Hurtigruten Reviews 426

Many months ago, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, my wife and I
decided to visit Norway and chose Hurtigruten to see the northern
lights.

On 22 January, you cancelled the flight to Bergen and rearranged the
cruise itinerary. I declined the alternative options.

Ten days have elapsed, and I have become number 02731643. At the
moment, my review on Trip Advisor would not be complimentary.

I smiled at the thought of a company reliant on sea transportation
cancelling because of bad weather.

Difficulties of this nature allow Hurtigrugen to shine above the other
cruise lines and demonstrate they care and are sympathetic. What have
I received? Nothing but one computer-generated email.

In my opinion, Hurtigrugen's customer support is abysmal. It costs
little to keep the customer informed of progress.

My refund may only be a financial transaction to you and of minor
importance. Please do not blame Covid for your lack of action.

For your information, I will be forwarding this email to your CEO
Daniel Skjeldamy.

Ron A Sewell

Customer relations are shockingly bad. Sales safe seem to be totally incapable of telling the truth. It is very obvious that profit is way more important than the customer experience. Broken promises and a couldn't care less attitude. BOOK WITH CONFIDENCE IS A COMPLETE AND UTTER JOKE. DO NOT EXPECT THEM TO LIVE UP TO THEIR OBLIGATIONS. READ THE SMALL PRINT AND MAKE A COPY OF THE Ts & Cs AT THE TIME YOU BOOK, AS THEY MIGHT BE REPLACED WITH LESS FAVOUABLE ONES LATER ON.

Food brilliant. Expedition team unhelpful. Events listed did not happen and where limited in numbers, a lottery was done which. Caused distaste amongst passengers. Opportunities for trips / very disappointing, spoilt the trip. Plan to book with a separate company to complete the trips advertised on this trip which were subsequently unavailable.

Poor pre holiday information led to us being refused embarkation along with 25 other people on 17th Nov in Dover. Life is too short to explain the huge inconvenience and expense this led to. Poorly dealt with, leading to very elderly and three people in wheelchairs, 27 in total, being sent back home. In contrast, excellent service from CPS parking in Dover who refunded my £169 parking which was used for about 4 hours.

After having our northern lights cruise cancelled due to covid we was told we could rebook so we did this the dates we booked were the only dates we could do it as work in a school a few weeks befor we was due to fly we received an email saying the flight back was now the day after & we were flying back to a totally different airport than we were flying from I rang & explained that due to our work it wasn't possible to fly back a day later I spoke to several people & one who was especially rude I said I should be eligible for a refund as I wasn't canceling it was due to them making changes.After a long battle ROL cruises who the cruise was booked through finally got them to agree to a full refund that was on the 12th of may I was told it would take up to 16 weeks it has now gone way past that & guess what still no refund I have rang ROL cruises twice now only to be told they are still waiting for the money to be refunded to them from hurtigruten & then fobbed off saying they will look into it & ring me back guess what no return phone call.i am now at the point we're it is making me ill & am going to have to take another route to get back what is rightly mine .

I appreciate that the consequences of the Covid-19 situation has caused difficulties for many organisations involved in the travel business, however, Hurtigruten have proven to be extremely difficult to deal with. I am unable to establish contact with anyone who can assist. I have resorted to emailing their CEO who dismissed my approach.

Originally meant to travel in 2020 on an expedition cruise to Svalbard, had booked with Thomas Cook in 2019. Hurtigruten have maintained contact all the way through and as my circumstances have changed they understand I can't now make the trip and refunded the cost. 5 star service *****

Great trip lto see the Northern lights. During trip my father died at home and I had to leave ship early. Very poor customer service, having called them and written and emailed several times, I have had no response for almost 12 months. All I need is a letter or email to state I have not had a refund. Should not be too difficult for a company that has any customer care

Supposed to go on our honeymoon in May, obviously it was cancelled! Hurtigruten changed us to a different date with an extra 10% for excursions or an upgrade! We’ve had to change the date again and they haven’t made a fuss.
Really hoping we’ll be cruising with you on 30th May!!!! Keeping everything crossed!!

Nordlys in April 2019 to travel on 4th November 2020 with the outbreak of the Covid 19 virus, I was fully expecting this cruise to be cancelled but ferries have not been cancelled, despite the definition of a cruise being staying overnight on a sea-going ship with people from multiple households. this trip is not termed a cruise! The British Foreign Office are advising against all Cruise Travel and we are both in the at risk group, however when speaking to the ROL office they say if we cancel we will lose all our money £3.398. and offered us a voucher. I have explained that we will not consider cruising again. so it looks like we will lose our money this was going to be a dream trip but it has turned into a nightmare. I am thinking of taking them to court because as has been said previously this is robbery. Maureen

I am very frustrated that Hurtigruten will not reimburse our deposit for the Norway Roundtrip Coastal Voyage next month (Sept 2020). I have been trying to get them to reimburse us for about 5 months and they are refusing stating that they only do this for cruises that are cancelled. My spouse and I are in the high risk category and we just learned that a Hurtigruten sailing recently had a covid-19 outbreak. I recently sent another email - still waiting to hear back..........

We booked an Antarctic Cruise on MS "Roald Amundsen" in 2017 for one of the first cruises in 2019 on the new ship through Bolsover Cruise Club . Cruise was cancelled due to the ship not being commissioned in time, and we re-booked on the MS "Fridtjof Nansen" for an Arctic Adventure. This was also cancelled for the same reason. Once again we re-booked for the Antarctic Cruise on MS "Roald Amundsen", sailing on 15th March 2020, but we were strongly advised not to travel to Chile at the last moment, as it was likely we would be put into quarantine, due to fears over Covid-19. What they didn't tell us was that the ship was never going to make the sailing date, as it was forbidden to dock in Punta Arenas. Our cruise was not cancelled until some days later, but we had to find this out from the media. Our refund request for almost £18,000 would take 3 months, so they said, despite the legal requirement to refund in 14 days. It's now almost 4 months. Hurtigruten show indifference to genuine customer complaints and only communicate on a general impersonal level. Our agent has been powerless to generate a proper response to their extensive delay in refunding.

My wife and I booked Norwegian cruise with flights from Cardiff which was due to depart Cardiff on 23 March 2020. When it became clear from their website that we would not be allowed to board the ship, 18 March, I asked for a refund as they were unable to provide the holiday we booked. I got an initial computer generated reply saying it would take up to 3 months to process the refund. It is now July and I have heard nothing. I did not even receive any information telling me not to travel. I only got information by visiting their website. They owe me £5000. It's disgusting.

We had booked a trip with Ms Lofoten on June 30, 2020 in the month of January, which due to coronavirus has been canceled.
Along the way, received serious treatment on inquiries and now got the money back.
Sincerely
Gorm Jensen

We were due to go on a Norwegian Cruise on 14 March 2020. As Norway was put in lockdown on 12 March, the cruise was cancelled. It is now June 08 and they still haven't refunded our money, £15,500.00. Absolutely disgusted by the way this has been handled. Booked through Premier Travel in Dereham. Thought we would have protection, appears not.

Foolishly I signed up in February for my husband and I to do a Coastal Voyage with Hurtigruten, beginning April 1st, 2020.
We heard not a tweet from Hurtigruten in the run up to April 1st. Of course, by that date, our government had told us we should not travel, the Norwegian government said if we arrived in Norway we would be quarantined for two weeks. So naturally we did not turn up for a flight, for which we had no tickets or timing. Iglu Cruise was the agent we signed up with. They tell us that Hurtigruten was offering a rebooking at some time the future. But, my husband and i are over 80 and would like our money back, and to forget the whole think.
What do you think of a company which sells a product which it cannot deliver and keeps the money? I call it theft.

I could not recommend Hurtigruten to anyone. They have our not insubstantial sump of money and apparently they intend to keep it.
I would not recommend HURTGRUTEN to any travellers. Beware.

Ann Lavery, Worcs. UK

I attempted to travel on an Antarctica cruise with Hurtigruten in November/December 2019. After a lot of very poor correspondence with the company we finally arrived in Santiago. The night before the cruise and while our luggage was in Hurtigruten's care it was stolen. You can't go on a two week cruise in Antarctica with no luggage, so we had to come home – despite pressure from them to continue with the holiday. Happily, the local agent agreed their insurance covered it and we would all be refunded. Indeed, Hurtigruten offered $2000 to cover the luggage lost. Given their generally poor performance prior to the cruise and absolutely appalling behaviour on the day of the theft, we weren’t really surprised that Hurtigruten went back on this. They just ignored our emails despite having agreed that they were responsible for the luggage. They expect someone else, anyone else, as long at it's not them, to pay for this entirely avoidable situation, which is entirely their responsibility. The theft was clearly by someone who knew the routines. We thought our luggage was being taken to the ship and not just to the airport. Otherwise we would not have complied with their requirements. To add insult to injury, they flippantly called the situation a bit of bad luck!

I have only commented on this obviously major issue. There were many, many, other issues in the planning of this cruise and during the few days we were on the holiday and even before we went we were regretting it and saying we would not go with Hurtigruten again. Interestingly, when we spoke with other passengers, they said the same thing.

Lesson learnt – Never travel with Hurtigruten – they are uncommunicative, uncaring, untrustworthy, disorganised, liars. I am several thousand pounds out of pocket. Thanks Hurtigruten!

Having booked a "Northern Light" trip in January 2020 we were very disappointed that despite almost all of the glossy brochure images showing destinations in broad daylight, nearly every stop was i the hours of darkness. When we asked Hurtigruten for the address to write to complain we we told to write to Feedback.uk at hurtigruten.com.
Sadly not only did we receive no response but when I then asked for a copy of their complaints policy, their travel consultant asked me what a complaints policy is!! I KID YOU NOT!!
So far, no response about how or where to write to complain and no sign of a complaints policy forthcoming. VERY DISAPPOINTING CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I booked a Northern Lights return voyage Bergan to Bergan cruise for March 2020. Five weeks before departure we were advised that the ship would not return to Bergan but drop off all passengers in Trondheim due to the need to carryout repairs to the ship. Over a period of over two weeks I attempted to obtain additional information regarding this change but the majority of my calls and e-mails remained unanswered.

The need to maintain the ship was fully accepted but the change of programme involved a day and a half of lost cruising the time being replaced with a 36hour period alongside in Trondheim. I requested detailed information of how customers were to be recompensed and entertained. The information provided was drip fed and incomplete. after two weeks of numerous unanswered phone calls and e-mails I finally cancelled.

This is a company cannot be recommend their customer service is atrocious. Avoid at all costs.

We booked a 12 day voyage on MS Spitsbergen from the 11th to the 23rd January this year to which we were looking forward having done this same trip last March and failed to experience the northern lights. We received the promised discount and duly booked up again. However, we arrived in Bergen on the 9th January, 2 days ahead of departure. On the 10th we noticed that this ship was still in Bodo (please excuse spelling) and contacted the Hurtigruten terminal in Bergen who confirmed she was in this northerly port for repairs. She would not reach Bergen for boarding the next day. So we could cancel completely or book a cabin on MS Nordlys a day later. We decided to take this option and we were transferred to Tromso who were very helpful and booked us a cabin, downgraded slightly from our original booking on MS Spitsbergen. Our booking was confirmed at 16:42 on the 10th January. Then at 17:13 we received an email from Hurtgruten in London advising us of the alternative arrangements to fly passengers to Trondheim to board the Spitsbergen! By this time we had re- organised our flights home at great extra cost, hotel reservations as well.
On returning home we expected to be refunded 25% and the extra hotel night as advised by the office in Tromso who also were surprised we hadn't received a message from London.. However, Hurtigruten in London just send a short reply that there was a schedule change. They failed to contact us with the alternative arrangements until the evening prior to boarding and we have not received any refund. The Norwegian offices were very helpful but the London one has failed to live up to expectations.

UPDATE: Following a positive telephone conversation we are looking forward to having this matter resolved. Obviously, it takes time for a refund to be issued and it's better to speak on the phone to fully understand the situation.