Hurtigrutens Hus

The Hurtigruten museum, in Stokmarknes, Norway is astounding. There is one complete Hurtigruten ship, from the 1950's in the museum, and also a large section of another ship from the 1920's. A very interesting display of the company's history. We are enjoying a Hurtigruten Norway cruise from Oslo north to Honningsvåg, then back south to Bergen, and we called into Stokmarknes on the way.

I wanted to travel just from Bergen to Tromso, but was unable to book via the UK website which only seems to offer 12 day packages! As this is hybrid cruise ship / passenger ferry I knew that it was possible but the only way of booking from the UK seemed to be via telephone. Booking something that is not a package means that you choose and pay for your cabin and then add on (and pay for) any meals package. I opted to pay for breakfast and dinner, not lunch. While I think this way of booking is more affordable if you are travelling solo, the meals packages are not cheap. As an idea, I paid £676 for the four nights travel in a Polar outside single cabin then £80 for the breakfasts and £148 for the dinners - I was on board for four nights. So the total for five days / four nights including food (October 2021) was £904. My ship was the Nordlys. There is a bistro and bakery on board where it is possible to buy things for lunch and late breakfast so it is possible to travel a little more cheaply than this by opting just for pastry for breakfast for instance, and taking fresh fruits on board. The staff are all lovely and very helpful, and most of them appeared to speak good English. All announcements are in Norwegian, German and English. This did not go down too well with the French passengers on board :-) When I got on board I opted to upgrade to an Arctic outside room so my comments relate to this cabin. I was on deck 5 at the back of the ship. I have never been on a cruise before so am unsure whether the turbulence I experienced the first night was worse here than if I had been more central in the ship. Apparently that area between Bergen and Alesund is fairly notorious for rough seas, luckily this did not occur until I was in bed in my cabin so was able to lie down for most of that patch. The cabin was compact but well thought out, with plenty of storage space - wardrobes, cupboards and plenty of room under the bed to store suitcases. The bed was very comfortable with two very large and two standard size pillows and there were two small chairs in the cabin if you wanted to sit at the desk. By pushing the info button on the phone, you allowed any announcements to be heard in the cabin as well as alerts for the northern lights. Most of the announcements were between about 8.30 am and 10 pm but not always, especially when the northern lights were in view. The shower room was also compact but there was a heated floor so any overspill from the shower quickly evaporated. The shower was strong and hot. The heated floor was also quite handy for drying socks on! And there was pleasant smelling shampoo, soap and conditioner supplied. The food was very good, the first night was a buffet to help yourself - a choice of braised beef or baked halibut (or a little of both!) and a vegetarian option for main courses. There were also several starters including traditional fish soup, salmon, cold meats, salads and plenty of choice of desserts. The other three n

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