June 2018 Sapphire Princess - Norway - Excursions?

[Opie]

Hello -- we are cruising the Sapphire Princess cruise in June to Norway and would love any suggestions on excursions in Olden, Hellesylt/Geiranger, and Bergen! Thanks in advance!

[NaughtyNanna]

Hello -- we are cruising the Sapphire Princess cruise in June to Norway and would love any suggestions on excursions in Olden, Hellesylt/Geiranger, and Bergen! Thanks in advance!

Hi Opie. I did a Norway/Iceland cruise with HAL in 2016. Have a look at Cruisingexcursions.com. I booked a few tours with them, and all were very good. Both places are so beautiful and you can easily fill in the days with do-it-yourself exploring. However the Eagle Rd/Dalsnibba tour in Geiranger is spectacular and not to be missed! It was half the price of the ship's excursion, and there were only around 8 of us in a mini-van rather than 50 odd in a large coach!

 

Regards

Jan

[trvlwrld]

the rib boats into the smaller fjords was absolutely amazing-only 8 in a boat and you get to go farther into out of the way tiny villages and are up close to both land and water wildlife—-pricey but worth every $$$

[DRS/NC]

Hi, Opie!

 

Friends & I are on that cruise too. Thanks for posting this question -- helps me too.

[Opie]

Hi Opie. I did a Norway/Iceland cruise with HAL in 2016. Have a look at Cruisingexcursions.com. I booked a few tours with them, and all were very good. Both places are so beautiful and you can easily fill in the days with do-it-yourself exploring. However the Eagle Rd/Dalsnibba tour in Geiranger is spectacular and not to be missed! It was half the price of the ship's excursion, and there were only around 8 of us in a mini-van rather than 50 odd in a large coach!

Thanks for the pointer. I see that Eagle Rd/Dalsnibba tour is either $100pp or $330pp -- not sure why the difference, but would you say that the Eagle Rd tour is ok for seniors in their 70s?

[NaughtyNanna]

Thanks for the pointer. I see that Eagle Rd/Dalsnibba tour is either $100pp or $330pp -- not sure why the difference, but would you say that the Eagle Rd tour is ok for seniors in their 70s?

This is the one I did:

https://www.cruisingexcursions.com/excursion/eagle-road-flydalsjuvet-viewpoint-and-mount-dalsnibba-18068#/more-info

 

Note the cost on the link is in AU$. As far as being ok for seniors, I was 65 when I did it, and from memory there was very little walking. What there was, was very easy. Unless you have real mobility issues, you will be fine. :D I don't think it went to the Norsk Fjord Centre/World Heritage Centre when I did it though. I walked up there when I was back in Geiranger later on in the cruise. It was really interesting there as well, and showed a great panoramic movie.

 

Regards

Jan

[TonyM99]

Hi All we did a cruise last June and in fact are going back again this time on the longer 14 day cruise in June - To answer the OP -In Bergen we walked off the ship rode the Funicular and then walked up to various lookout points and then walked back down to ship - The hike down was a bit of a challenge but very enjoyable and the scenery great - This time we will probably explore more of the town

Olden - Got off the boat and straight outside went into the tourist office and booked the Glacier Bus - The trip gives you plenty of time to walk up to the glacier through the waterfalls and at a fraction of the cost of the boat tour which has less time at the summit - At other ports we just walked - Haven't done much planning for this June yet but Im sure most of the time we will walk and find our own things

[kitkat343]

Norway was beautiful, and Olden and Geiranger were two of our favorite ports there.

 

We were extremely fortunate to learn that the Loen Skylift opened three days prior to our arrival in Olden. 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. It is extremely easy for families and travelers with disabilities to access, and was one of our favorite stops in Norway.

 

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.

 

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 in the 2017 season the bus left 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.

One of the other cities we chose this cruise for was Geiranger. Visitors should please note that if you are planning on driving to the beautiful scenic viewpoints at Dalsnibba that Road 63 opens between mid-May and early June, depending upon how long it takes to clear the snow and when the avalanche risk has ended (the engineers wait until the big spring avalanche occurs before opening the road). You should consider choosing a cruise that visits later to ensure you will be able to experience all of the beauty of Geiranger.

 

In Geiranger, Geiranger Fjordservice is the dominant tour operator. We booked a private limousine tour for just our family to visit the various scenic viewpoints. When I was organizing the tour, I emailed the company to request that they provide a car seat booster for my 6 year old. I was told that they did not have this, and we’d need to bring it . After the cruise, I learned that transportation services in Norway are required by law to provide car seats upon request.

 

I had also emailed them ahead of time to request that we stop at a goat farm by a lake we were scheduled to visit. Their company told me in email that they could not arrange a visit ahead of time, but we could stop our car and visit with the goats if they were along the fence.

Geiranger Fjordservice runs buses to the attractions we visited, but we booked a much more expensive private tour for our family so we’d have control over the itinerary, which is important when you are traveling with small children. Unfortunately, when we asked if we could stop at the goat farm that was just down the road from our last stop, our driver told us that in Norway it was illegal for anyone to visit a farm without proper vaccinations. If this is correct, then it would be quite odd since Norway’s travel website includes a link to the goat farm experience we undertook in Flam. My kids were starting to get a bit carsick after the long drives through the hairpin roads in Geiranger, so I didn’t argue with the driver about the fact that we were told by the office in email it would be possible to stop (we saw the goats from the road so it would have been easy to visit). If other families are trying to visit please note that the goat farm that is located at the first curve off Eagle road from Geiranger, near the lake they will probably take you to. Hopefully other families will have more luck being able to visit there.

 

Visitors should note that the viewing platforms in Geiranger are amazing (especially on a clear day) but there are hairpin roads to reach them, and it could be a little challenging if you are prone to car sickness. I would not recommend using Geirangerfjordservice for private transportation because the driver should have agreed to take us where we wanted to go like we were promised in our emails with this company, but they do run a group tour bus to the panoramic viewing stations and it seems unlikely travelers would experience the problems we did, since most of the reviews on tripadvisor are positive for this company. You'd want a tour that visits places like this in Geiranger: https://www.geirangerfjord.no/panorama-exclusive-bus .

 

At the end of the tour, we decided to stop for lunch in Geiranger. We were a little scared to stop at Braserie Posten, since it is in a tourist trap location right near the cruise ship terminal, but the yelp reviews were positive and the food was excellent. There is seating with a beautiful view of the harbor in the back of the restaurant. We went through two bowls of fish soup, since the kids were so happy eating all of it. It is a very short walk from this restaurant to the dock, so this is a nice way to conclude your day in Geiranger.

 

There has been an explosion in tourism to Norway after Frozen was released, and many new attractions like the Geiranger Skywalk and Loen Skylift have been opened and make the beauty of Norway very accessible for families and travelers with disabilities.

[TonyM99]

Just looked at The Princess excursion costs today - Unbelievable don't think I've ever seen such a selection of expensive trips - Do our own thing / tours as usual as on most previous cruises including last years short Norway cruise

[elaine5]

Bergen--Hanseatic Museum. Old house and then merchant's headquarters (where workers also lived) a short walk away (or free shuttle) and then free shuttle to fishing museum (only went b/c it was raining, but then we actually enjoyed this with our teens). All included in ticket--just buy onsite.

The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns. Growing from a few North German towns in the late 1100s, the league came to dominate Baltic maritime trade for three centuries along the coast of Northern Europe. It stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages and declined slowly after 1450.

We also were going to go on funicular (you can prepurchase tickets for a small fee online) and then hike back down--but skipped b/c rain.