Leaving cruise early

[chcats]

My husband and I are booked on the Rotterdam from Copenhagen to Rotterdam in July. The last port on the cruise is Oslo and we are considering getting off the ship at this port so we can spend some time seeing the Norwegian fjords. I called Holland America and they said this was possible. Has anyone done this with Holland America and how easy is it to do?

Thanks for your input

[bepsf]

You could, and it's easy to do - but the question is why?

 

The following cruise following yours would take you to the fjords - Why not just book that one as well and do a B2B since the fjords are best experienced by sea?

 

The reason I suggest this is because last summer, I took my parents to Europe - They arranged to take a 2 week cruise with me aboard Eurodam followed by taking the train to Sweden and a 2 week river cruise...

...when they returned to the US, they told me that they had a good time in Sweden, but everything after leaving the Holland America ship was fairly anti-climactic (Which I have found to be true myself when traveling post-cruise) They would have preferred to have done their Sweden tour before the cruise, or simply stayed aboard ship for the next segment and returned to the States afterwards.

[scottjeanne]

Be sure to ask HAL what the charge is for you to leave early. I know this sounds like a silly question, but we did the Christmas New Zealand/ Australia cruise that went from Sydney to Melbourne and then back to Sydney for disembarkation. Several Australians left at Melbourne thereby missing the last sea day and disembarkation in Sydney. They had to pay anywhere from $75 to $150 per person. HAL said they had to have immigration officials in Melbourne that they would not have had to have.

[eh2zed]

I think it can be done. But my advice is to get it in writing from Seattle and then present it to the front desk after boarding. We did exactly this when we stayed off the ship overnight in BA.

[1particularharbor]

Is there always a charge to do this ?

[chcats]

Thanks for the advice. We would like to take another cruise through the fjords after our cruise, but my husband and I are still working and can't be away that long. We were thinking of skipping the last sea day on our cruise and taking the nutshell tour to see the fjords for a couple of days from Oslo. Hopefully in the future we could take a full cruise to see the fjords better. I hope Holland America won't hit us too heavy for trying to do this but I will have to check.

[pmcgsan]

About three years ago we requested an early departure in Livorno instead of Rome. Our travel agent worked with Holland America and they came back with a fee that seemed out of line. We negotiated and they reduced the fee. I honestly can't remember the price but it was very reasonable.

[bqkali]

Why is there a fee for disembarking early if you have already paid for the full duration of the cruise?

[RuthC]

Why is there a fee for disembarking early if you have already paid for the full duration of the cruise?

If there's no Customs/Immigration presence at the port, beyond that for clearing the ship, something would have to be arranged for the person disembarking. There's bound to be a charge for special arrangements. HAL would collect the fee the authorities would charge.

[bqkali]

If there's no Customs/Immigration presence at the port, beyond that for clearing the ship, something would have to be arranged for the person disembarking. There's bound to be a charge for special arrangements. HAL would collect the fee the authorities would charge.

 

Thanks - that makes perfect sense but I never would have thought of it on my own.