Hurtigruten cruises

Our Hurtigruten experience is extremely limited but I am replying in absence of someone else with more shipboard experience offering comment. Our on-board experience was limited to bing deck passengers overnight voyage between the village of Mehamn to Kirkenes on the Nordnorge about 10 years ago. As deck passengers (no cabin) we slept on the Panorama Deck 7 using the day benches as beds while several others in our group retrieved their sleeping bags from their packs and used the floor.

I woke at night several times, more likely because of the comfort or lack of comfort of not sleeping in a bed, and watched the docking and unload/load activities during the late night hours. I don't recall the activity being unusually noisy, but they are using thrusters to dock, opening hatches, and moving both cars and pallets on and off the vessel. It's a working boat servicing Norway's remote coastal communities.

I would imagine that the cabins in the upper deck above the dining deck may be less noisy while cabins just above or below the car deck would be nosier. But that said, I didn't think that the port operations were too disturbing.

Our Nordnorge experience took place during Easter week with night being dark. You may have more sleep distress from the midsummer sun and absence of night than noise. Presumably cabins have blackout curtains. The other sleep disrupter may be all the wonderful scenery that the ship steams pass. The scenery does not stop just because it is time to sleep.

In addition to any replies you get here, be sure to look around Cruise Critic. To get you started, here's their Hurtigruten Forum: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=821

I did the Bergen to Tromso route in 2007, and loved it. I was one of only 3 Americans on the ship (according to staff). Lots of Germans, Norwegians, and other Europeans, as well as some Australians. I did an excursion every day, and also loved watching the ship being loaded and unloaded at the ports. After the trip, I met up with my Norwegian husband, who was in Oslo on business (we live in CA). We've often talked of doing the entire route together. it really is a unique experience.

Hello
We went on the MS Lofoten from Bergen to Kirkenes in July 2014. It is the smallest and oldest of the Hurtigruten line but was fantastic to travel on. With only about 200 passengers it seemed much more personal than being on the much larger ships. I guess it really depends on your tastes whether you want a smaller ship where you can actually get to know people or a huge cruise line style ship. Our room seemed to be above the engine room so was noisey but we still slept quite well. The stops at the small towns in the night weren't a problem on this ship because the cargo is loaded at the front of the ship and also no cars or trucks are on board. As for excursions, we booked the Nord Cap trip before we left from home and while on board booked the Viking feast which is offered in the Lofoten Islands. Both were very good tours, especially the Nord Cap trip, even though the weather was less than ideal (slightly foggy) at Nord Cap it was an experience to be there.
We were lucky with the weather in the week we travelled, seas were extremely calm and with the exception of 2 nights when it was cloudy we had beautiful weather.
Food onboard is very good and each night the menu is changed to reflect the cuisine of the area.
We are actually thinking of repeating the trip at some other time of the year so we can see the coastline and country side with snow. After leaving the ship we stayed in Kirkenes for a couple of nights before flying Tromsø. All in all we stayed for 6 weeks in Norway.
By now, you have probably booked your trip so have a great time.
Happy travels