Bad experience with Norway in a Nutshell fjord tour

welcome to the forum, papahronis. Sorry your experience was disappointing. I'm not sure that there is much "preplanning" the company can do with regard to the ferry as they are not the boat operator, they purchase seats from various ferry companies. I suspect during this extremely busy time of year, there aren't many extra ferries to bring into service at the very last moment as you described. You are fortunate they provided a full refund as their refund policy is pretty strict (they don't even refund if there is a transit strike).

Unfortunately things break and if the tours are busy there may be few options.

I'm sorry you had a disappointing experience. It's always difficult when mechanical or weather delays or strikes disrupt our plans.

FjordTours has a very good reputation. It's unfortunate, but there is little they can do to plan for the rare occurrence of a technical issue. Unlike airlines, there are not many boats already in position that can handle the 100s of passengers that would be affected by a cancellation.

My favorite part of the Norway in a Nutshell tour was taking the Flam railway down into the fjord where we caught a fast ferry to Bergen. We finally got in about dark.

I always heard that the fjords were beautiful. They were okay but far from the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

The young adults were 5 ft. 11 inch gals and 6 ft. 4 inch guys--natural blondes. They were perhaps the most beautiful and sweetest people imaginable.

"they refused to provide any other compensation'

I can understand your disappointment, but I'm not sure what else you could expect other than a refund. You paid money for something they couldn't provide, they gave you your money back. End of story.

In addition to getting your money back, how much money did you want as compensation for you cancelling the tour?

I did a do-it-yourself NIN tour years ago from Bergen to Oslo, and a fire on the railroad tracks between Flam and Oslo necessitated stranded travelers take a bus for the rest of the trip (Flam to Oslo). We needed to get to Oslo, so we took the bus, and it was a fairly interesting ride that could not have been much different from whatever the train would have provided. I had booked the lodging and transit components of the trip myself, if that matters, rather than relying on a tour company to tie it all together for me.

Things happen, maybe better to roll with the punches next time? Travel is full of these kinds of glitches, as posts in these threads will attest to...you got a refund, not sure what else you expect for your decision to cancel the whole thing.

Better luck next time.

Any time you travel there is a chance that things will not go as planned. You learn to deal with those issues.

I can’t help but feel that Papahronis is actually mad at themselves for cancelling the tour too soon. I mean they wanted Fjord Tours to find another boat, but cancelled the tour before giving them time to do so.

I’m sorry I lost all interest when they said they got refund but they want more compensation

We have a reservation for tomorrow (7/29) and just got the same cruise segment cancellation email stating that they will provide bus service between Flam and Gudvangen instead of the fjord cruise. The email was sent at 7:30pm local time tonight and our train departs Oslo at 8:12am. We tried calling the support line but they are closed for the day. I hear the other posters saying we should “roll with it”, which is probably our only choice because the rest of our itinerary depends on us getting to Bergen tomorrow night. However, the major attraction of taking this 14 hour journey is to cruise a fjord. Are there any other last minute options to consider?

We tried calling the support line but they are closed for the day. I hear the other posters saying we should “roll with it”, which is probably our only choice because the rest of our itinerary depends on us getting to Bergen tomorrow night.

How many nights do you have in Bergen? There are regularly scheduled ferries that you can take all the way to Flam and back. Would eat up the better part of a day, but you get to see the fjord.

You could book, like now, on the 4pm Lustraabatane boat from Flam, arrive Gudvangen 6pm, then on the 7.25pm Vybus#450 from the E16 junction at Gudvangen, arrive Voss 8.34pm for the 9.09 train, arrive Bergen 10.29 pm

EDIT- the Norled boat direct to Bergen at 3.30pm is booked full, so isn't an option.

Thank you! We booked the 4pm cruise and VY450 bus as “plan B” just in case Fjord Tours does not come up with another option. If we end up using plan B, we are going to ask Fjord Tours to compensate us for the excess cost. We’ll see… :-)

Update: Fjord Tours says they will reimburse us for the cost of our alternate cruise. Thanks again!!!

Honestly hearing this story it makes me think they have mechanical issues more often than you’d think.

We did Bergen - Balestrand - Flam - Oslo with them and the cruise portion was fine. However, when we got to Flam we boarded the Flam Railway and half way up the ride the train broke down. We were forced to return to Flam and had to wait about 2.5 hours until busses were arranged and arrived. It was all fairly hectic and obviously for some missing this train portion was a huge loss. The woman who was attempting to deal with this also seemed to be leaning that this happens more than you’d think.

I do give them credit however that although it took 2.5 hours busses did arrive and we eventually got to Oslo. Some people waiting around were very agitated and “couldn’t believe” how long it was all taking

I kind of laughed at these people and told them, if you think this is actually “bad” I guess you haven’t had to deal with an actually bad situation where people simply
Do not deal with the issue lol..

There seems to be some confusion about the fjord ferry options out of Flam. The highly scenic trip, which is part of the classic Norway in a Nutshell route, is from Flam to,Gidvangen. It traverses the Naeroyfjord. There is also express boat service from Flam to Bergen, but the express boat doesn't go into the Naeroyfjord. The express boat travels along the Sognefjord, which is not as narrow and therefore considerably less scenic. It is the latter route that David took and found not all that impressive.

The express boat is not a good substitute for the Naeroyfjord ferry.

But what the Norled ferry does do, which no other public boat does is to go to Skjolden up the Lustra fjord, and it does go part way down to Gudvangen (about half way down the fjord). It is actually public transport for 12 settlements down the fjord and through the Bergen archipelago.
The Lustra fjord is another great fjord, sometimes cruise ships go down there for a set down only stop at Skjolden for bus excursions, returning to Flam in the evening.
Through the Archipelago Norled takes a different route to the Hurtigruten through some fairly narrow seaways. I look forward to the last few hours on an inbound Hurtigruten sailing in the same way as sailing in or out of Stockholm.
You can also get a full meal service on the Norled ferry.

Swings and roundabouts. And being public transport you also burst out of the tight little tourist bubble.
There are a lot of little visited (by tourists) islands in the Archipelago, with quite large populations. Askoy is the only one I've explored in decent depth.

This should be the kind of thing the forum is good at, rather than keeping to a tightly prescribed tourist route.