Viking Sky Review

Enjoyable Cruise to Norway

Review for the Baltic Sea Cruise on Viking Sky
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Possibletravel
2-5 Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Jul 2019

We like cruising because it can take us to a lot of different places in a very short period of time, all the while bringing our hotel and restaurant along with us. This cruise was of interest to us because it did a little wandering around before taking us to Norway where we had never been. We enjoyed the variety of interesting experiences we had in Denmark, then Germany, then back to Denmark, over to Sweden and then up to Norway. Viking does a terrific job. We had previously taken two of their river cruises and had high expectations for this cruise. We enjoyed everything about this cruise and are now looking forward to our next Viking cruise. We cannot say enough about the Viking staff. We should note, however, that because our focus is on the shore experiences, we didn't go to any entertainment, enrichment and other onboard evening activities. (The fact that there are no sea days on this cruise was not a problem for us.) As it happened, we met another couple on the cruise and wound up spending a long time at dinner with them, so that by the time we finished we had to get to bed to get ready for the following day.

Regarding the various ports of call, having spent a couple of days in Copenhagen previously, we opted on the first full day for the Fredriksborg and Kronborg Castle excursion, which was very interesting. The second day, having been fortunate to have made several trips to Berlin previously, we were able to pass on the Berlin excursions and instead opted to visit Lubeck and Wismar. The third day, we took the included walking excursion around Aalborg, a delightful Danish town. The fourth day, we liked Gothenberg but unfortunately the city seemed to be in the midst of a massive urban makeover which made getting around the city extremely difficult. The fifth and sixth days in Oslo were delightful. We took the included excursion on the morning of the fifth day and went on our own on the ferry over to Museum Island to see the Fram Museum. The sixth day, we vegged out, limiting our sightseeing to the very interesting Akershus Fortress (which was right next to our ship) and nearby Norweigian Resistance Museum. (We would love to go back to Oslo as there is so much more to see there.) The weather was not the best on the seventh day when we were in Kristiansand; we did a little walking around on our own and took the included excursion in the afternoon. On the eighth day, we opted for the cruise to Pulpit Rock, which was wonderful. In the afternoon, we walked around Stavanger, which was frankly much more interesting than Kristiansand (but, then, the weather was so much better). The ninth day we sailed up the long, long Hardangerfjord to Eidfjord. If you want a tip, make a point of getting up early like this reviewer did and watch the ship sail up the fjord. Just glorious, if the weather is good as it was for us. (At four in the morning, this reviewer pretty much had the public areas of the ship to himself -- which was very sad, given what passenger might have seen.) We opted for the all day excursion, which was very enjoyable, notwithstanding the rain in the afternoon. But, in hindsight, this reviewer wonders whether an all day boat excursion around the Hardangerfjord might have been preferable. The last full day was in Bergen, which was predictably rainy in the morning but tolerable in the afternoon for exploring.

Cabin Review

The cabin was very nice and quiet and met all our needs. The housekeeping staff did an excellent job and were very helpful. One special experience we had by virtue of our location was watching the Norweigian harbor boats come along side the ship in the evening to take off the pilot. Kind of neat. We liked the fact that our cabin was convenient to both sets of stairs and elevators and, being pretty ambulatory, we could easily walk up, say, to the World Cafe or down to, say, the Restaurant.

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