Cruise Newbie

For Norway, I highly recommend taking the Hurtigruten ships from Bergen to Kirkenes.

Have you checked Cruise Critic?

How much time do you have in total? If you want see some of Norway from the water the best place to begin the cruise is in Norway. I agree that you should look at Hurtigruten, https://www.hurtigruten.no but spending a few days on land might also be a good idea.

I think you should look at Princess Cruises sailing out of Southampton for their Norwegian Fjords cruise or their longer land of the Midnight Sun cruise. They also have a cruise that goes to the Arctic as well as to Iceland. As an FYI in 2025 only ships with zero emissions will be allowed into UNESCO designated Fjords. Keep that in mind with your planning.

Hurtigruten is indeed a well established Norwegian line, but I found that I didn’t want to pay 3 times more than another cruise line to go on it. The other Norwegian based cruise lines is Havila Voyages.

Right now Princess has its summer Norway cruises deeply discounted for this year. You may want to check it out. I head out the end of July for a 15 day Land of the Midnight Sun/Arctic Circle cruise up the coast of Norway. I’ll know more when I’m back ……

We’ve done several Norwegian cruises with Viking - “Midnight Sun”, “Northern Lights”, and “Iceland and Norway Arctic Explorer” (coming soon). It’s a good fit for us. Many of the cruises originate in Bergen. Check out their website to see if any of the itineraries are of interest.

Along the Norwegian coast you can choose either a short cruise or a trip on the route Hurtigrute with one of the ships of companies Havila or Hurtigruten.

In contrast to cruise ships, you will see more of the Norwegian coast on the Hurtigrute, because the stop times in ports are shorter, in small ports only 15 minutes, and the ships are smaller, therefore can sail a nicer route closer to land (e. g. Raftsund). Ships on Hurtigrute also try always to get into Trollfjord which is much too narrow for regular cruise ships.

A trip with the shipping company Hurtigruten from Bergen to Kirkenes lasts 6 days and offers many excursions. It is, in my opinion, the more authentic way of a sea voyage along the Norwegian coast. Havila is doing the same route but with newer ships and a modern interpretation.

I was using Hurtigruten ships three times this year for port-to-port connections with my car, e. g. Alesund to Havoysund.

I am sure that Hurtigruten offers an excellent experience. However I compared two 15 day cruises to the North Cape of Norway. I could get an ocean view cabin on Hurtigruten for a solo traveler for $6855. I could get a balcony cabin for a solo traveler on Princess for $1500. ( It was a good sale).

For me, the Princess cruise was the best choice.

Nothing against cruises. A lot of customers like to travel that way.

From Germany we have similar good offers with cruise ships from AIDA and MeinSchiff. The sea distance to Norway is shorter which is a real customer benefit. For travelers from outside Europe a good alternative because staff and a lot of passengers speak English as well. Departures from Kiel are in good reach from Frankfurt by train or by plane to Hamburg and train.

Good prices can also be achieved at Hurtigruten. Signing up to the newsletter and early booking saves a lot of money.