Arctic Highlights

We have just arrived back from a Hurtigruten Arctic Highlights trip to Norway. The package was booked directly with Hurtigruten. We flew on a Germania charter flight from Cardiff to Tromso and stayed one night at the Radisson Blu hotel. We boarded the ship the following afternoon at 1430, spent 3 nights on the ship and disembarked at 2345 on the fourth evening. We were allowed to keep the cabin until 2000 on the day of disembarkation. We spent another night at the Radisson Blu before returning from Tromso to Cardiff the next afternoon.

The Germania flights to and from Tromso were on-time and uneventful. No food or beverage was provided, but tea/coffee/alcoholic drinks, snacks and sandwiches could be purchased. Seats were allocated, rather than selected, at check-in. A coach was provided to the hotel in Tromso, as was the case with all transfers during the holiday.

The Radisson Blu was well appointed, by the harbour quay and about 100m from the ship. Breakfast was provided at the hotel. The bedrooms were small e.g. you could not put a suitcase on the floor, open it and then walk round it – my criteria of small!

The next morning before boarding the ship we went dog sledging, booked through Hurtigruten. It was at the Wilderness Centre some 30 minutes from Tromso. It was excellent. We declined their all-in-one waterproof suites in favour of our own. There were two to a sledge and we were covered by a blanket that kept any snow spray out. There were 8 dogs pulling and a ‘musher’ standing at the back. He was excellent and very knowledgeable. You could have driven your sledge but we opted out of that. We travelled some 11kms in about 45 minutes or so. The weather was fine and the views of the snow-capped mountains and frozen lakes were good. Afterwards, we were told about the working patterns for the 300 huskies at the site. They were the Alaskan variety because Siberian dogs were a bit vicious in comparison. Some of the fitter dogs were used for 1,500 km cross-country racing. We saw the dog hospital and new-born puppy enclosure. We were given a lunch of reindeer stew.

At 1430 that afternoon we boarded Midnatsol, built in 2003, which carries some 1000 passengers and 35 cars. It kept being impressed on us that this is was a working ferry, but with so many passengers on packages it felt more like a mini cruise ship which stopped from 15 minutes up to about two hours regularly during the day and night.

We were on half-board in the restaurant and we purchased lunch in the cafeteria. Breakfast was ‘open’ sitting and for dinner in the evening you were assigned first or second sitting and assigned a table size varying from 2 to 6 persons. The food was good. The ship was well appointed and maintained throughout so gave the impression of being more of a mini cruise ship than the working ferry. There was no choice for a starter or for the main course or for pudding. If you gave advance notice of being diabetic or vegetarian something else would be substituted. However, this was missing a point, evidenced at our table, that if you weren’t any of these things, but just didn’t like reindeer meat or say, veal, then there was nothing else. Forgetting the starter or pudding a ship seemingly to be more than a ferry should, I believe, provide a second choice for the main course. They even provide that in economy class on international flights. The ship had a small a la carte restaurant as well, but that would have meant paying extra.

The ship had good amenities like lookout lounge, plenty of outdoor space, launderette, gift shop, sauna and bar etc. The real downside was our cabin where we felt seriously let down. We knew it was going to be small – after all it is a working ferry! The only choice on the short trip was an external or internal cabin. We opted for an external cabin and we were allocated cabin 401 on deck 4. It was as far to the front as was possible. It had two portholes – nothing wrong with that – except that the cabin was in the bow of the ship, but not against the external hull. When you looked through the porthole window you then looked down a 1m long tube of the same diameter as the porthole so you barely got a glimpse outside the ship. This cabin should not be advertised as an outside cabin, more a restricted porthole view with reduced charging. The noise associated with the adjacent motors winding out and in the lines was loud but short lived. A door adjacent to our cabin for getting on to deck was overly banged as was the sound of what appeared to be metal objects being dropped on to the metal deck. However, the killer for us was the extraordinary loud noise of a motor used for pumping water from the quayside on to the ship. They reeled out a flexible blue pipe of some 4” (10cm) diameter from the ship for this purpose. It went on for an hour and was much louder than the motors for winding in the lines. It wouldn’t surprise me if Health & Safety suggested ear defenders to overcome this adjacent noise.

I don’t know how they allocated the cabins but people who had booked later than us seemed to have paid less, been given a cabin with the porthole directly accessing the outside, suffered very little noise and some even had television sets. How come?

I spoke to a lady at reception who was the only member of the crew on the ship I spoke to who had poor English. How convenient! She understood enough to tell me cabin 410 was known to be very noisy as was cabin 499, wherever that was. The ship was full – that’s it.

At Kirkenes we went to the Snow Hotel. That was an enjoyable trip. There was dog sledging from outside the hotel but it didn’t appear quite the set-up of the Tromso dog sledging and the views didn’t appear to look as good either. But I might be wrong.

The weather was fine all the time and the temperature was around zero to plus three or four degrees. I think it was milder than normal. Much snow had melted in Tromso by the time we returned.

Did we see the Northern Lights – NO? Some people who had got on the ship in Bergen and travelled north to Kirkenes hadn’t seen them either. C’est la vie!

Would we travel with Hurtigruten again? NO, not having had such a bad experience with the cabin. We have been on 59 cruises with a number of lines and have not suffered so badly before. I have not had to complain. At 75 I went home feeling totally jet-lagged.

Thank you for taking the time to post. I'm sorry your experience was poor. What ship were you on... or did I miss that in your post? I hope you have more enjoyable future cruises. m--

Midnatsol, which I chose because it was one of the newest and largest of the Hurtigruten fleet.

How different!

We did Tromso - Kirkenes - Bergen on Midnatsol last year and had a really good experience.

The excursions were interesting and the crew helpful with excellent English. We were on full board and in the dining room we simply had a quiet word with our waitress if we were not keen on the menu for the upcoming meal and she arranged for us to have something of our choice.

Allowing the cruise line to allocate your cabin is always risky: we always choose ours and, if necessary, pay for the privilege.

How different!

 

We did Tromso - Kirkenes - Bergen on Midnatsol last year and had a really good experience.

 

The excursions were interesting and the crew helpful with excellent English. We were on full board and in the dining room we simply had a quiet word with our waitress if we were not keen on the menu for the upcoming meal and she arranged for us to have something of our choice.

 

Allowing the cruise line to allocate your cabin is always risky: we always choose ours and, if necessary, pay for the privilege.

On Arctic Highlights you could specify only inside or outside cabin at the time of booking. You could only pay for upgrades once on the ship and that was academic because it was full. Also we were on half board, full board was only an option at extra cost once on board. On the longer trips like yours you could book specific cabins at whichever grade you want as we always do on main stream cruises.

How things change!

Our first coastal trip was a short five days from Bergen to Tromso but we were able to choose our cabin and we were on full board from the outset.

We were on Midnatsol also. We selected our OV cabin but were reassigned to a similar room in a similar location, more towards mid-ship, so selecting your room is not a guarantee that you'll get it. We were on deck 4 port side and had a lot of noise at every port so never did sleep through a night. If we did it again I would try for a different location.

Thank you for the review! Your ship was full? I am booking over a year ahead for the classic voyage, and already there is not a good selection of cabins. Josh at the US office selected cabin 416 for me. He said "if a single family member of his was booking that's where he'd put them. It's still portholes, but right where the bow starts to curve.

With a full ship did you have any difficulty finding space in the lounge or on deck? How was the scenery? Did you enjoy the trip other than your disappointment with the cabin and the food?

I have to say, I am VERY VERY looking forward to this trip next year.

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Thank you for the review! Your ship was full? I am booking over a year ahead for the classic voyage, and already there is not a good selection of cabins. Josh at the US office selected cabin 416 for me. He said "if a single family member of his was booking that's where he'd put them. It's still portholes, but right where the bow starts to curve.

With a full ship did you have any difficulty finding space in the lounge or on deck? How was the scenery? Did you enjoy the trip other than your disappointment with the cabin and the food?

I have to say, I am VERY VERY looking forward to this trip next year.

 

 

We were on a short trip and we could not choose a cabin except to specify inside or outside. So we were allocated 401 and told that and 499 were the worst cabins for noise on the ship. We also had 'tunnelled' port holes could see virtually nothing. We had no difficulty finding anywhere to sit in the two forward lounges, one above the other. The views were fine from the lounges. We went close to many snow-clad Islands. The mountains were not rugged and high like Alaska, more like rolling hills. The landing berths were in the centre of the small towns so you could see much of what was going on. Not so much in the cold conditions. There was no entertainment on the ship and we didn't have a TV in the room. The drinks in the bar where extraordinarily expensive so the amount of alcohol consumed was very constrained.

 

All in all an interesting experience on a well appointed ship, but one I should not wish to repeat.