Thoughts on Norway and the Koningsdam

[Donny-Joe]

We're just finishing up our last day on the Koningsdam after visiting Oslo, Kristiansand, Stavanger and Flam. We had a fantastic time overall, and I thought I might jot down a few random notes that may be of interest.

 

On the ship:

 

• The ship is immaculate and we really like the overall decor. It's lighter in color with a somewhat more modern feeling, but still with a lot of classic elements.
  
• The larger size definitely is noticeable, but it's not too big.
  
• The Royal Dutch Cafe is a big winner, with us and with the rest of the passengers, judging by the number of people we have seen in there. The Dutch snacks were a big hit with our teenage sons. They're there eating poffertjes right now.
  
• The Blend program where you make your own wine was great; we were glad we tried it. They basically give you five red wines to taste: two cabernet sauvignons, two merlots and a cabernet franc. All five are solid wines that are used in Chateau Ste Michelle's premium blends. You taste all five, write notes as to which you like, and then select a ratio of wines you like and make one small glass worth (100ml) of your recipe, using a graduated cylinder to measure out exact amouts. You taste that blend and talk to the vinologist about it, and she suggests changes you might try. You make another glass with an adjusted blend and taste the two back and forth. You might make a third blend if you like. Usually people settle on one of their first two, and the vinologist makes up a full bottle of the result. The wine just has a stopper in it, which is not sealed enough to travel with, realistically. You kind of need to drink your bottle on the cruise. That's pretty easy; you just take it to dinner. No corkage fee applies.
  
• Sel De Mer had great food, but it did feel a little odd to have an a la carte restaurant on a ship where you already have food included. The prices don't seem any lower than the prices for similar restaurants on shore. It didn't stop us from trying it, and the restaurant seemed full every time we went by. It's pretty small; maybe twenty tables?
  
• We haven't tried the culinary center as a restaurant yet (that's tonight), but we went to it for a cooking demo, and overall it's not as good as the Nieuw Amsterdam for watching a demo. There's a lot of the space that really has no direct view of the cooking, so you have to watch it on the monitors. It does seem like a pretty good space for a restaurant.
  
• We tried a Vista Suite, which is basically a slightly longer verandah cabin. It's a lovely cabin, but the bathroom has a quirk or two. For tall people (like me), you can't sit on the toilet straight without bumping your knees on the shower (which has a glass wall and door). You have to sit at a slight angle. Not a huge problem, but not optimal. You also have to pull the shower door closed hard to get it to stay closed; the seal on the hinge side pushes against the hinges and tends to push the door open. It can be annoying until you get the trick to keeping it closed. Pretty minor issues from my perspective. Otherwise the space is well laid out. Plenty of power outlets everywhere, which is great. They have the same interactive TV as on the Nieuw Amsterdam, which has some issues with over-compression of some of the content, but I don't know if anyone other than a video nerd like me would care.
  
• The piano bar has a nice new space with twin pianos so they can do dueling piano shows. Unfortunately the pianos are electronic (though there are real pianos elsewhere on the ship), and the sound system is not optimal. There was very little bass coming from the speakers, making the pianos sound somewhat tinny. Real pianos or a better sound system would help that area a lot. On our cruise, the piano duo were good pianists and singers, but not quite as good at working the crowd as the piano guy on our previous cruise.
  

About Norway:

• If you do the itinerary that visits Oslo, I highly recommend going to Vigeland Park. The statues that Vigeland carved for the park are quite striking, and the setting is lovely. We also walked around the palace gardens and watched a changing of the guard, and did a bus tour of the city.
  
• Kristiansand seemed not to have much going on. We went to an outdoor museum outside of town with older buildings and recreations of Norwegian history, which was nice.
  
• Stavanger had a great pedestrian shopping area, and we took a cruise out to pulpit rock. The rock itself was not that exciting, but the fjord it's in is lovely.
  
• Flam is a tiny town that's basically just a jumping-off point for excursions, sort of like Skagway in Alaska. We did the train up the fjord and back, which was well worth doing. I wish we had also booked a boat tour of the Naeroyfjord, but perhaps next time. There's an amazing new sightseeing ship that I saw called "Vision of the Fjords" that runs out of Flam. It has tiered viewing decks connected by ramps, and it's purpose-built for fjord viewing. Here's a link to some pictures: http://www.braa.no/news/ms-vision-of-the-fjords-delivered-to-the-fjords
  

[madera1]

Thank you for sharing your impressions of this new ship. Happy to hear positive comments.

[puppycanducruise]

Thank you for taking the time to post your comments.

Sounds like a good itinerary on a fine new ship.

[Daisygirl06]

We are getting on the 21 day cruise leaving next Sunday. Just a quick question about local currency... Did you find that you needed any local currency in Norway for smaller items, shops, or bathrooms?

Thanks for your thoughts about your cruise. We are doing the same itinerary the last 7 days.

[JJPacer]

We are getting on the 21 day cruise leaving next Sunday. Just a quick question about local currency... Did you find that you needed any local currency in Norway for smaller items, shops, or bathrooms?

Thanks for your thoughts about your cruise. We are doing the same itinerary the last 7 days.

 

We did not take any Norwegian Krone. We took Euros. Euros were widely accepted. We got a debit card with a pin number that had no foreign transaction fees and no currency exchange fees and used it wherever it was accepted. The debit card was accepted everywhere in Norway. We spent 4 days in Amsterdam after the cruise. The debit card was accepted just about everywhere. The smaller non chain restaurants wanted to be paid in Euros. We used our debit card at a bank ATM machine to get more Euros, and there was no fee for that transaction. As far as the bathroom goes...we just walked into a hotel. Every hotel has a bathroom off the lobby area, and used that restroom. You'll have a great trip.

[Donny-Joe]

We are getting on the 21 day cruise leaving next Sunday. Just a quick question about local currency... Did you find that you needed any local currency in Norway for smaller items, shops, or bathrooms?

Thanks for your thoughts about your cruise. We are doing the same itinerary the last 7 days.

 

We got some Krone out of an ATM in our first stop (Oslo), and it came in handy occasionally, mostly for convenience. I did have a situation where a taxi driver's wireless credit card reader kept failing to connect, and I was glad to have cash in that situation. We ended up with a bunch left over, which we used for tips.

 

Most places in tourist areas will also accept Euros, but not at a good exchange rate. And they give back change in Krone.

[Karennella]

We had the same four ports in Norway in May. We ended up making late bookings of ship's tours in Oslo, Kristiansand and Stavanger as well as in the morning in Flam. We had found that doing it ourselves in the earlier part of the cruise in Spain etc was not the greatest for us. We were really glad we ended up doing it the way we did and enjoyed every tour. The guides were exceptional.

As most of the tours were half day, we went back onto the ship for lunch and they mostly included a snack. We found the prices in Norway high, especially after having been touring in Puglia before our cruise. So we ended up spending very little and did not need local cash. However the last day our guide offered to change about twenty euros for us . We did because he wa such a great guide that we wanted to tip him and gave most of it back at the end.

All the souvenirs in Stavanger at the market were from Peru, we recognised them from having been there last year. I asked the price of a nice knitted jacket in Oslo, which was local, and it was about $US600. Of course, had I wanted it I would have charged it.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Thanks for the review ..

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for giving us a report on your thoughts about the Koningsdam.

I don't like the idea that they do not have real pianos in the Piano Bar.

[Donny-Joe]

I don't like the idea that they do not have real pianos in the Piano Bar.

 

I don't love it, though there are very good electronic pianos that can sound excellent with proper amplification and speakers. In this case, they're missing the proper amplification and/or speakers.

 

If you look at pictures of the piano bar space, you can see what look like baby grand pianos, but those are just shells. The actual keyboards fit into the shell, leaving most of the space empty. If the label on the front of the "piano" is "Slam Grand," that's a shell. You can also just look at the keyboard and note the blinky lights on it and the various buttons for sound presets and so forth.

 

I'm pretty sure that for other shows like Lincoln Center Stage they used an actual grand piano, but to be honest I didn't look close enough at it to be sure. Perhaps it was a larger "Slam Grand."

 

I actually think they could just add some bass woofer units under the piano shells to beef up the low range and it would improve the sound 100%. But I am not an expert on cruise ship sound amplification. :)

[Donny-Joe]

Additional thoughts:

 

• We did try the culinary center dinner on the last night. It was really good! The chef and staff made the food right there in the show kitchen, and they encouraged people to get up and watch and ask questions, which several of us did. The food was not vegetarian (there were vegetarian options), but many of the dishes revolved around vegetables in various forms. Plenty of butter, cream and olive oil was involved. The meal wasn't really "light," but it was a fun contrast to the more traditional food in the main dining room, Pinnacle Grill, etc. Lots of vegetable and fruit purees and foams; plenty of interesting greens, plus some very nice fish or rib-eye for the entree.
  
• As has been reported here, they offer four drink packages on the Koningsdam ranging from just a Coke Freestyle cup to an "Elite" package that covers drinks up to $15 instead of $8. Now, here's the odd thing - when I reviewed my bill at the end of the week, every drink I ordered that cost less than $15 was credited back on my bill. Maybe they credited Explore 4 guests with the Elite package and didn't inform us? If so, that's kind of annoying. In any case, some bugs are being worked out, it seems. If you have Explore 4 and go on the Koningsdam, I'd double-check what package shows up on your account once you're on the ship.
  
• Our kids moved up to two-star Mariners while on this cruise, and were given two-star pins. We became two star on the last cruise, but have never gotten pins. Should we call and ask for them? Are they useful in any way, or just another miscellaneous collectible?
  
• The sriracha in the Lido was Roland brand, which sadly is not as good as Huy Fong (the famous "rooster" sauce). First world problems! :)
  

[Daisygirl06]

We got some Krone out of an ATM in our first stop (Oslo), and it came in handy occasionally, mostly for convenience. I did have a situation where a taxi driver's wireless credit card reader kept failing to connect, and I was glad to have cash in that situation. We ended up with a bunch left over, which we used for tips.

 

Most places in tourist areas will also accept Euros, but not at a good exchange rate. And they give back change in Krone.

 

Thanks so much for your reply. Also thanks to JJPacer.

Now only 2 days more of work and then we fly "across the pond" on Thursday. :)

Thanks to all posters in the past few months about the Koningsdam! It really has helped us live vicariously until it was our time!!

[easyboy]

Thank you for sharing

[erewhon]

Thank you for your comments.

[ipoder]

We love to get out on our own and go for a walk, or hike, but not too many hills. The ports look perfect for walking. Have you met anyone who just discovered on foot? Are there hiking paths? Thanks for the info on the ports. We are going in June...wonder what to expect weather wise?

[Galley Slave]

We love to get out on our own and go for a walk, or hike, but not too many hills. The ports look perfect for walking. Have you met anyone who just discovered on foot? Are there hiking paths? Thanks for the info on the ports. We are going in June...wonder what to expect weather wise?

 

There are a lot of trails in Flam. We walked along the fjord and up to Otterness Farms. It was about a six mile hike, level most of the way. The farm doesn't open until June. There were other trails that had more gain in elevation. Rick Steves' Snapshot book of Norway was a great resource for all of the ports.

[ipoder]

There are a lot of trails in Flam. We walked along the fjord and up to Otterness Farms. It was about a six mile hike, level most of the way. The farm doesn't open until June. There were other trails that had more gain in elevation. Rick Steves' Snapshot book of Norway was a great resource for all of the ports.

 

Thanks so much for the Rick Steves idea! I would never have thought of using his book for a port stop.

[Galley Slave]

Thanks so much for the Rick Steves idea! I would never have thought of using his book for a port stop.

 

The Tourist Information office in Flam has a great map of all the trails in the area. We were there at the end of May and wore windbreakers over a sweater or a fleece vest. I took gloves and a hat and only wore them once.

[linpt]

I was also on the same itinerary last week in Norway.

We did our own walking around in Oslo and Kristiansand. Highly recommend the Bygdoy ferry to Bygdoy Island in Oslo. The Viking museum, Kon Tiki museum, and the Fram were really interesting and worthwhile,

 

Did HAL excursions in Stavengar and Flam Stavengar Past and Present went to a cool Iron Age Farm, an archeological museum and the Petroleum museum and a walk through the old town. All were really good - excellent guide

 

Instead of the train in Flam , we took the boat trip up the Naeroyfjord - absolutely beautiful and then a bus ride through the area to a small village on Aurlandsfjord.

 

So many good choices for the port days. We really enjoyed ours.

[Dana Deem]

Donny Joe, where did you get the debit card? We're going Next July for our 44th anniversary with a 4 day pre-stay. Did you stay at suggested hotel? We've gone on 54 cruises but not Norway, so looking forward to it! We're booked in our fav, Neptune suite. Love reading what to expect. Thanks for all info. P S If you haven't done Antarctica...Do It!

[KAKcruiser]

You can call or email the mariner society and ask for the two star pins.

[Donny-Joe]

Donny Joe, where did you get the debit card? We're going Next July for our 44th anniversary with a 4 day pre-stay. Did you stay at suggested hotel? We've gone on 54 cruises but not Norway, so looking forward to it! We're booked in our fav, Neptune suite. Love reading what to expect. Thanks for all info. P S If you haven't done Antarctica...Do It!

 

Hi, we didn't use a debit card. We used the Chase Sapphire, which doesn't have any foreign-transaction fees. We stayed at the Doubletree Amsterdam, which is extremely convenient to the train station and the cruise terminal. We took a cab because the weather was iffy, but it could be walked easily enough.

[Donny-Joe]

You can call or email the mariner society and ask for the two star pins.

 

Thanks! I did call, and they sent us 4-star pins. Bit of confusion there. Well, at this rate we'll be there soon enough. :)