Booked my first ever cruise - any tips?

[moolie19]

I think cruising for my husband and I is going to be like marmite we are either going to love it or hate it, but I decided it was time to start ticking stuff of my bucket list.
So we are booked for next September on a 7 night cruise from Southampton with p&o to the Norwegian fjords.
If anyone has anything they can share with me or any tips I would be really grateful.

[mskitty]

The fjords are amazing. Did them last year for my first cruise.

Not sure what your plans are regarding eating etc but we did full on restaurant meals every night on first sitting and loved it. We also ate in there for most breakfasts and lunches as we found the buffet to be a bit of a bun fight. We just went for the full on old fashioned cruise experience taking part in formal nights etc as I thought if I'm going to do it I might as well do it 100%.

We were on Azura. If you have any questions please ask.

Michelle

[stecee]

We are booked on a cruise to the Fjords next year as well. This will be our 4th cruise in 5 years, so you could say we are in the love it camp.Is there anything specific you want tips on?
There are some excellent trip reports of cruises to the Fjords which will give you an insight of what to expect.

[Bats]

If you port at Stavanger, I'd definitely take a heli trip, or boat trip to see Pulpit Rock.
You can also hike to it if you're fit and able.

We did the heli trip ... amazing! Our friends did the boat trip and loved that too.

[JAF]

We cruised to the Fjords on Britannia earlier this year and had a wonderful week. If you stop at Flam would definitely recommend taking the train trip and it is not necessary to take an organised trip. If you disembark reasonably quickly the station is only a few yards from the dock and it is considerably cheaper to do it yourself.

[katiec68]

We were you a year ago!
P&O Fjords Cruise booked in Sept 15 and we went Sept 16.
Very nervous

Here is what I wrote here on the forum when we got back

Well we are back after a fantastic trip.

I'll hope to put together a bit of a trip report but here are my thoughts on our first (and maybe last? ) trip.

We were on P&O Arcadia Adults only 7 night trip to the Fjords - Bergen, Olden, Flaam and Stavanger.

We had previously booked a 4hr ship tour so we knew where our cabin was. DH was rather reluctant to go on this cruise so the ship tour really helped to offset those "what is it really like" arrival nerves.

Ship tour was 4hrs long, included a fab 3 course lunch and wine for £25 each.

We had 2 nights in Southampton before our cruise - a nice leisurely start and spent the Saturday at Portsmouth historic dockyard - well worth it if you buy the tickets on "Buy a gift" as they were 1/3 cheaper than the actual Portsmouth site.

Waiting around on the Sunday was a bit of a pain - next time we would look at making some definite plans for the morning.

Check in - we used the parking system - spent about 20 minutes in the queue and then another hour waiting to check in - all relatively painless but the waiting around was quite boring compared to the airport as there really was nothing else to do apart from sit there. I did find it frustrating watching all the people with "priority boarding" cards "jumping" the queue - there just seemed to be hundreds of them

At the start of the cruise the staff were handing out the drinks in the restaurant - this caused big queues and quite a bit of moaning.
We have since learnt that they do this on all ships for the first 2-3 days for hygiene reasons - norovirus etc - and if there are no reports they go back to self service.
If this had been explained it would have made a lot more sense!

We had booked a first - 630pm - sitting. At home we eat around 7pm and didn't really want to wait until 830pm for dinner
We did find service a bit rushed however and on a couple of nights our mains were served straight after our starter plates were removed:non ono:

We visited the "main" restaurant for breakfast on our first morning - service was very slow and disorganised and from then on we went up to the buffet restaurant. Most mornings it was reasonably quiet and there was always a seat.
Lots of choice and fresh omelettes made to order.

As Norway was VERY expensive - think £10 for a crepe (in the market) and £10 for 1/2 pint we tended to get off early and do our thing, then go back for lunch then either get off again or sit around on deck, reading or sleeping

We loved the sailaway parties - although we originally thought they might be a bit cheesy
Although leaving the party in time to get ready for dinner was a bit of rush some evenings

We loved dressing for dinner - even though the buffet restaurant is more casual we were still very dressed and I wore my heels every night.
Formal nights seemed to bring a different atmosphere to the ship which was great.

We had 2 nights that we ate in the buffet restaurant. The tables were all set out properly and the staff were very attentive (probably more so than in the main dining room). They will serve beer/wine and soft drinks to your table just like the main restaurant.
The buffet restaurant was much quieter than the main dining room and we thought it had a great atmosphere. We found we could take our time and on one night we spent over 2 hrs there just chatting and watching the Fjords go by

Before we went DH was VERY nervous about cruising and being seasick (I will admit to you lot that i was a teeny bit worried myself but I wasnt going to admit that to DH). I guess we were very lucky with the weather - I've never seen the sea so calm - we didn't experience any real issues and most times DH said he even forgot he was on a ship. He did take his tablets on the last 2 nights as he was feeling just a teeny teeny bit unsettled - I think it was more mental they physical as he does have a tendency to overthink things (He got himself so worked up when we were waiting for a boat trip in Turkey he ended up in a right old mess and spent the last week in bed with an infection! )
Anyway the tablets seemed to work their magic and he was absolutely fine.

We loved having all our clothes unpacked for the week - our last 2 trips have been road trips and we really lived out of our suitcases for 2 weeks. We LOVED just being able to unpack and hang everything up for the whole week.
We found packing up the day before worked well and we could leave our last bag out just before bed so that all we were left with was our stuff for the morning.

We had a minor issue with the smell of cooking fat in our room - we were one deck below the main and pool restaurants and we think that the vent wasnt far from our room.
We complained on day 2 and they sprayed the carpet. I suppose as we were out of the cabin most days we didn't notice the smell that much most days but on the last morning we spent the morning in the cabin packing etc and the smell was overpowering. DH complained and we had a various stream of people come to the room. Eventually the deck manager offered us £150 in compensation which we accepted - they did offer to wash all our stuff - mainly my "good dresses and DH dinner suit" but there really wasnt the time to get them back before we got off. They did offer to move us to a non-balcony cabin but there didn't seem much point for less than 24hrs :arm:

On our last morning DH said he thought that he could have done more sea days :gig: This is something I NEVER expected him to say in a million years.

So am happy to answer any questions from a first timers perspective.

And do you think we re-booked while on board?
Post your answers below...

Katie x

[stecee]

Erm... yes

[moolie19]

Thanks everyone for your comments. Some of the tops are great and I think after already reading about the prices in Norway we were thinking of doing our own thing and them going back to the ship for lunch.
The top about the train is great and I will definitely look to do this without doing the excursion.

[katiec68]

Originally Posted by stecee

Erm... yes

See more...

Yeah - we did!

We are not doing 2 weeks in the Caribbean in Jan 18 - we leave for the airport the day after my 50th

We are already planning a Northern Cape and a Panama Canal cruise in the next few years!

Katie x x

[Ds4ljs]

Just booked a cruise for next July doing this. 😊