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Celebrity vs Princes vs RCI help needed


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Hi

I'm just looking for advice what company to choose to cruise Norvegian fjords. I'm looking for pros and cons. I'm not decided what company to use. What are tours available from ships. Thanks for all Your help

 

Nick

 

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I'd go completely based on itinerary here.  We've sailed Princess, Cunard, NCL, and HAL and found them to be more similar than different.  We did Cunard to Norway and they were lovely.  Princess is generally lovely.  But I'd go for the itinerary on a Norwegian cruise.  

 

If you are doing a shorter fjord cruise, we chose ours for Geiranger and Flam (there are many amazing scenic viewpoints available in Geiranger, and the Flam railway was amazing).  A completely unexpected highlight was Olden, due to the Loen Skylift (which is expensive so price it out before chosing an itinerary with it).   Aleseud is also very popular, although I didn't have a chance to sail there (we traveled with a  2 year old so we could only sail on Cunard since Cunard allows 2 year olds in the kids club).  Please note that the Norwegian government is restricting travel to the heritage fjords (which I believe include Geiranger and Flam) to ships that are environmentally friendly, so please research that if it affects your chosen destinations since there may be very limited ships that can travel there.

 

Also, we did all of our tours as independent ones.  You can do the exact same tours as the cruise lines for less, and with smaller groups from independent vendors.  Just let us know what you want to do and we can recommend vendors (I find it useful to look at the cruise ship tours to decide what to copy)

 

Or else you might want a longer cruise to get all the way up the northern coast.  Others can recommend an itinerary if you can travel that long.

Edited by kitkat343
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Yes, you need to compare itinerary- you can easily plan most excursions at you own - IMO the highlights are sailing the Fjords and going to the viewpoints with amazing views. I do second kitkat343 - my highlights are Geiranger, and Flåm or Olden. Bergen is also a nice city for a day visit.

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I will add that you should also decide if you are interested purely in the fjords or if you would also like to visit the Arctic areas as well. Many longer sailings also travel up to places like Tromsø and Honningsvåg or the beautiful Lofoten Islands (Gravdal, Leknes, or Svolvær). A very few even sail all the way to Svalbard (Longyearbyen).

 

You can visit the fjord areas on a shorter trip, since it requires less distance from the typical embarkation ports. As mentioned, the heritage fjords of Geiranger and Flåm are among the favorites, but we’ve already started to see some itinerary changes from cruise lines that won’t be ready/willing to meet the new standards.

 

This has also created an uptick in alternative fjord ports that are less well known. The easiest way to see which are fjord ports is to pull up the town on Google Maps and see how far inland they are. The farther from open seas, the more scenic cruising you have on the way in and out. And the narrower the waterway, the more dramatic the scenery tends to be.

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  • 1 month later...

If you can afford it, I would recommend Azamara.  Their small ships are able to sail all the way into Troll Fjord (in the Lofoten Islands) and then spin around before sailing out again – you feel like you can touch the walls from the front of the ship!

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On 9/4/2019 at 9:00 PM, Host Jazzbeau said:

If you can afford it, I would recommend Azamara.  Their small ships are able to sail all the way into Troll Fjord (in the Lofoten Islands) and then spin around before sailing out again – you feel like you can touch the walls from the front of the ship!

I did this on my Princess cruise on an excursion from Gravdal (boat ride to Trollfjord). It wasn't one of my highlights of my Norway trip. It was ok and I love fjords.

 

I would look very closely at the ports and also book as long as of a trip as possible. Our cruise was 14 nights. I loved North Cape and Geriangerfjord. I wish we had done Flam.

Edited by Coral
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