Thank you dyoll.

Currently planning a Norway trip and although interested in Hurtigruten the prices with children was like $1600/day for 3 rooms with mandatory meals.

There are oodles of cruises of the fjords starting in Newcastle, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and ports in Germany. There are so many cruise ships small ports see 2 ships per day.

There's nothing wrong with driving and then taking ferries across fjords. There are easy possibilities to do a short driving loop to a few fjords from Ålesund which has flights from Amsterdam as well as Oslo.

If you like mountain driving, you could do what we did, which is to drive from Bergen to Trondheim; click on my name for the trip report.

My days of mountain driving are over. Too many death defying experiences in the past. We are getting too old for that.

Tom_mn..I have also been on the Hurtigruten site. I do not see anything for $1500/day. The most expensive cabin I saw was $1300 per person for seven days. What am I missing?

Tom_mn, I've done both (don't ask) both Hurtigruten and a HAL cruise from Rotterdam. Would take Hurtigruten again, but not the cruise, but ymmv of course. Next time though, I wouldn't do the massive stretch Bergen - Kirkenes or Kirkenes back to Bergen, because I know far more about Norway now, and would like Trondheim, Ålesund or Tromsø. And if I ever had a chance to visit Lofoten again, I would take it. So I'd book individual stretches. I now know that if it's slightly off season, you can turn up in a Hurtigruten port and get a cabin, or if you travel for less than 24 hours, you don't even need a cabin but can camp in the lounge and that's perfectly acceptable.

I don't understand the astronomical prices you got either. I do know that for non-norwegians, hurtigruten.no likes to direct you to the cruise packages first.

Thanks for the insight.

the cruise packages are a large part of the funding of Hurtigruten, a public transport service.

I double checked the overnight Trondheim to Bergen trip and it's $1716 for 3 cabins.

Oh yes, include Lofoten Islands if possible. Really unique and beautiful. I was on a cruise ship and I think the longest fjord we were on was Songefjord tributaries. I know you will love Norway

Thanks again.

The price varies a lot depending on what day you sail, and what cabin you want. I'm not sure what adult/child mix you had, but when I try four adults and two children in three cabins for Trondheim to Bergen for the remainder of September I get prices from $990 to $1572. But the cheapest is for inside cabins.

We took an Oceania cruise to the Norwegian fjords this past summer in July. I, too, was trying to figure out if there was any way to see them on our own.

I came to the conclusion that Hurtigruten, and the ferries would involve too much lugging of our bags - and trying to figure out where to stay and for how long.

Driving and taking ferries would have also entailed a lot of time and planning.

One thing that rather surprised us was the cost of just about everything in Norway. It is really expensive - even just for a meal or for a beer. Being able to have most of our meals on the ship made a lot of sense, as we gasped at the prices on the menus in the restaurants we passed when we were ashore.

In the end, we were happy that we went on a cruise ship. Cruising through the fjords was amazingly beautiful. We visited Bergen, Geiranger, Flam, Stavanger, and Alesund, and found that a day in each was fine. We were even able to fit in some hiking in two places.

We really liked Oceania - food was wonderful, no formal nights, good lecturer on board, very comfortable cabins, and small ship.

Thanks.

The issue is that my wife wants to spend a few days in a town and draw. And that is fine with me.

I understand that Norway is expensive and there is just so much fish one can eat, but it is one area of Europe we have never visited.

We have long been travelers who rented a car and were content with a safe, clean hotel. We always ate the local food and set aside money for a splurge meal and sometimes a splurge hotel for two or three nights, but this sounds like we will have to spring for extra cash on this trip.

We recently did a two week Holland America cruise of Norway from Amsterdam. I had looked into doing Norway in a Nutshell and a Hurtigruten cruise but it suited us better to leave from and return to Amsterdam and also the Hurtigruten cruise that fitted with our available dates was very expensive for more than a very basic cabin.

We'd never done any kind of cruise before and this was to be a test to see whether we'd enjoy doing one.

We found it a good way to see the fjords of Norway and visit some of the towns. We're also older (I'm 64) and I have some mobility issues in that I can't walk very far due to osteoarthritis, so this was a fairly easy way to get around.

We didn't go to any of the shows on board as they didn't interest us, but it was nice to have a good balcony room with a bathroom that was easy for me to use. I didn't like the fact that internet is basically unavailable unless you pay a fortune for it, and so didn't enjoy the five sea days when there was little to do other than read and walk around the decks.

If I'd known how boring the sea days are, I think I'd have chosen a shorter cruise. This one went to North Cape so necessarily entailed an extra three days at sea than if it had turned around earlier.

I hope this helps you make a decision.

if you are considering the Hurtigruten ships, Road Scholar has a trip through the fjords on those ships.. it would include daily activities, walks, and lectures in the evenings. i did a cost breakdown a while back, and the Road Scholar didn't work out to be all that much more expensive. I think they're all sold out for a good while, however.

Thanks again. It seems there are a number of alternatives.

Also important to point out that Hurtigruten ships, even though they've become "cruisy" over the last decades, are not cruise ships. So if you want to replicate the cruise experience (cabins) on a Hurtigruten ship, that's going to be expensive.

And if you think Norway is expensive, try north Norway!

Also, because it's so extremely richt, Norway has fantastic, clean, punctual public transport that gets everywhere. Good trains, excellent express bus services. If you want to go self supported, you can mix modalities easily. Also, inland flights are frequent, go to remote locations and are not outrageously expensive. Especiall in North Norway, flight services are essential.

Here are a number of options, other than the standard NIN

(Fjord is a ferry/bus operator)

https://www.fjordnorway.com/things-t...htseeing-trips

This topic is not about my personal preferences, but any type of cruising is out of my budget.

Summary: groceries, cabins, apartments and car rentals are not expensive so my trip focuses on that, not ships or hotels or restaurants or alcohol which are expensive. I do think there's a nice non-mountainous loop out of Ålesund that would work.