QShip

Am planning 12 day cruise for Sept or Oct.  We will be taking the train both ways between  Oslo and Bergen and want to include Flam train ride.  Would you suggest it for the beginning of our adventure, or after the cruise? Is it possible to incorporate it into one of the regular trips and still make it to the destination on the same day?  How would one accomplish this, can we purchase a combined ticket?  If we cannot (or should not) do it all in one day how should we arrange where to stay overnight (Flam or Myrdal)?  We have fairly open schedules, and all suggestions are welcome.

Bella0714

Thanks.  Sounds a bit more complicated than we want to handle for our first trip to Norway.

On 10/11/2019 at 2:05 PM, Bella0714 said:

@Homerody: We did see more NL, five times in all, including one night when they went on for over four hours (we were off the ship by that time and in Lofoten).  Then, back on board the Finnmarken, we saw another beautiful display while sailing out of Svolvaer towards Stamsund. The captain was kind enough to turn off the ship's front lights. That was a beautiful display, too. We got very lucky with Northern Lights and fall foliage.

 

Enjoy your trip. We were on two Hurtigruten ships on this trip (Nordnorge and Finnmarken), and although they were very different, we loved both of them. The staff is top-notch. I also recommend trying the ala carte dining room one night, too. The food was really fine.

Bella0714

You say you were on two ships on your cruise.  I am curious why and how that worked.  Did you have a layover to stay a few days along the way, or did you possibly schedule an up and a back instead of the round trip 11-12 day cruise?  We are wondering about an up and a back with a few days in Kirkenes.

Thanks, Sarnia.  I just went to .no after clearing my cache and it will allow me to proceed with a booking.  I am able to follow the booking procedure (in Norsk) by having a parallel window open in the .com site.  Somewhat precarious, but probably do-able.  For some reason when I get that far the .no page will not translate.

Will still work on getting a VPN set up to use, but if that does not work it looks like I will be able to use the above procedure.

Did  it allow you to specify a cabin and proceed to personal information? I was able to pick a date and proceed to pick a cabin, which specified a particular cabin and also allowed a change, but could not get to actual entry of name, address, etc.

I will try it this afternoon.

I can get the translation ok in both Firefox and Chrome, just get to a certain point (choose cabin) and cannot go any further (though Chrome works slightly better).

Looking at booking on .no, .global and .com.  Substantial differences in fares, but have difficulty getting through the entire process on .no and .global.  As soon as I get it set up will see if a VPN helps.

We are interested in a coastal cruise in Sept and are looking at booking through .no.  Does anyone know if this affects the validity of travel insurance?

At the very first stages of planning Norway trip. This thread, (and others) is a great help, but still have questions:

1. Does Sept. show the fall colors yet?  Are there a lot of hardwood trees?

2.  Looking at the Hurtigruten site it looks like many of the cabins are already sold.  Is this in fact the case, or are they just blocked because it is so far out?

3.  Can one expect to arrive back in Bergen and still make the train to Oslo, or just spend the night?

4.  Do the fares posted by Hurtigruten include board, or must you purchase it separately, particularly in the inside cabins?

Tell Me Why.....I should book a cruise if I do not know Perigrina651 is also onboard???

I have been trying to see if the combined cruise fare is less than the fare for each leg, but apparently the combined cruise does not coincide with any individual cruises. In general terms it looks like the combined cruise is cheaper than two individual cruises B2B. Works out to about $200/day.

My experience with purchasing insurance has been that going with non-cruise insurance companies gives broader coverage at less cost. (We use USAA). Fortunately have no experience with claims.

Would any of these work? We are thinking of doing one too!

 

https://www.vikingcruises.com/oceans/cruise-destinations/ocean-river-voyages/index.html

That is what we are looking at. Just hoping for more information, either specific or general.

(This was originally posted to the Cruise Questions board. Moved to Viking Ocean and here at recommendation of long time CC member.):

We have cruised a number of times, on both Holland and Celebrity, and are now considering a combined Viking Ocean and River Cruise for out 50th anniversary. CC apparently does not have any way to zero in on the combined cruise experience, possibly because it is relatively new and limited in popularity. We have a number of questions and would appreciate any advice anyone wants to give:

1. It looks like one must book very early, nearly as soon as the cruise is released, which is a year and a half before departure. What effect does this seem to have on pricing, cancellation and cabin choices? Do cabins open up later in the year?

2. Since they are one-way cruises, what is the best way to coordinate air travel? Fly from the arrival port back to the departure port, or are there other alternatives? Economics of two one way flights vs. one round trip? If one books air through Viking how do they handle it?

3. With the combined experience different than the normal cruise, is it best to do the ocean portion first then the river, or vice versa? Why?

Anything else important I have missed?

Thanks, all. we appreciate the help.

(This was originally posted to the Cruise Questions thread. Moved to here and Viking River boards at suggestion by long time CC member.):

We have cruised a number of times, on both Holland and Celebrity, and are now considering a combined Viking Ocean and River Cruise for out 50th anniversary. CC apparently does not have any way to zero in on the combined cruise experience, possibly because it is relatively new and limited in popularity. We have a number of questions and would appreciate any advice anyone wants to give:

1. It looks like one must book very early, nearly as soon as the cruise is released, which is a year and a half before departure. What effect does this seem to have on pricing, cancellation and cabin choices? Do cabins open up later in the year?

2. Since they are one-way cruises, what is the best way to coordinate air travel? Fly from the arrival port back to the departure port, or are there other alternatives? Economics of two one way flights vs. round trip? If one books air through Viking how do they handle it?

3. With the combined experience different than the normal cruise, is it best to do the ocean portion first then the river, or vice versa? Why?

Anything else important I have missed?

Thanks, all. we appreciate the help.

You might have more success if you post this on both the Viking Ocean forum here, and the river Cruising forum. EM

Thanks, you may be right. Just trying to avoid clogging up the works.

Reposted

We have cruised a number of times, on both Holland and Celebrity, and are now considering a combined Viking Ocean and River Cruise for out 50th anniversary. CC apparently does not have any way to zero in on the combined cruise experience, possibly because it is relatively new and limited in popularity. We have a number of questions and would appreciate any advice anyone wants to give:

1. It looks like one must book very early, nearly as soon as the cruise is released, which is a year and a half before departure. What effect does this seem to have on pricing, cancellation and cabin choices? Do cabins open up later in the year?

2. Since they are one-way cruises, what is the best way to coordinate air travel? Fly from the arrival port back to the departure port, or are there other alternatives? If one books air through Viking how do they handle it?

3. With the combined experience different than the normal cruise, is it best to do the ocean portion first then the river, or vice versa? Why?

Anything else important I have missed?

Thanks, all. we appreciate the help.

We leave soon for Seattle and will report back on our hostel experience.

Thank you all for the information. It was not clear from the deck plans, probably because I am used to the Celebrity ships where there are open decks around the entire ship.

You have all probably saved us several thousand dollars!

Looking at our first Azamara cruise and it appears that Journey does not have much accessible deck space. It looks like there is no outside deck that goes around the ship, and that all open spaces are at the bow and stern, requiring one to go through the center of the ship to get to them. It also restricts what one can observe alongside, and would require traversing the center of the ship to follow something from bow to stern.

We generally spend a lot of our time out of the room on deck, wandering around for the best views, into or out of the sun or wind, etc.

Would we feel closed in if we had an interior cabin? On our Celebrity cruises we often would leave the cabin to walk the ship and not return for several hours.

If we get a balcony cabin we can at least be outside and see things as they go by. Maybe this would be solution.

Departing soon on northbound-southbound Alaska B2B on the Millennium. Has anyone done so recently? How did they handle turnaround? Any benefits such as lunch, laundry, etc?

Thanks, that is helpful.

You are correct, I will probably not have to worry about it!

I have just read this entire thread (which wandered a bit) and liked the approach to the original problem that called for videoing the situation best. But, I think it would be interesting to announce to the (miscreant) 'You do not mind if I record this, do you?'

Would be very interesting to see if there was any change in behavior.

Leaving on an Alaska b2b in a couple of days and planning on visiting the casino for the first time (4th-5th Celebrity cruise). Plan on playing blackjack.

Can anyone give me an idea of the level of play (time and amounts bet) that the casino is looking for to award blue chip status?

Thanks, everyone. It will be our first Azamara cruise, so the benefits will apparently not apply since we cannot qualify as Le Club Voyage members. It does not look like our Celebrity Captain's Club status will help with onboard booking benefits.