My wife and I booked this cruise with Readers Offers from the daily newspapers. We flew to Bergen to meet the ship but were told, along with all the other passengers, that the ship was delayed because of bad weather. We were accommodated in a hotel in Bergen whilst waiting for the ship. In reality, the ship was delayed from dry dock in Denmark and the maintenance staff were still working on the cabins and cleaning the cabins when we boarded.

We departed some 20 hours late so missed out the first 7 ports and the excursions booked for this ports were cancelled. On the return legs we should have stayed for 15 minutes in Oksfjord but, in fact, we stayed for 15 minutes. The excuse was that the staff were doing routine maintenance on the gangway but there was no evidence of this. A car and 3 passengers joined the ship after 1.40 hours and the ship departed after 1.45 hours. Because of this, the ship arrived one hour late in Tromso and the excursion to the Arctic Church midnight concert was cancelled. We were informed that each passenger was entitled to take 1.5 litres of alcohol on board without any information on when and where it could be consumed. We didn't take any alcohol ourselves but, as it was my birthday halfway through the cruise, some guests bought me, from a Norwegian shop, a miniature bottle of port to drink with my coffee in the lounge area. When the barman saw the miniature bottle he told me it was not allowed and confiscated the bottle and glass. As I am not a drinker, this was the only time that I attempted to consume alcohol on the trip. We were offered a drinks package - one bottle of wine per evening between the two of us - at a cost of £100 per night but we didn't take up the offer. In fact it was cheaper to buy the wine in the restaurant with bottles starting at £50 each. We were very disappointed with the cabin (arctic superior) - a TV had been installed but wasn't working for the first few days because they were still installing them.

On one occasion we put "Do Not Disturb" on the door but this was removed and our room cleaned. From this experience, we wouldn't book with Hurtigruten again.