Norway in a Nutshell from the BIE cruise - recommend?

[longterm]

We'll be on the British Isles Explorer cruise next summer; I just saw something about the Norway in a Nutshell tour, and am wondering what the general consensus is concerning this tour.

 

We have only 1 day in Bergen, and then we fly home the next; from those who have done this same cruise ending in Bergen, would you recommend the Norway in a Nutshell tour, or do you have something you would recommend in its place?

[Kountess]

I would highly recommend the NIN tour.  My husband and I did a one-day roundtrip from Bergen last year, and it was one of the highlights of our trip.  We were on a back-to-back Viking Homelands-British Isles Explorer cruise, so we were docked in Bergen for three nights and had a full day to do the NIN.  I am a huge rail fan and was mostly looking forward to the Flam railway.  As it turned out, my favorite part of the NIN was the cruise on Nærøyfjord.

 

I posted about the trip in my blog in case you'd like to read about our experience.  If you decide to do a roundtrip, just make sure you get on the right bus after the fjord cruise!

 

https://stramblingchronicles.blogspot.com/2022/06/norway-in-nutshell-part-i.html

https://stramblingchronicles.blogspot.com/2022/06/norway-in-nutshell-part-ii.html

https://stramblingchronicles.blogspot.com/2022/06/norway-in-nutshell-part-iii.html

https://stramblingchronicles.blogspot.com/2022/06/norway-in-nutshell-part-iv.html

[calvin81]

I'm not sure how the timing would work with your schedule, but I highly recommend the NIN tour. We did Oslo to Bergen, so I'm not sure about roundtrip. But it was a great tour with outstanding scenery. It was the highlight of that particular vacation for both of us. 

[longterm]

1 hour ago, Kountess said:

I would highly recommend the NIN tour.  My husband and I did a one-day roundtrip from Bergen last year, and it was one of the highlights of our trip.  We were on a back-to-back Viking Homelands-British Isles Explorer cruise, so we were docked in Bergen for three nights and had a full day to do the NIN.  I am a huge rail fan and was mostly looking forward to the Flam railway.  As it turned out, my favorite part of the NIN was the cruise on Nærøyfjord.

 

I posted about the trip in my blog in case you'd like to read about our experience.  If you decide to do a roundtrip, just make sure you get on the right bus after the fjord cruise!

 

https://stramblingchronicles.blogspot.com/2022/06/norway-in-nutshell-part-i.html

https://stramblingchronicles.blogspot.com/2022/06/norway-in-nutshell-part-ii.html

https://stramblingchronicles.blogspot.com/2022/06/norway-in-nutshell-part-iii.html

https://stramblingchronicles.blogspot.com/2022/06/norway-in-nutshell-part-iv.html

You had an interesting trip! It sounds like you were very fortunate to meet some nice people; just goes to show that there are good people everywhere.

[janetcbl]

It is an experience you will never forget. It does take a full day and must be booked in advance. I would suggest starting the trip as early as you can - less crowded. I have done in in all seasons,( no boat in the winter) in all kinds of weather. Go!

[longterm]

1 hour ago, calvin81 said:

I'm not sure how the timing would work with your schedule, but I highly recommend the NIN tour. We did Oslo to Bergen, so I'm not sure about roundtrip. But it was a great tour with outstanding scenery. It was the highlight of that particular vacation for both of us. 

From what I've read so far, it appears that excursions from the ship start as early as 8:30am, so we *may* try to do that tour, but I think a later one (10am I think) would be the thing. Tour returns around 8pm, so we'd be fine.

[Peregrina651]

@longterm check out the following threads for more info, Flam Railway is another name for Norway in a Nutshell.

 

Flam railway excursion availability

 

8 Tips for the Bergen to Oslo Train Trip

This thread, on the other hand, is amazingly helpful both for those who are taking the Viking post-cruise extension to Oslo and those who will be doing it on their own.  Note that you can pay for luggage forwarding when you make your own booking, so that you don't have to deal with luggage if you choose to do the detour to Flam.

 

Things I wished I had packed for Norway

Bergen is the rainiest city in the world with rain on at least 2/3 of the days of the year. Come prepared.

 

The Scenic Flåm Railway

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2947038-question-for-recent-bie-greenwich-to-bergen-passengers/

 

[janetcbl]

4 minutes ago, Peregrina651 said:

@longterm check out the following threads for more info, Flam Railway is another name for Norway in a Nutshell.

 

Flam railway excursion availability

 

8 Tips for the Bergen to Oslo Train Trip

This thread, on the other hand, is amazingly helpful both for those who are taking the Viking post-cruise extension to Oslo and those who will be doing it on their own.  Note that you can pay for luggage forwarding when you make your own booking, so that you don't have to deal with luggage if you choose to do the detour to Flam.

 

Things I wished I had packed for Norway

Bergen is the rainiest city in the world with rain on at least 2/3 of the days of the year. Come prepared.

 

The Scenic Flåm Railway

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2947038-question-for-recent-bie-greenwich-to-bergen-passengers/

 

Norway in a Nutshell consists of the train from Bergen (or Oslo) to Myrdal, Flam RR from Myrdal to Flam, boat from Flam to Gudvagen, bus from Gudvagen via Stalheim to Voss, train back to Bergen (or Oslo). It is more than just the Flam railroad.

[Peregrina651]

8 minutes ago, janetcbl said:

Norway in a Nutshell consists of the train from Bergen (or Oslo) to Myrdal, Flam RR from Myrdal to Flam, boat from Flam to Gudvagen, bus from Gudvagen via Stalheim to Voss, train back to Bergen (or Oslo). It is more than just the Flam railroad.

 

Got ya. Thanks. Looks like there multiple combinations and permutations of this trip.

[longterm]

25 minutes ago, janetcbl said:

Norway in a Nutshell consists of the train from Bergen (or Oslo) to Myrdal, Flam RR from Myrdal to Flam, boat from Flam to Gudvagen, bus from Gudvagen via Stalheim to Voss, train back to Bergen (or Oslo). It is more than just the Flam railroad.

Thanks; originally, we were going to add a couple of days and go to Oslo, but our plans changed; we're now going to do a 2-week Rick Steves tour of Scotland, then 4 days in London, then get on the BIE cruise. We decided that was long enough without adding more days in Bergen.

 

I looked at the Flam railway tour, but now we just have a single day, and there's a 12-hour NN excursion that looks like it will be just perfect for us, although it means we won't see any of Bergen.

[longterm]

Here's the NN excursion I hope we can get; our cruise isn't until next summer, so it's too early to get a reservation, but looking at the same date in 2023, there are several departure times that would probably work--9:30am or 10:30am being the ones we'd choose between. I'd be hesitant to try to make an 8:30am excursion that's not a Viking excursion...

[ericosmith]

With a bit of research, it's not difficult to book all of the tickets yourself and select the times that work best.  It saves quite a bit of money but also allows you to do seat selection on some of the trains.  I've got all my tickets booked for about 3 weeks from now so we'll see how it goes.  In my case I'm doing Bergen, Voss, Gudvangen, Myrdal, Bergen.  The times just seemed to work out better.

[longterm]

12 hours ago, ericosmith said:

With a bit of research, it's not difficult to book all of the tickets yourself and select the times that work best.  It saves quite a bit of money but also allows you to do seat selection on some of the trains.  I've got all my tickets booked for about 3 weeks from now so we'll see how it goes.  In my case I'm doing Bergen, Voss, Gudvangen, Myrdal, Bergen.  The times just seemed to work out better.

Any suggestions on seat selection?

[ericosmith]

You'll find two types of trains.  The blue ones allow seat selection.  There's regular and their version of first class.  In either case you can see whether the face forward or two the rear and where they are in relationship to the windows.  I just picked two seats that faced forward and were in the middle of a window.

[Peregrina651]

4 hours ago, longterm said:

Any suggestions on seat selection?

 

I believe that there are also some comments about seating in the threads that I shared in post #7.

[claranda]

We did it independently in May, Oslo to Bergen, everything booked on-line in advance. It is cheaper than the NIN offer, especially if you are senior citizens.

Express train from Oslo airport to central station, hotel a few minutes walk (Comfort Xpress, cheap and quite comfortable), left our big bags in reception for early morning pick up by Porterservice. Took the midday train down to Myrdal and then on to Flam (booked 90 days in advance, best seats on both trains on the left side of the train as you face the direction of travel). Overnight in the Flamsbrygga Hotel, nice dinner. 10am fjord cruise down to Gudvangen (as someone said, much more impressive than the Flam railway, which is nearly all tunnels), bus waiting to take us on to Voss (again, left hand side), which doesn’t link up well with the train to Bergen, so we had time for lunch there before the one hour trip, then walked the 15 minutes to our hotel with our hand baggage (Thon Orion, very comfortable and well-placed for next day boarding.)

 

Simples!

[claranda]

Sorry, the details of the one-way trip we did doesn’t really help you, as you’re planning the return. That’s a long trip, but I wouldn’t worry too much about missing Bergen; just make sure you do the Flam/Gudvangen leg. Actually, Voss and the train trip from Voss to Bergen are not that interesting. You could always get the shuttle back to Flam from Gudvangen or alternatively take the train from Voss back to Oslo and leave Bergen out if  you’re only going to see the station!

[SJD117]

I highly recommend the Nutshell (DIY or arranged) for those with limited time and a desire to get out on a Norwegian fjord. We didn't do the train during our five days in Norway in 2019; instead, we used the towns around the Sognefjord (second longest in the world) as our base. Then we returned to Bergen by car ferry through the incredibly narrow and spectacular Nearoyfjord, an offshoot of the Sognefjord that the Nutshell trip follows. Fabulous!