Princess or NCL Prima to Norway/Iceland?

[soonergirl8]

Hi all.

 

I could definitely use your advice on planning our family trip next summer. This cruise will be to celebrate my daughter's college graduation and son's high school graduation. We were looking at the NCL Prima that departs on July 13 from Southampton and arrives in Reykjavik on July 24 or the Princess Sky Princess which is roundtrip to Norway from Southampton July 12-19 and then flying to spend 6 days in Iceland. My husband and I sailed the NCL Epic on a Mediterranean cruise in 2018, and we went on a Princess cruise a lot longer ago to the Caribbean. Our two kids have been on a 4 day Disney cruise. 

 

Things I like about NCL are the varied activities and ports. However, all the ports changing after final payment is a red flag. Last summer, the Prima didn't stop in Brussels or in Isafjordur. I also like that this cruise ends in Iceland vs. us having to fly there. The stops are Geiranger, Bergen, and Alesund in Norway.

 

Things I like about Princess is a shorter cruise and 4 stops in Norway that look like they have more activities geared to our family. We like to ride bikes, explore, hike, and we don't want to just get on a bus and then get out to take pictures at spots. The stops are Haugesund, Olden, Skjolden and Stavanger.

 

For a little bit more, we can do the Princess cruise and then go on a land trip in Iceland. However, I'm not sure if NCL will have more activities for our 18 and 21 year-olds. I do not like the idea of losing ports. 

 

For those of you that have been to Iceland and/or Norway. What do you suggest?

 

Thank you!

Whitney

[wahoowa12]

I went on the Prima in July, 2024; it did stop in both Isafjordur and Zeebrugge (the port for Brussels and Bruges). The Prima is a gorgeous ship and all 4 of us had a fantastic time!!!

[marys350]

We went on the Prima in June, 2024, (departed from Southampton and arrived in Reykjavik with an overnight in Reykjavik). We stopped in both Isafjordur and Zeebrugge (port for Brussels and Bruges) and no ports were changed after final payment on our sailing. We enjoyed every port on this unique itinerary.

Our balcony cabin was spacious and had a sofa and the bathroom had a good sized shower with a door, not shower curtain. We have a Princess cruise booked in February, 2025, and the balcony cabin is smaller, has no sofa, and the shower looks smaller. 

[ontheweb]

Isafjordur was skipped on all cruises in 2023, but they have gone there every cruise since then.

 

We were on the cruise that also skipped the port in Belgium. It was for an extremely low tide. I have not heard of any other cruise with this itinerary that skipped it.

[edinburgher]

On 9/26/2024 at 4:20 PM, ontheweb said:

Isafjordur was skipped on all cruises in 2023, but they have gone there every cruise since then.

There were extensive works carried out at the port which included deep dredging as the port was being expanded to accommodate larger cruise ships. During the extended period works were ongoing, many lines had to cancel their calls.

[ontheweb]

34 minutes ago, edinburgher said:

There were extensive works carried out at the port which included deep dredging as the port was being expanded to accommodate larger cruise ships. During the extended period works were ongoing, many lines had to cancel their calls.

Actually we were on the NCL Prima which cancelled all calls because their lifeboats were not certified to be used as tenders. If we had this port scheduled on the older NCL Star, we would have been able to disembark as the ship tendered its passengers.

 

So, as I see it the blame for the missed port can be spread out between the port for not having the work done on time and NCL for having its at the time newest ship with a lesser feature, lifeboats unable to be used as tenders, than its older ships.

[edinburgher]

On 9/26/2024 at 4:20 PM, ontheweb said:

I have not heard of any other cruise with this itinerary that skipped it.

It may have been to do with the size of your ship, in particular it requiring more draft than smaller ships.  And possibly the same at Isafjordur if smaller ships were able to tender around the port works where work perhaps paused temporarily to facilitate tender operations, but I do not know.. With bigger ships, more tenders are required and much more time is needed.

 

Sometimes when cruising "bigger isn't always better".

Edited September 30 by edinburgher

[CCJack]

The Norway only cruise followed by an Iceland land tour would be very good, however likely the more costly option.   The NCL cruise that goes to both and ends in Iceland is not a bad compromise, especially if you spend a couple land days in Iceland afterward.   They are both good choices.     We did an Iceland only cruise and a different Norway only cruise.   Norway lends itself to cruising more than Iceland.  Norway is very beautiful from a cruise ship.  In Iceland, your ship is mostly transportation to different coastal stops with drives (perhaps long drives) inland. 

 

Geiranger and Bergen are great stops in Norway.  Make sure you have at least one long Fjord such as Geiranger or Flam.

 

If you like bike riding, I can tell you the bike ride from Myrdal to Flam is our best excursion day ever on any cruise (out of many cruises).  You take the train up to Mydral and then bike down (all downhill) it is very beautiful.    Have you looked at cruises that include Flam?

 

Also, are you locked in to leaving from Southampton?  Amsterdam is also a great departure point - spending a couple days there before your cruise.

 

This is a fantastic gift for your kids..  However, I would not worry about activities on the ship for them.  20 years from now, they will remember the cities, towns, wildlife, fjords, volcanos, history, and time spent with you.  They will not remember the activities on the ship.

 

Have fun planning. 

 

[ontheweb]

3 hours ago, edinburgher said:

It may have been to do with the size of your ship, in particular it requiring more draft than smaller ships.  And possibly the same at Isafjordur if smaller ships were able to tender around the port works where work perhaps paused temporarily to facilitate tender operations, but I do not know.. With bigger ships, more tenders are required and much more time is needed.

 

Sometimes when cruising "bigger isn't always better".

We were specifically told that the ship's lifeboats were not certified to be used as tenders. Again, this was the NCL Prima. It was listed a dock port, but when the dock was not ready, the port was skipped every cruise during the 2023 season. NCL by not cancelling right away kept letting passengers later in the season who knew it had been continually skipped hope the dock would by completed and the port visited.

[edinburgher]

14 hours ago, ontheweb said:

We were specifically told that the ship's lifeboats were not certified to be used as tenders. Again, this was the NCL Prima. It was listed a dock port, but when the dock was not ready, the port was skipped every cruise during the 2023 season. NCL by not cancelling right away kept letting passengers later in the season who knew it had been continually skipped hope the dock would by completed and the port visited.

Then the fault was more with NCL than the ongoing works over running but that would not have helped. IMHO it was wrong of NCL to not let passengers know that tendering would not be available at any port due to their tenders/lifeboats not being compliant.   Had they known this ahead of time they could have perhaps switched to a different port where they would have been more certain of being able to dock as it isn't uncommon for any large scale works to over run.

 

The progress of  works at Isafjordur was well discussed on this forum over a number of months.

 

So you missed a port call, but that in itself is not unusual on cruise itineraries as there are many different reasons why a call can be missed, the only difference this time is that you had two reasons..

Edited October 1 by edinburgher

[ontheweb]

2 hours ago, edinburgher said:

Then the fault was more with NCL than the ongoing works over running but that would not have helped. IMHO it was wrong of NCL to not let passengers know that tendering would not be available at any port due to their tenders/lifeboats not being compliant.   Had they known this ahead of time they could have perhaps switched to a different port where they would have been more certain of being able to dock as it isn't uncommon for any large scale works to over run.

 

The progress of  works at Isafjordur was well discussed on this forum over a number of months.

 

So you missed a port call, but that in itself is not unusual on cruise itineraries as there are many different reasons why a call can be missed, the only difference this time is that you had two reasons..

I agree. Both were at fault, Iceland for not having the work done on time and NCL for not having lifeboats certified for tendering, but NCL was more at fault. 

 

And Geiranger was actually listed as a tender. But we were all able to walk right off. (Since they knew the ship could not tender passengers, why were they listing a port as a tender port?)

[gnome12]

7 hours ago, ontheweb said:

I agree. Both were at fault, Iceland for not having the work done on time and NCL for not having lifeboats certified for tendering, but NCL was more at fault. 

 

And Geiranger was actually listed as a tender. But we were all able to walk right off. (Since they knew the ship could not tender passengers, why were they listing a port as a tender port?)

There may be different rules in Norway and Iceland, as well as different rules for different ports.

 

My cruise tendered at both Geiranger and Flam. In each case there was the possibility of docking. My thought was that because we were the smallest ship in port, our tendering would create less traffic and pollution because fewer trips would be required than for the larger ship in port with us. I have no idea if that is the reason, but that was my thought.

[kitkat343]

I do want to add to the OP's statement that they are worried about the ports changing after final payment.  This issue is not limited to  Isafjordur , where the dredging of the harbor is now thankfully complete.  Here is a list of the recent itinerary changes on NCL after final payment, 

The most significant of these is changing a disembarking port from Manilla to Hong Kong 12 hours after final payment and offering 250 OBC.

 

 A cruise to Iceland is on my bucket list, so I've kept an eye on them.  On the August 15th, 2024 Prima cruise last summer, the ship was originally scheduled to visit Alesund, which is one of the ports much beloved on the Baltic forums that I hadn't visited on my first cruise to Norway.  We have 3 kids, and usually book late because we can never decide if we want to go through the stress of traveling with kids.  When I went back to look at the cruise and see how the pricing had changed since I did my original research 8 months earlier, I realized that Alesund had been dropped and replaced with Haugesund, which is a really huge downgrade, and I decided not to take the cruise.  If I'd booked 8 months earlier it would have been a huge disappointment since Alesund was the only new port stop for me in Norway.

 

It's also possible that NCL will make their itinerary - there was someone who recently posted on the NCL board they were reluctant to book the Star out of NY to Iceland for the summer of 2024 but it wound up making its itinerary.  It's pretty hard to predict.

 

Edited October 2 by kitkat343

[edinburgher]

13 hours ago, kitkat343 said:

t's pretty hard to predict.

If NCL make a habit of port changes, maybe time to onsider a different line?