Car seat needed for transfer to ship and excursions?

[Toddlercruise]

We're going on a cruise end of April this year with our then 23 month old from Southampton round the Norwegian fjords. Do we need to take a car seat for the transfers as at this age his car seat is large to say the least and quite weighty. I have rung the taxi company who the hotel we are staying at use for transfers and they don't have car seats to use. Does any one have any other suggestions?

 

If we were to use a taxi or bus at the ports in Norway would they require a car seat too as ports internationally seem to vary?

 

Thanks for any advice.

 

 

[kitkat343]

Please note that Norway has very strict laws regarding car seats - cabs are absolutely not allowed to transport children without car seats.  That was probably the most frustrating thing of traveling with a 2 and 6 year old to Norway.   The country is generally really easy to travel for families on a cruise except for the cab issue.  We also sailed from Southampton, and at one point in London, my kids got hit by jet lag and started to hit their limit.  It was raining, and I hailed a cab.  I searched on google, found a pizza restaurant with decent reviews 4 blocks away.  The very kind and honest cab driver made sure I really wanted to travel such a short cab ride with the kids.  I thanked him and explained- if I don't get my kids out of the rain and feed them immediately, they will melt down and we will be done touring for the day.  We fed them pizza, they got their second wind, and we continued on.

 

But in Norway the cabs absolutely refuse to transport children without car seats.  You should actually consider writing to the travel office to find out how old the kids need to be because every single cab we asked in Norway refused to take us without a car seat.  When my kids were tired and cold and being rained on (which happened at one point nearly every day) on previous cruises we could just hop in. a cab or take a bus or subway to get the kids a treat and help them get their second wind. In Norway, you are literally stuck.  And you have to drag exhausted kids to their next destination.  After the cruise, I contacted the Norway tour office and they explained that cabs are not allowed to transport children without car seats, and that if you book the cab in advance they are required to provide a car seat.  Once we realized the problem, we tried to book cabs for later ports but we were already sailing and the cab companies either ignored our emails or said they were already booked.  So please preorganize your transportation everywhere.  

 

We brought a car seat, and had it in Geiranger because we had private transportation for the whole day there.  If you book a larger tour, you will probably be on a bus and not need to worry about a car seat there.  In Loen, Olden Adventures took us by bus directly to both the Loen Skylift and Briskdal Glacier so that worked out really well for kids. The Loen skylift is very accessible for strollers.   The briskdal glacier has troll cars you can rent for most of the hike to the glacier and my 24 month old was able to complete the short hike left to the glacier independently (the bus ride there and troll ride are beautiful so I was totally prepared to not make it and had sent my husband and 6 year old ahead to the glacier and would have been totally happy even if we didn't make it)  In Flam, the Flam railroad is a 1-2 minute walk from the port, and we'd prearranged a tour for the afternoon.  So those three ports (Flam, Olden and Geiranger) went really well for our kids logistically.

 

We had a lot of trouble with our last two ports.   The public transportation system isn't perfect in Bergen  because it's such a small town, so if you stop there you'd need to figure out how to get around.   We had the additional complication of the fact that the weather was truly awful, and turned what should have been a short walk from the port to the tram into a tough one.   With better luck with the weather and a little better preplanning you should be able to make Bergen work (we didn't really, but given how awful the weather was it was hard to appreciate anything anyway on that particular day).  Stavanger was also difficult because we tried to wander around there, which wasn't really worth it anyway (the highlight of Stavanger is Pulpit Rock but we can't handle that much of a hike with small kids).  There's a decent small boat ride you can take with Rodne that will get you closer to the waterfalls, and is a pleasant way to pass time but Stavanger isn't a must do destination if you can't access pulpit rock.  It's entirely possible a cruise tour or red line bus would solve all your problems - we are just used to traveling independently and didn't realize ahead of time this might be a problem since it was the first time we'd been denied a cab due to a lack of a car seat.  

 

There's a lot of information about our cruise in my signature line.

 

We had a car seat with us, and installed it whenever we had transportation for the day.  The problem was that we couldn't drag it around in places where we only might need it sporadically like Bergen and Stavanger, and that's how we got stuck. 

 

 

If you aren't planning on bringing a car seat, try the destination forums or tripadvisor and I'm sure they can recommend cab companies that might have a car seat.  Good luck - its an amazing trip with kids!

 

 

 

Edited March 11 by kitkat343