First cruise ever, heading to Norway

Congrats on booking your first cruise! We haven't been to Norway, but have cruised extensively with HAL, and loved it. They do an excellent job. As to excursions, we tend to mix it up, booking the ship's excursions in some ports and planning to just get off and walk around in other ports. If the dock is close to city center, we sometimes enjoyed buying a local snack or lunch in the middle of things, and watching as the world walks by. I do think HAL excursions offer good value for the price, and they ensure you get back to the ship before it departs (unlike locally booked tours, where if you are late, you are on your own.) Have fun!

Whether to explore ports of Call with a ship excursion, DIY, or with a local tour company, depends on a few things. You need to pay close attention to your time in port and posted all aboard time. The ship wont wait if you are late and are not on a ship excursion. Another factor can be the location of the port vs the area you wish to tour. Cruise ports are frequently quite a distance from their advertised destination. Unless advertised as a small group experience, ship excursions can be big, involving multiple large bus loads, with all the attendant potentials for delays. But local tours may or may not allow last minute cancellations if the ship cancels a port of call for operational reasons.

You might look at the Cruise Critic website for info on your cruise line, Roll Call (a sub forum devoted solely to cruisers on your specific sailing) and Ports of Call board.

You picked a great location for your first cruise. Norway remains among my favorites.

Bergen. Ships are not allowed to dock in the center. You will walk about 15 minutes to the key central areas. I took a walking tour called “Bergen, Past and Present” that I signed up for through Viator. It was quite well done and far less expensive than a ship excursion. Absolutely no worries about being far from the ship for return.

The other thing I did was to take the Bergen Furnicular (Floibanen) which has amazing views. Pre purchase helps speed things up up on site, but you can still wait until the day of your visit to see what the weather is like. Long lines in the morning and then very little lines in the afternoon.

In Alesund I booked through Norway Excursions AS for “Alesund the Ultimate sightseeing tour”. Once again far less expensive than cruise ship excursions.

In Olden I did the Loen Skylift including transfer. I pre purchased through http://oldenadventure.com. However, there are several tour operator booths as soon as you disembark the ship on the quay. You could purchase day of if desired.

CJean gives some good advice. We were in Norway in 2022.

We were not on a cruise, but did take the same walking tour in Bergen that Carol mentions. We booked directly with I Love Bergen.

In Ålesund we booked the day tour to Trollstigen with LocalTrips AS. It was one of the highlights of our 2 plus weeks in Norway. Another day we took a cruise into the Geirangerfjord. Ålesund is a beautiful city to wander on your own.

Recommendations for excursions / self-exploring:

Eidfjord: Voringsfossen
Olden: glacier (x-breen)
Alesund: Geirangerfjord or self-exploring town
Bergen: self-exploring town

Check also forum entries.

This info is fantastic, just what I was looking for
THANK YOU !!!!

We did a wonderful cruise on Royal Caribbean that went all the way to the North Cape in June.
Not sure about the weather in October.

Geirangerfjord was the most impressive fjord. Flam, Alesund and Bergen were great as well.