The ship’s departure is delayed by a mechanical issue, so what?
By Eileen Ogintz
Even the best planned trips don’t always go off without a hitch.
We once arrived at a snow resort to discover a child’s ski parka was left at home (it was warm when we left). We’ve had our passports stolen in Florence and spent a day at the consulate getting them reissued. (Who knew they would take off so many hours for lunch!)
We’ve had kids get too sick to check out of a hotel, and we have waited around an airport all day and evening before the airline cancelled our flight and rebooked us the next day, making us lose a day and a half of the trip.
The list goes on. In the latest case, our Hurtigruten ship, the MS Trollford, needed more maintenance than anticipated. Thus, we couldn’t board as scheduled in Oslo and would need to meet the ship in another port the next day. And because the Nobel Peace Prize was being awarded in Oslo that night, we couldn’t stay at the same hotel or even one in the city. So, we were bussed out to one at the airport.
To Hurtigruten’s credit, they kept us apprised by text and email. No one was particularly happy to spend the next day on a four-plus hour bus ride to what had been our first port, Kristiansand on the Southern Norway Coast, or to miss that day’s excursions and activities.
“You just have to think of it as an adventure,” one traveler from Australia suggested.
I admit most of our misadventures have been spun into good travel stories later. In this case, Hurtigruten did all the heavy lifting and we didn’t have to arrange anything, even dinner or breakfast. There was even a boxed lunch for the bus trip. In other cases, I was glad for travel insurance.
Finally, we were able to toast our arrival over an excellent dinner complete with wine pairing in the ship’s fine dining restaurant Rost Arctic Fine Dining with old friends. We now live far from each other and met for this trip up, and then down the Norwegian Coast to see the Northern Lights, Christmas Markets, and quaint Coastal communities. The MS Trollfjord, flagship of the Hurtigruten voyages, takes its name from a small fjord in the Vesteralen archipelago. The ship is furnished with natural materials such as wood and stone. (Of course, there is a sauna looking out to the sea and Coast!)
We are joined by some 260 others (the ship can hold 500) and 90-person all-Scandinavian and eager-to please crew who deliver every announcement in four languages—English, French, Norwegian and German. You can ask them anything about the Norwegian Coast we are traveling and they, and the Expedition staff, can answer knowledgeably, said Hotel Director Jill Sandvik, who grew up in Honningsvag with just 2500 people and no daylight between Nov. 21 and early January. “I didn’t know anything else,” she said. ” You all take care of each other.” And enjoy a lot of fun in the snow–even jumping from the second floor into the deep snow.
I’ve already met guests, including multigenerational groups, families with teen and grown children, and friends traveling together from as far away as Australia “Twenty-two hours of flying,” one Australian said. Hurtigruten is a household name in Norway, a company that is 130 years old that at first simply connected the towns along the Coast which is the second longest in the world, enabling people to travel without switching on to several smaller ships, transforming not only travel but mail and deliveries up and down the coast. Fish from the North could be transported to the South and exported. Imports, like bananas and refrigerators could now be easily brought North, improving the quality of life.
By 1936, the 14-ship fleet was carrying more than 230,000 passengers annually, increasingly including tourists from abroad.
Today Hurtigruten Expeditions (www.travelhx.com) offers voyages including to the Galapagos Islands, Antarctica, the Arctic, Alaska and more, with on-board enrichment talks about where we are traveling. Kids and teens are up to half price off when sharing a cabin with two adults.
Just recently, Hurtigruten was ranked as the top 2024 operator in the 2024 Friends of the Earth Cruise Shi Report Card in recognition of their dedication to advancing environmentally responsible maritime travel and its leadership in setting new standards,
Travelers increasingly look to a company’s environmental footprint when choosing who to travel with and where to go. At the same time, climate change and over tourism draws travelers to less touristed Northern Europe (Norway is in the top five for 2025 travel in new surveys) Hurtigruten enables travelers to explore special places along the coast, working with local tourism companies as well as food and beverage providers.
The company’s Coastal Kitchen trades with 65 farms, fisheries, bakeries, butchers, cheesemakers, distilleries and even ice cream innovators. At each stop, we learn, supplies are added, enabling those on board to enjoy food from the region we are passing through.
Our first tasting, in fact, are pancakes with apple compote as the region around the Hardangerfjord is famous for its apples and cider production as well as its scenery—glaciers, waterfalls, and mountains.
Hopefully, we won’t have too much “troll weather” impeding our views or excursions exploring local towns, hiking along the coast, dogsledding, fishing with a local fisherman, snowshoeing and more as we make our way up to Honningsvag and then back down the Coast to Bergen.
Time for a sauna or afternoon tea?