Review of Fjord Cruise on Eurodam

[cpinstein]

Sorry to be negative, but I must admit I was very disappointed.

 

The food was mediocre. The entertainment was just OK. And the ship is not pretty or well designed. I thought a new ship would be more attractive than the Eurodam. Cabins are much smaller than the Veendam. And the lighting was poor. The black out drapes weren't blac out.

 

But I can deal with that. The deal breaker however, was the handling of the ports and the locations of docking.

 

I picked the Norwegian Fjord cruise because I liked the itinerary. I thought I should let you know how dissatisfied I was with the handling of the ports of call.

I don't understand why the Euordam never got a good place to dock. we were always in the container port, having to shuttle in to the towns. And when we got there, Celebrity was front and center, docked right in the town. Now I know Holland should have tons of clout, with Carnival, Princess, Seaboune, etc. So Ican't understand why our locations was bad in Alesund, and Bergan.

And if the docking is bad, then things should be adjusted accordingly. Why were shore excursions that last 4 hours scheduled for around noon? Because of the shuttles, it was difficult to get in to the towns, and then get back to the ship in time for the excursion. Plus, that made lunch an issue.

For Edinburgh, there was no excuse to only have a shuttle in S. Queensferry to the train station. Why not all the way in to Edinburgh? Again, too difficult to get in and back for an afternoon excursion. So we had to book a morning and afternoon excursion. Then when we got back from the afternoon one, we wanted to go back in to Edinburgh for the evening. But that was impossible. No shuttles to the train station, no cabs, no way to do it. So why were we there until midnight if we couldn't take advantage of being there?

The schedule kept changing before sailing. Why? Alesund and Gerainger days were switched. And hours were changed. So that made no snede to have a 12 noon excursion to the Fjords when we weren't saling until 11 PM. Could have been later to allow for a leisurely lunch.

And then we had a 4 hour stop in Hellesylt just to pick up folks who were on the overland tour, which wasn't published until we were on the ship. Obviously, that's the only reason to go to Hellesylt and it certainly didn't require 4 hours to pick people up.

Just poorly planned.

I must say the docking places are the deal breaker. The same thing happened to us 3 years ago on the Gems of the Baltic cruise. Celebrity always had in town, and we were always waiting for the shuttle.

So, I think I should go to Celebrity in the future,

[dalebo]

I was on that cruise and I agree, HAL was second best on the docking. We took the shuttle into Alesund and there right in town was the Celebrity Constellation.

Same for Bergen, some other cruise line was right in town and we were on the outskirts.

 

I could not complain about the food, but the entertainment was not up to par. Also the scheduling of the excursions was suspect. We had a 4 hour trip to St. Andrews that did not start until 2 PM and we got back after 7. Poor planning.