HAL 14 day Best of Norway or Northern Isles?

[Gblasingame]

We are looking at booking HAL for 2023 out of Amsterdam round trip.  Give me your thoughts on which is best the 14 day Best of Norway or the 14 day Northern Isles?  We have not been to this area at all.  Thanks.

[RuthC]

I've been all over the north country more times than I can count. If you want to list out the itinerary choices I can give my opinion. 
Adding in some of your interests would make it a bit easier to answer with you in mind. 

[roxybear135]

I just did a "live from" thread for the Northern Isles cruise in case you want to check it out.  We really enjoyed this cruise.  Some of the ports in Iceland were extremely small towns, but we thought it was a good itinerary overall.  If you have any questions, let me know!

 

 

[colbe]

You might like to consider this cruise out of Copenhagen.

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/find-a-cruise/E3N21J/J357A.html

[VMax1700]

12 hours ago, Gblasingame said:

We are looking at booking HAL for 2023 out of Amsterdam round trip.  Give me your thoughts on which is best the 14 day Best of Norway or the 14 day Northern Isles?  We have not been to this area at all.  Thanks.

We are embarking in Amsterdam at the end of August this year to do the Northern Isles cruise.  I will probably do an 'almost live from' for this cruise on the Rotterdam.  In 2017 we did the North Cape 14 day cruise on the previous Rotterdam, so will be able to give some sort of idea what to expect.

[Heartgrove]

Having done a Viking Ocean circumnavigational cruise around Iceland last year combined with a one week driving trip, Iceland is best done by land. Regarding the HAL cruise J361 for August 2023, it would be better to have an overnight in Reykjavik than stopping in Djupivogur. Not to sound negative but it is a town of 400 that has converted an oil storage tank into an acoustical music venue. Our cruise was seven days of just Iceland which allowed a more in-depth cruise. It is one of the countries that we would definitely do a return trip to.

 

Either cruise would be very enjoyable aboard the Nieuw Statendam!

[westcoastcruiser]

I agree with Ruth that knowing the itineraries you are considering would help with responses. Having said that, however, my husband and I are fairly well traveled and until we cruised Norway we were never able to easily answer when asked what our favorite place or cruise was.  We cruised HAL Niew Statendam in 2019 and it by far was breathtakingly beautiful.  We went north of the arctic circle and saw beauty and remoteness we had never experienced.   Other opinions may vary….

[VMax1700]

The 14 day Best of Norway is actually two 7 day cruises sold as one cruise.  The farthest North it sails is Gerainger or Alesund.  Some beautiful port calls, but personally, I would prefer Northern Isles itinerary or else a Voyage of Midnight Sun, visiting Hammerfest and Honningsvag.