hillswood

I am looking to explore Gran Canaria, Madeira and Lanzarote from the cruise ship on my own and not use the ships excursions. Any tips on the best places to see in 4/5 hours? And what transport to use. 

My family and I are cruising in March 2020 and would welcome any tips or advice about visiting the following ports independently as we do not want to book the ships tours. 

We are visiting Dubai, Abu Dhabi , Sir Bani Yas Island, Muscat and Khasab. We have 4 year olds with us so child centred ideas also welcome . Thanks ....

My husband and I ( from UK) are hoping to visit Alaska for the first ( and probably only ) time next year in 2019. We were hoping to do a cruisetour as we want to experience Denali and the land, as well as cruise down the inside passage. Any recommendations for cruise companies and itineraries would be very helpful. We are thinking of June/ July and want to cruise down to Vancouver.

Thank you for your advice. I was planning exactly the same things so you have confirmed that I am right to do these things. :)

Thank you so much for your speedy reply and very informative posting. I will certainly follow up on your suggestions.

We traveled to Flam and Olden with a 2 and 6 year old last May, and loved all of our independent excursions. Those were two of our favorite stops, so I'm glad you'll be visiting them. The approach to Flam is gorgeous, so try to be outside for part of the sail in or out.

 

If you want to ride the amazing Flam railway, you should book this first, since the railway tickets tend to book up quickly during the height of the tour season. The Flam railway is a five minute walk from where you dock or tender, so this can easily be undertaken as an independent excursion. We booked our tickets online at the Norwegian Railways site at https://www.nsb.no/en/?gclid=CMuvnubiitMCFYoy0wodZb8BnQ .

If that site is showing that everything is booked, other cruise critic posters have mentioned trying http://booking.visitflam.com/en/to-do/a1488268/the-flåm-railway/showdetails , and other posters have stated that this site has access to different tickets and sometimes has availability even when the Norwegian railway site lists no availability. Also, people have reported on the forums that when the train was initially sold out, they kept checking and eventually tickets opened up due to cancellations. Another option is to check with your cruise line – it will be more expensive to purchase this excursion through the cruise line but worth it if you cannot purchase the tickets independently.

 

A quick online search seemed to recommend that you should sit on the right side of the train on the Flam to Myrdal journey. The view on that side was quite lovely, but might also be on the other side.

 

In Flam, we had a lovely afternoon visiting a goat farm, exploring the beautiful town of Undredal, and then eating local cheeses (including brown caramel goat cheese) and a delicious lunch that was organized by Flam Guide Service (http://www.fjordsafari.com). Fjord Safari's booth is located about a minute away from the Flam railway platform, so you will have no problem finding your tour. You can combine this tour with a hike and boat ride along the fjords if your group is all physically fit. It was a very pleasant and enjoyable excursion, which I would highly recommend. We traveled in May, before the goats move to their summer farms so this excursion had to be individually arranged. Flam Guide service stayed in contact with us and gave us updates as they worked to book this reservation, and they also helpfully provided car seats for our children. Our tour guide was highly knowlegdable and helpful and this tour was one of the highlights of our cruise.

 

 

We were extremely fortunate to learn that the Loen Skylift opened three days prior to our arrival in Olden. I was a bit anxious about the logistics of visiting a brand new attraction with small children, and the owner of Olden Adventures was very patient and reassuring. As it turned out, the weather was a bit rainy on the day we arrived, so there were very few crowds. It was still a very beautiful location, with a gorgeous viewing platform. On nice days, paragliders take off from the mountain (that happened the day before we arrived) and that must be spectacular to see if you are lucky enough to get good weather. The food in the restaurant was excellent, especially the sample platter of local meat. It’s unsurprisingly expensive, but the view is outstanding and the food delicious.

 

The Loen Skylift is only a 6 km bus ride from Olden, so it isn’t very difficult to get there. Olden Adventures ( http://www.oldenadventure.com/) is running shuttles to the Loen Skylift, right next to their buses to the Biksdal Glacier so it would be very easy to travel to both attractions through Olden Adventures. Both buses leave from the only petrol station in town, which is a very short walk from where your ship will dock.

 

You can also take a cab to the Loen skylift. It is a 40 minute ride to the Briksdal Glacier, so a cab there would probably be quite a bit more expensive. Please note that cabs will refuse to transport children without car seats, and although they are required to provide them upon request we were unable to fill any taxi requests we made (we only emailed the taxi companies 2 days in advance; you might have better luck if you contact cab companies far in advance).

 

The most economical option for getting to the Briksdal Glacier is a public bus that runs from June –August. The Norway tourist office stated that it leaves Port Olden at 9:58 am, and departs Biksdal Glacier at 1:30 pm, and is currently listed as costing 132 NOK for each adult ticket. You might want to contact the tourist office to see if there is any way to purchase tickets ahead of time or if they can run additional buses if the first one is full.

 

The Briksdal Glacier has been hit hard by global warming, but the 40 minute bus ride there is quite scenic and lovely, as is the hike itself to the glacier so overall this excursion is a very good choice as long as you realize ahead of time that the most beautiful pictures online of the glacier showing lots of ice are not recent and don’t represent what you will see at the glacier.

 

For travelers with young children or mobility issues, there are troll cars available for rent to reduce the length of your hike. These golf carts travel most of the way to the glacier, leaving you with a very pleasant and relatively flat 700 m walk. Since we didn’t expect my 2 year old to make it all the way to the glacier, my husband and 6 year old went ahead of us. To my surprise, my 2 year old slowly but steadily made the entire hike in the allocated time (they tell you what time to return to the platform to catch your return troll car). Reservations are required for troll cars in May and October, and recommended during the summer months (the troll car season runs from May-October). The only challenging thing is that they do request that you tell them what time you’d like to ride on the troll car, which is hard if you want to chose a time to do this excursion based upon the weather forecast (although it is completely understandable they ask you to pick a time, since otherwise there might be a lot of people trying to get on a troll car at one time and this would cause really long delays). I don’t know if the troll car operators are always flexible about the time of your reservation, but we changed our minds about what time to visit the glacier on the day we traveled since we wanted to visit the Loen skylift in the afternoon when the weather was scheduled to be better. I emailed the troll car operators at 9 am as soon as we got on the bus towards the glacier, and they had already switched my reservation by the time we arrived at the troll car office. We traveled in May, when things are less crowded so I don’t know if they will be able to accommodate a change in reservation time during the busy summer months. The troll car website where you can make your advance reservation is available at: http://www.oldedalenskysslag.com .

 

Near where you pick up the troll car is a small café off the souvenir shop; they have excellent waffles. They are best freshly made, so if you have time keep an eye on the plate where they store the waffles and order them when everyone else bought up the older waffles. My family started off by ordering 4, and ended up eating 12 (the kids really loved them and since they’d just finished hiking to a glacier without a single complaint I wasn’t going to say no), so we were able to get a lot of fresh waffles.

Thank you so much for your speedy reply and very informative posting. I will certainly follow up on your suggestions.

My husband and I are visiting Flam , Olden and Andalsnes in July. We prefer to explore independently and so any advice, tips or suggestions about where to go , what to see and how to get there would be most welcome . Thanks

My husband and I are visiting Flam, Olden and Andalsnes in July and we prefer to explore independently. We would welcome any recommendations /tips/ advice on where to go , what to visit and how to do it? Thanks.

My husband and I live in the UK and are planning a first time cruisetour to Alaska next June /July 2019. We were thinking of a landtour of at least 7 days then a southbound cruise back to Vancouver. However reading several posts a few people were recommending doing an independent land tour to see as much as possible then joining a cruise. We don't really want to hire a car so wondered if there was a way of joining a small group tour in a minibus by a local company. Any tips, ideas would be much appreciated .Thanks