Too Crazy to Consider?

[TMLAalum]

The RCCL Jewel docks in Oslo at 8am on 8/25 (leaves at 7pm), spends 8/26 cruising to Bergen and departs from Bergen on 8/27 at 4pm. So as I'm pursuing Rick Steves' Norway Guidebook, I come across his "Norway in a Nutshell" advice which gets me to thinking we could theoretically take this rail & ferry trip on our own, spending the night at one of the smaller towns such as Aurland or Balestrand and then proceeding to Bergen the next morning. The big risk is that the ship has to skip Bergen due to weather, etc. 

 

Has anyone here done this journey on their own? I think our time in Oslo is too short for a day-loop tour. I will check into RCCL's shore excursion offerings, j.i.c. such a tour is available through them.

 

Tusen Takk!

[CruiserBruce]

Bergen is a pretty protected port...I doubt weather will be an issue. But I still don't think I would do your trip. 

[trosebery]

I can understand wanting to skip a sea day (which I've never enjoyed), but have you checked that the cruise line will even let you do this? And have you looked into the cost? (Norway is not cheap!)

[just_dont]

If you did the NiaN with an overnight, Flåm would be the best option, but you'd miss either Oslo or Bergen.

Taking a morning train out of Oslo would get you to Flåm late afternoon. Then resuming with a fjord ferry, bus and train the following morning would get you to Bergen the second afternoon.

If you left Oslo as soon as you got there, you'd get to Bergen the evening before your ship arrives, and you'd need a hotel in Bergen for the second night. If you spent the first day in Oslo and left the next morning, you'd need a hotel in Oslo the first night, and you'd barely make it to Bergen in time to catch your ship before it leaves.

It's definitely a worthwhile trip and easy to do on your own, but probably not advisable for your circumstance.

 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

[TMLAalum]

Thanks for confirming my doubts about the feasibility of this idea. In fact, after posting I realized that the sea day between Oslo & Bergen would mean 2 hotels nights, not just an overnight that I had originally thought. 

 

There are many things to see in Oslo, and I've a couple of activities in mind for our 2nd time in Bergen (Fingers X'd for sunshine!).

[kaisatsu]

I’ve done the one-day NiN in August, and there’s plenty of daylight to enjoy the full scenery. So you could certainly spend a day in Oslo, do the NiN, and then spend a day in Bergen. I think it’s pretty unlikely that you’d miss either port due to weather.*
 

Since it looks like your cruise is only visiting the southern coast and not venturing into the fjords, if you don’t plan to return to Norway, it’s not a terrible idea. It really is a beautiful (and relatively simple) trip!

 

My biggest hangup would be the hotel nights, since accommodations in Norway aren’t cheap.

 

 

*Oslo and Bergen almost never see weather cancellations, but one year the pilot boat captains went on strike, so some of the Norwegian ports (including Oslo) couldn’t be reached. That’s only happened once in the last decade, but I was lucky enough to be impacted! (It was an Oslo disembarkation, so we docked in Goteborg and they provided a bus back to Oslo.)