Right. It's not about abusing the system. It's about the fact that sometimes the ship has some slack in its schedule and can wait for latecomers and other times (port schedules, tides) there is no slack in the system. I hope that a ship will wait for passengers when it can, but when they can't they need to go. I only take ship tours when I can't avoid them, and if I ever miss the ship on a private excursion it will be my responsibility and I will understand they can't always wait for me (or anyone else) if its the first time or the 100th time I'm late. I was only late once on my first cruise (the tour operator chose to wait for a family that was late instead of starting our tour on time, and was calling the ship tours operators as we were out to gauge how much time we had to return. The ship tours were running late too, so they weren't holding the ship for us (we returned late but before the ship tours), but if we had missed the ship it would have been our fault. We travel with kids now, so we book private tours for just our family and return with plenty of time to spare so barring an emergency this should never happen again to us but if it does, it will be our responsibility to meet the ship at the next port or make our way home.

Currently, the Icelandic government is stating that they hope the dredging work will be completed by this summer. The Prima is scheduled to dock there again, so hopefully either the dredging will be complete soon or NCL will arrange for outside tenders if their life boats can't be used for tenders.

I primarily view RC, Princess and Cunard's forums and their cancellations (as far as I can tell) are due to emergencies. RC is actually currently having a rough go of it - they had a ship home ported in Baltimore, which obviously needed to be moved through no fault of theirs, and another ship is currently experiencing a very significant propulsion issue, and they have cancelled all stops in Labadee (RC's private resort in Haiti) for safety concerns. Not NCL "safety" concerns like cancelling Costa Rica and adding Acapulco, but legitimate level 4 state department travel advisory we need to evacuate all nonessential personnel safety concerns. While I may question the ability of RC's top brass to make good decisions in terms of where to invest their money in building a private resort, none of these cancellations concern me about booking with them. The cruise ship contracts need to have flexibility so cruise lines can prioritize safety, and I fully support all of RC's decisions in redeploying their ships. But I don't support how NCL has communicated with their customers and I certainly would prefer a reinstitution of a fuel surcharge over cancelled ports for fuel efficiency.

I travelled 7 years ago, so my information on the public bus may be totally out of date. 7 years ago it sometimes filled up and left tourist behind. One other option is to contact Olden Adventures and the company John Bull mentioned and ask them if they have any tours/transportation from Nordfjordeid when ships dock there. Please also note that the Brisdkdal Glacier has been hit hard by global warming, and might not be the best destination if you are looking for an amazing glacier. I was very glad to have gone, as the bus ride there was lovely, there was a troll car to get us most of the way there and my 2 year old was able to handle the short remaining hike to the glacier. It was a beautiful hike and a very lovely spot where the glacier was, but if you are expecting a huge glacier you might be disappointed. If you are expecting a minor glacier, you might be very happy. Also, I went to the Loen Skylift 4 days after its opening, so there were no ship tours running there then, but it definitely is no longer a secret and I've read on these forums of people talking about possibly there being lines on clear days. It was quite spectacular (even thought it was a little rainy/cloudy on the day we visited) but I don't know about the current crowd level there.

olden adventures has a lot of reviews and runs busses to both the glacier and the Loen skylift, so depending on time you might be able to do both. It's not really a guided tour - it's a bus to the two attractions where you hike and explore by yourself, so you just need a reputable company that will transport you there safely. There also used to be a public bus that goes to Briskdal, but tickets couldn't be reserved in the past (not sure about now). Its the cheapest option but did fill up in the past. Olden adventures didn't used to come with food, but there were very yummy waffles at the cafe. Don't know about the cake buffet. .

That is a fair point. My Alaskan cruise was the first of the season, and the port workers told us the US customs always sent too few agents at the start of the season. Similarly long lines of 2-3 hours to clear customs, but once you did that the Princess agents were very fast. So everything Princess controlled was fine. But it would be helpful if the cruises provided food and water to waiting passengers (on our last cruise Cunard had a table with cookies and drinks in the terminal, and after herding three kids through embarkation it was a huge relief to see snacks even though we were only 5 minutes away from boarding the ship where there was plenty of food. Occasionally embarkation turns into an absolute disaster on all cruise lines (sometimes the cruise lines fault and sometimes not) and hopefully they will provide food and drinks for the passengers (I don't know if there's enough space to provide seating).

The Prima's lifeboats are not used as tenders. This became in issue in Isafjorour, Iceland, a small port where the Icelandic government is trying to deepen the harbor so larger ships can dock there directly. That project was originally scheduled to be completed prior to last summer's cruise season, but the work was delayed and all of the Prima's stops to Isafjorour were canceled last year (some were replaced by overnights in the capital, others with sea days). IT has been reported on these forums that the Prima has been able to tender in ports like Grand Cayman, where the local authorities run their own tender ships but passengers were told the Prima does not have its own tender boats available. There are more stops scheduled this summer for the Prima in Isafjorour, so hopefully that work will be completed prior to the season starting.

I've not sailed Celebrity yet, but all the ships I sailed had an open house in the kids club on the first night. Go to the kids club open house with the child so the parent can stay with the child and help them get acclimated to the kids club. Request a phone in advance through the special needs department or during the open house because they are usually limited. Tell the kids club staff that you want them to call immediately if the child wants to leave (they may normally do this for children with disabilities - I don't know. I've seen them delay calling for neurotypical children because they try to distract them and keep them longer because some parents don't want to be disturbed. If they know you'll come right away and not be mad at them, they'll call you right away.) Also, for some kids with autism food is a huge issue. Depending on the child's level of sensitivity you might want to bring sealed food onboard for them so they always have snacks they can eat on the ship and during tours. I've also found that if you can afford them private tours for just my family are best with children, since you can control the itinerary and stay longer when they're happy and give them breaks when they need them (this is less important if you are just going to a beach and more important if you are visiting Europe and going to museums.

People on this forum have stated that the Prima was able to tender successfully in Grand Cayman. Grand Cayman provides tender ships, so NCL uses those to get the passengers off the Prima. I don't have personal experience but I believe tendering on the Prima is possible if outside tender ships are available.

The Geiranger bus that takes you around the highlights of the Geiranger lasts 3 hours, so depending on the length of your day in port you might be able to do both that and the boat cruise in Geiranger (when calculating the timing please check recent reviews of your ship, since some NCL ships have a lot of reviews noting difficulties with disembarkment that cut down on their time in port so please allocate a lot of time for both activities if you choose to do both). The sail in/sail out on your cruise ship to Geiranger is spectacular (we did this cruise on Cunard, and they took the kids out of the kids clubs to let them see the waterfalls on the sail out). Please also note that the road to the Skywalk in Geiranger is seasonal, and opens between mid-May and early June after the big annual avalanche. They will substitute a beautiful lake if you are too early for the skywalk.

On my sailing, some passengers received the email notifying them of the cancellation of a port. Others did not receive it. People tried to post the notice on the roll call, but some passengers called NCL and since NCL kept the dropped port on their website for the cruise, the NCL call reps incorrectly told them that the DR port had not been dropped. Your best bet to find out why NCL is stating this stop has been cancelled is by posting on your roll call - someone who received the cancellation email can cut and past the language and you can see what reason NCL is stating for the change. Now as Distinctive-Destinations has noted, NCL may claim that they are doing this for safety or the environment. The safety issue is a bit muddled, since there have been ports they have dropped in the past - like Costa Rica and claimed it was for safety, which was difficult to understand since they replaced it with Alcupulco. But ultimately irregardless of why they are claiming they dropped the port, their contract clearly states they have the right to make changes. There have been people posting that European laws may provide some consumer protection (I don't know anything about that) but in the US, you are stuck when this happens after final payment and your only option if they notify you before final payment is to cancel and rebook. The posts on this issue pop up periodically ( ). and someone posted on one of the previous forums after experiencing several cancellations that they only book NCL cruises at the last minute now, since they don't mind ports being dropped from last minute discount cruises. Depending on how significant itinerary is to you (on our cruise, there were some people who were just happy to be out of the cold in NY and didn't care at all about the dropped port) this might be something to consider.

The itinerary of that sailing looks great. I hope they continue to sail that in the future.

You can find the kosher sailings here: https://loyaltoyoualways.com/news/kosher-dining/