Trip Summary

Favorite Experiences

What I Wish I Knew

Trip Summary

Oslo, Norway was the sixth port in our summer 11-day Scandinavia and Russia cruise my husband and I (and his family) took aboard the Regal Princess. One of the great things about this part of the itinerary was that the sun was starting to come out more and the weather was getting warmer. It made for some great hours on the balcony watching the sea and the port come into view.

We all booked the Fram, Kon-Tiki, and Viking Museum Tour, but that tour didn’t start until later that afternoon, so my husband and I decided to spend the morning exploring Oslo. This was our first time in Norway, and we were very impressed with how clean and beautiful the country was–everywhere we looked, the streets and buildings were pristine.

We had a lovely time just walking along the streets, seeing the National Theater, Oslo City Hall, Akershus Fortress, and the Royal Palace.

The city is very walkable and has beautiful gardens and fountains along the way, so it is easy to explore and see the sights.

In the afternoon, we had to head back to the ship to catch our tour. After meeting up with the tour group, we boarded the bus and headed to the Viking museum.

This museum was nice because it has multiple ships to look at (and higher lookout points so that you could see the ships and take pictures from above) in addition to having displays that housed various clothing and tools used by the crew.

Another thing I liked about this museum was the lighting in the cases, because it made for some good photos. Usually, these sorts of museums are very dark, but I liked that this one was well-lit.

The ship ruins themselves were also in big rooms with lots of light, so all the details are clearly visible and easy to see.

After spending a bit of time there, we traveled to the Fram museum. This place surprised me because after seeing the Viking museum where everything was so carefully preserved, many in glass cases, the Fram museum was a place where visitors could actually walk around on the ship and explore the decks for themselves.

I liked this museum, too, because of that uniqueness, and it was neat to explore the living quarters, the kitchen, and the various decks and imagine what sailing at sea must have been like.

Also, in this museum was a second ship, Gjoa. You could visit this one via an underground tunnel, and this one was just as fun to explore.

A very unique museum, so if you have a chance to see it, definitely put it on your itinerary.

The last museum we saw was the Kon-Tiki museum, and this was probably our least favorite. This museum was much smaller, but it still had descriptions of the history of the water vessels, and the accounts were honest in how badly the explorers treated the native people and animals they encountered on their explorations. One of the videos was especially upsetting in that it showed the crew pointlessly killing a whale for sport, so that was a depressing way to end the day.

So all in all, the tour had a good itinerary and hit all the main museums in Oslo. The tours were described as “guided,” though, in actuality, passengers are just dropped off and picked up at the locations and left to wander for themselves. This made the price not worth it as we could have easily done the itinerary ourselves.

Princess Cruise’s Fram, Kon-Tiki, and Viking Museum Tour: B+

As we left Oslo and our ship pulled out of port, we were treated to a beautiful sunset late in the night.

My husband and I enjoyed spending the evening out on the balcony and were sad to watch the last of Scandinavia disappear from view as we made our way to our past port of the cruise. The Baltic countries are truly beautiful, and we felt so fortunate to visit!

Favorite Experiences

I think the Fram museum was my favorite. It was such a surprise to be able to see the ship up close and walk around on the decks, so the experience was fun and made for a unique tour. The museum also wasn’t as crowded as I was expecting it to be from the overcrowded ship tours we had taken on the previous ports.

The gift shop also offers free wifi, so that was a nice bonus to check up on things while we waited for the bus to come pick us up again.

What I Wish I Knew

Even before this trip, I knew that booking excursions off the ship or exploring on your own was far better than ship-sponsored tours, and this port was no different. I know our group wanted to stay together in seeing the same sights at the same time, but I think we could have done this easily on our own and saved the money spent on this excursion. We could also have skipped the Kon-Tiki museum this way, too, and just spent more time at the other two places.

Oslo’s port was also right in the city center, so that made it nice to get to places easily. I think if I could do everything again, I would have made the day just a do-it-yourself day where we just explored by ourselves.

Even though we did see a lot in Oslo, there is still a lot that we didn’t get to, so if you think you will visit, there is a forum here and an information page here.