Ideas for young families Norwegian Fjords

[Jgthompson25]

I am travelling with my children (5 & 3) on p&o iona in April. Looking for recommendations ashore for things to do. Scenic but also maybe twinned with fun for children. We visit Stavanger, Olsen, Alesund & Haugesund. Thank you

[AndyMichelle]

The road train at Alesund is fun, boarding right outside the ship and takes you up the 'mountain' with amazing views over the town. 

Norway is quite a fun place, with Vikings and trolls everywhere, so I'm sure the kids will enjoy it. 

Not the obvious choice for kids, but I think there is lots of fun things to see. 

I'm sure you will have a great time. 

Andy 

 

Edit... Just an afterthought, not sure how the Covid restrictions will affect what you can do, but still sure you will have a great time. 

Edited January 14, 2022 by AndyMichelle
...

[Thejuggler]

Our daughter was about 5 on our first visit to Stavanger and the Oil Museum was great.

 

Dress up in the helicopter suit and helmet, take a pretend flight to the rig then 'escape' from the rig using the chute.

 

Theres also a Anthony Gormley statues hunt.

 

https://stavanger-guide.no/brokencolumn/english/

[hallasm]

On 1/14/2022 at 10:50 PM, Jgthompson25 said:

Olsen

You probably mean ‘Olden’?
Take the ‘Loen Skylift’ - normally a shuttle from port to the Skylift.

Olden is the only Deep Fjord port - you must be at the upper deck at sun rise (6 am) to enjoy the sceneries. Also be prepared for the cold and probably rainy weather. (Compared to North England Weather)

Edited January 16, 2022 by hallasm

[Jgthompson25]

On 1/14/2022 at 10:47 PM, Thejuggler said:

Our daughter was about 5 on our first visit to Stavanger and the Oil Museum was great.

 

Dress up in the helicopter suit and helmet, take a pretend flight to the rig then 'escape' from the rig using the chute.

 

Theres also a Anthony Gormley statues hunt.

 

https://stavanger-guide.no/brokencolumn/english/

 

[Jgthompson25]

This sounds great, thank you. 

[kitkat343]

The one thing you need to know is that Norwegian law forbids transporting young children without car seats.  We are used to traveling with our kids all over the world on independent excursions, and this was the first time we really ran into trouble because there is no public transportation in most ports and very limited public transport in Bergen, and you can't take taxis unless you prearrange them (they are legally required to lend you car seats if you arrange for car service ahead of time).  We had private tours and excursions all over Norway, which is harder to arrange (even precovid) than in most other cruise ports, so if that's important to you you'd need to research if that will be possible now unless you like cruise ship tours or tour buses.  

 

In Olden, we loved the Loen Skylift.  Either book a cruise ship excursion or check to see if Olden adventures is still running shuttles to the Loen Skylift.  There is also the Biksdal Glacier, which is a glacier that has been hit hard by global warming.  As long as you are aware of the fact that the glacier itself isn't impressive prior to booking, you may be very happy with this excursion because the drive to the glacier is lovely, as is the hike to it.  

 

 

The most economical option for getting to the Briksdal Glacier was a public bus that runs from June –August. The Norway tourist office stated that in the 2017 season the bus left Port Olden at 9:58 am, and departs Biksdal Glacier at 1:30 pm, and is currently listed as costing 132 NOK for each adult ticket. You might want to contact the tourist office to see if there is any way to purchase tickets ahead of time or if they can run additional buses if the first one is full.  

 

For travelers with young children or mobility issues, there are troll cars available for rent to reduce the length of your hike. These golf carts travel most of the way to the glacier, leaving you with a very pleasant and relatively flat 700 m walk. Since we didn’t expect my 2 year old to make it all the way to the glacier, my husband and 6 year old went ahead of us. To my surprise, my 2 year old slowly but steadily made the entire hike in the allocated time (they tell you what time to return to the platform to catch your return troll car). Reservations are required for troll cars in May and October, and recommended during the summer months (the troll car season runs from May-October). The only challenging thing is that they do request that you tell them what time you’d like to ride on the troll car, which is hard if you want to chose a time to do this excursion based upon the weather forecast (although it is completely understandable they ask you to pick a time, since otherwise there might be a lot of people trying to get on a troll car at one time and this would cause really long delays). I don’t know if the troll car operators are always flexible about the time of your reservation, but we changed our minds about what time to visit the glacier on the day we traveled since we wanted to visit the Loen skylift in the afternoon when the weather was scheduled to be better. I emailed the troll car operators at 9 am as soon as we got on the bus towards the glacier, and they had already switched my reservation by the time we arrived at the troll car office. We traveled in May, when things are less crowded so I don’t know if they will be able to accommodate a change in reservation time during the busy summer months. The troll car website where you can make your advance reservation is available at: http://www.oldedalenskysslag.com . 

Near where you pick up the troll car is a small café off the souvenir shop; they have excellent waffles. They are best freshly made, so if you have time keep an eye on the plate where they store the waffles and order them when everyone else bought up the older waffles. My family started off by ordering 4, and ended up eating 12 (the kids really loved them and since they’d just finished hiking to a glacier without a single complaint I wasn’t going to say no), so we were able to get a lot of fresh waffles. 

 

In Stavanger the highlight is Pulpit Rock, which you would need to carefully consider your family's physical ability to hike (I believe it is rated as an easy hike, but with a kid who turned two the day before we sailed, we couldn't handle it).  There's a nice (but not must do) boat ride to the waterfalls. 

 

I don't know if you want to stay in Alesund or go to Geiranger; Geiranger was one of the highlights of our trip, but is very weather dependent.   Geiranger is very easy to visit with children, since you can drive to all the scenic highlights.

 

I know you aren't going to Flam, so the Flam railroad is out but if any of your ports are near a scenic train ride that might be worth considering.  Another highlight of Flam was visiting a goat farm, which you might be able to arrange somewhere else at one of your other port stops.