Reading some of the comments on this cruise already posted, I have to wonder if we are all talking about the same one. But as the other reviewers have covered comprehensively most aspects of the cruise, I will deal only with the points of dissatisfaction as we found them.
PORTS OF CALL. We have visited Copenhagen and Oslo several times before, but were looking forward in particular to spending 2 days in Oslo. One thing we didn't anticipate was the major drawback in this cruise. We have never come across this in any cruise line before: virtually every port we called in, the ship berthed in freight yards, not passenger terminals. So taxis were denied access, and hop on, hop off buses, similarly. Unless you had booked the eye-watering prices of excursions, or even coach transfers into town, you had major problems. In Copenhagen we had a 40 minute walk through an industrial estate just to get to the Little Mermaid statue. In Oslo, where we have always berthed below the Fortress on previous (and cheaper) cruises, we were the wrong side of a road building project and had to walk through a flooded area as well. You could forget walking into town for a drink at night-totally impractical. This was explained away as the ship being too large for the site. Not true as a much larger ship, PO Azura, was berthed below the fortress the following day.
Bergen was the only port where HAL laid on a free transfer. However, cheaper cruises were again berthed at the end of the town dock. Again too much trouble to pop back into town in the afternoon when the sun came out. South Queensferry for Edinburgh was the worst of all. Instead of berthing in Leith, which the locals said was normal, we actually dropped anchor in the Firth of Forth, in the shadow of the bridge, and were tendered ashore in freezing winds. For Newcastle on Tyne, the local Tyneside council, bless them, laid on some coaches to the train station, but it was still a long and expensive train journey into the city. I'm sure HAL minimised their costs this way, but we were made to feel like second class citizens.