Fjords of Norway..have you cruised these?

[luvtravel]

For several years we've been thinking of doing this trip....would really like to hear of your experience from those of you who have...and if you did it on a cruise ship such as one of Holland Americas, etc., or one of the working Norwegian Coastal Ships. I'm sure either would provide a wonderful opportunity to see the beautiful scenery ... so looking forward to hearing from those of you lucky enough to have already experienced it. Thanks.

[LHT28]

We did it in June 2003 on Orientlines Marco Polo it is a fair size ship for the fjords (20,000 GRT) with 700 PAX .

We had a great time looking at all the waterfalls.

I posted some at my Yahoo site http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lht28/album?.dir=4883&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lht28/my_photos

 

The Norwegian Coastal voyage trip also looks very interesting.

[luvnorway]

There have been quite a few posts about this on the Western Europe forum

-> suggest you do a search there.

Also try searching for cruise reviews and relevant posts on boards for particular cruise lines - eg. the Princess board has info because Sea Princess has done this cruise for the last 2 years and several posters have asked and answered questions about their trips in both 2005 and 2006.

Also, I just posted a reply to a question about cruising the fjords on the Baltic board yesterday - mistake on my part - it should be on the Western Europe board.

[Bruin Steve]

For several years we've been thinking of doing this trip....would really like to hear of your experience from those of you who have...and if you did it on a cruise ship such as one of Holland Americas, etc., or one of the working Norwegian Coastal Ships. I'm sure either would provide a wonderful opportunity to see the beautiful scenery ... so looking forward to hearing from those of you lucky enough to have already experienced it. Thanks.

We did it last year on the Celebrity Constellation...

But it wasn't the "Fjord Only" type of cruise, it was more of a "combo" British Isles and Norwegian Fjords itinerary: Dover to Le Havre to Cork to Dublin to Belfast to Glasgow to Olden to Geiranger to Bergen to Copenhagen to Dover...

 

For us, it was just enough of the Fjords...My wife was just as interested in visiting Ireland, so it was a good itinerary for us...

 

We had cruised Alaska the year before and the scenery has some similarities. One note: One of the highlights of our Alaska cruise was a helicopter landing on a glacier outside of Juneau, another was the visit to Hubbard Glacier...The Norwegian authorities, however won't allow things like glacier landings and you never get quite that close to any of the Norwegian glaciers (although we did visit the very interesting Glacier Center--a museum in a valley surrounded by a few glaciers)...The fjords themselves are quite striking...especially Geirangerfjord...

 

Bergen is a stop where the town is of more interest than the scenery, but Geiranger and Olden were definitely striking scenic areas--and we did the longest scenic excursions in each...

 

I know there are other cruises which are much more confined to Norway than this one where you can see a number of other fjords if that's your thing, but we liked this one because it gave us the fjords, but also some varied other poerts and attractions...

[Andee]

We did it in July 2003 on Orient lines Marco Polo. It was called "Grand Scandinavian, and included the Baltic cities as well as the fjords. Great itinerary, and we like the smaller ships.

 

The scenery was fabulous--and I agree that it resembled Alaska. The only shore excursion we took was in Geraingerfjord so we could go to the top of the mountain and see the Fjord Center.

 

In Flam, we took the RR on our own and loved it.

 

Bergen was easy to do on our own.

[MVPinBoynton]

Luvtravel,

We did a British Isles/Norwegian Fjords cruise a couple years ago on the Jewel of the Seas and thoroughly enjoyed it. You can see pictures as well as a discussion of our excursion in our review at www.thepreismans.com

[carlmm]

Last year we enjoyed a wonderful cruise to Iceland and Norway on the Queen Elizabeth 2. We found this to be a great combination with the additional advantage of some seadays. Yet Cunard also offers Norway only cruises.

The scenery is indeed stunning, just sitting on deck and enjoy the world going by is most pleasurable. In most of the ports you do not need any tour but just can walk the cities, villages or nature.

Many opinions have already been posted about the various ports and you might want to ask further in depth question but here is a short summary:

Cities like Trondheim, Alesund and Bergen: Each different, each worth while to visit and all easy to explore on your own.

Geiranger: Cruising the fjord is the highlight, here maybe a tour to the Mount Dalsnibba.

Flam: Take the train uphill on your own. Get a ticket early.

[mydream]

My husband and I did a land tour of Scandinavia a couple of years ago. They are stunningly beuatiful countries. We did a day cruise on a fjord. Again beautiful. I can't imagine you would go wrong with a cruise. Just enjoy yourself. Most people speak very good English. Have fun.:)

[ilovhywd]

Did this cruise on the Westerdam 2 years ago. It was fantastic! Every minute was a Kodak moment.

 

Every port had something interesting and different, and most were easily walkable. When necessary, taxis for sightseeing were very inexpensive.

 

At North Cape, I arranged to go bird-watching on a small fishing boat. I had always wanted to see puffins! We had three consecutive nights of midnight sun when we were above the Arctic Circle (but no internet access that far north!).

 

We saw the Norwegian Coastal ships everywhere, and their itineraries look interesting. However, I don't think they offer the variety of entertainment that you would find on Holland America, Celebrity, or Princess. They also stop in some towns that are too small for the larger ships.

 

I don't think anyone would be disappointed in a Norway cruise! It's nice to see such a beautiful part of the world that humans haven't mucked up yet.

 

Ilene

[MVPinBoynton]

I don't think anyone would be disappointed in a Norway cruise! It's nice to see such a beautiful part of the world that humans haven't mucked up yet.

 

Ilene

 

I couldn't agree more.

[Keith1010]

We just returned a few days ago from a cruise that began in Copenhagen and ended in London with several days in Norway including the Fjhords. It was a wonderful cruise. I was highly impressed with Copenhagen (we stayed there three days prior to the cruise). It was easy to get around on our own and the people were very friendly. Noway was beautiful. We enjoyed the beauty of Norway and the warmth of the country. Visiting Norway was like going back in time. The people were so nice and one feels very safe. I highly recommend doing this cruise.

 

Keith

[luvtravel]

for your replies and information. Looks like everyone took a cruise ship versus the Norwegian coastal ships.....more comfort, variety of ports, etc. But actually, we'd probably be very happy to take either. Now just have to get my DH to schedule vacation, see what space is available and try to use my ff miles to get to and from the embarkation and debarkation points....that will probably be the difficult if not impossible task.

 

Enjoyed the wonderful pictures of the Preisman's trip....thanks again to everyone for your help.