Our family of four from Australia (2 adults in our 40s, 2 teens 13 & 14) embarked on this cruise at the end of a seven week holiday around the UK and Europe. In short it was the highlight of our trip with the Finnmarken being an excellent ship that enabled us to see amazing views of the northern lights whilst enjoying great food, friendly and efficient service and some quite amazing (but very expensive!) excursions. I will break this review up into the following areas - booking, cabins, embarkation, life on board, excursions / sights.

Originally I tried booking this trip online however I had difficulty selecting available cabins and getting it to recognise the child rates for our two boys. I gave up and phoned the UK office and had it all sorted in less then ten minutes! We originally booked two adjoining Arctic Superior cabins for our trip but on further investigation these cabins apeared very small with pull down beds and a not very large window. I phoned back some time after the original booking to enquire about a suite with balcony and sure enought they were available but very expensive. However the agent suggested downgrading one of the Arctic Superior cabins to an interior whilst upgrading the other one to the balcony. Also by putting one child in each cabin we got a discount rate for the second person in each cabin (even the suite!). After doing all this the overall price was only about $A60 a day more expensive then two Arctic Superiors so we locked it in!

Our suite on deck 6 port side was brilliant. Very large with a double bed and lounge area (4 seats), sliding glass door leading to great sized balcony plus a large picture window and a standard cruise ship bathroom. The kids had an interior across the hall which was very narrow with pull down beds but they spent most of their time hanging out in our room. The room was very quiet with no vibration or noise from the engines or the gangways that were lowered at every port. We also had complimentary bath robes and slippers and a fruit and cheese platter on arrival along with a 12pm check out from this room when returning to Bergen instead of 10am for non-suites. Read more