A dysfunctional family hosts their friends and families on a cruise ship in Zoya Akhtar’s fun film ‘Dil Dhadakne Do’ which released on June 5, 2015. I watched the film the same night in Gurgaon and boarded a cruise ship called Costa Luminosa from Stockholm just a few hours later. We were just a small group so didn’t have the kind of bizarre incidents which occurred in the movie nor we had Anushka performing on the ship but we did keep talking about the film during the voyage which took us to Helsinki, Tallinn and St Petersburg. While our trip was pre-planned and had nothing to do with the film- many from India got so fascinated by what cruise ships had to offer, that there was a substantial increase in cruse tourism after the film was released. With the famous Ambani’s taking guests on a cruise ship for a pre-wedding celebration this year – the cruising industry will get another thumbs up from the Indian tourists.

This year again we decided to take a cruise. It had been 8 year since our last cruise and the industry had almost collapsed during the pandemic. We boarded Celebrity Silhouette from Rotterdam and it was our home for 7 nights and we docked in 4 different towns of Norway. In Belgium and Netherlands we had spent a week on land so it was time to hit the sea. We had a small group of 3 families so that made the cruise more fun. The towns that the ship was scheduled to anchor in were called MoIde, Olden, Alesund and Stavenger. Olden was the most beautiful and had a population of just 660 people ! I doubt if these towns would have been in our itinerary for any travel otherwise.

Europe and the western world has many famous capitals like Amsterdam, Paris, London and Rome. These are fun places and those who visit these places for a holiday come back with an impression that this part of the world never sleeps and parties all night long. Unknown to these people, the smaller towns in the same countries go dead by 6 PM. During the summer months it is daylight till 11 PM but the streets are deserted (other than weekends) and only a few pubs and casinos are in action. It is in these places that the cruise ship is a best way to travel. It docks in the morning and you can leave the ship at leisure after breakfast. It sails in the evening and then you can enjoy all the activities and nightlife on board. Starting in 2026, only ships powered by alternative fuels will be allowed to visit Norway’s fjords. The idea is to protect the unique natural environment and stop marine diesel oil and mass tourism from damaging the climate. Many cities like Amsterdam have announced that they don’t want cruise ships and hordes of people who come on them as they find it difficult to manage such crowds.

I have cruised to Alaska, Bahamas and Baltics earlier so the cruising experience was nothing new. The fact that I cruised again means that it is worthwhile to have this kind of a holiday once in a while.

Planning for Cruise

There is so much information available on internet that it is easy to plan a cruise. Once you know which dates suit you then you can easily filter the cruises by the embarkation port, length of cruise and places where it will visit. SE Asia is easy but not too exciting for me. Europe has a lot of choices – Greek isles, Nordics, Mediterranean etc. USA has amazing Alaska cruises but is too far to go for cruising unless you are travelling there. I would love to do South America and Antarctica but there are too many issues involved there including the financial aspects. As far as finance is concerned – most popular cruise lines like Royal Caribbean , NCL, Celebrity Costa, MSC etc. will cost you $1000-2000 per person depending on the kind of stateroom you choose. I always take verandah (balcony) which is around $ 1800 including gratuities and my preference is for a 7 night cruise.

Booking a Cruise

• It can be done directly online but as people are not very comfortable with this -so most agents book it now.
• Budget dictates whether you should have inner, Oceanview, balcony or a suite stateroom.
• Balcony rooms also have categories. There was an Aqua category which had the same room but you could have dinner in a different restaurant (more upmarket and exclusive) and use the spa. I took a normal balcony room but paid slightly more for a better location. By better location I mean on a higher deck (9th or 10th) and the mid-ship. This makes reaching everywhere convenient. In the last ship the main buffet restaurant, atrium and customer service was at the Aft and spa/health-club/theatre was in front.

The Packages

The food is included along with basic tea, lemonade and coffee. You could fill up your bottle water from the buffet restaurant or buy packaged water. All the other drinks you have to pay. The cruise company tries to sell you everything :

• Drink package : Just remember that your room partner will have to buy the same package so it doesn’t work out economical.
• Spa Package
• Internet package
• special restaurants package.

I didn’t take any package and survived. On sailing days without the internet you may feel lost but it worked out fine as I didn’t have any urgent office work. Once the ship docked then I could use my roaming phone data.

On the Ship

Once on the ship you have to realise that it is up to you to make the most of it. There is a lot to do and for a person like me – its a great opportunity to make it my home for a week and enjoy everything that it has to offer.

Boarding : Much of the work is done pre embarkation on the App of cruise line. Upload your passport and Visa and fill up a form and you get a boarding pass. Once you reach the terminal they take suitcases from you and they get delivered a few hours later outside your stateroom. They check documents again and then you can proceed to your stateroom. Once inside the ship- all you need is the card they give you. It is your room key, shopping card and activity card. The whole process could take from 30 minutes to an hour.

Sailing : Most ships depart at around 5 PM in the evening. The boarding starts at 11 AM and goes on till 3.30 PM. So if you take a flight to the boarding city then you don’t have to take hotel for that day. You could spend some time at airport and then check in on the cruise ship. The bar is open and the lunch is served even on the day of boarding. You do have some safety drill before you are finally considered to be checked in.

The best thing to do after having lunch is to explore the ship and get acquainted with the lift locations, activity centres, spa, restaurants, lounges and shopping area. Casino and dining room are very visible when you embark so you can’t miss them.

The Ship : Most of the ships I have been to have been similar. The American ships indulge you more with food and desserts compared to European ones.

The Stateroom : I was very comfortable in our verandah stateroom. They had enough storage space but Devicka and I were travelling light also as we had left a suitcase at Amsterdam hotel storage room. The service was good and the room and bathrooms were clean. Some days were very cold so it wasn’t feasible to sit in Balcony but otherwise Devicka did a lot of reading sitting there. And you could always go to sky lounge and read in comfortable chairs or go to the library and borrow a book. In the morning when we opened the curtain either we were greeted by the deep blue sea or the houses of some charming town.

Restaurants : There is a formal dining room on lower decks which may give you your seating time for dinner which you must choose while booking. The westerners like eating early while we Indians prefer late seating. I had specially requested the last seating. The food in dining hall is stylish and limited. I quite like it as they always had some nice grilled fish or a very well made steak. But most Indian tourists were flocking the buffet restaurant which is normally on the higher deck. A couple of evenings they had some themes also like ‘chic evening’ which encouraged you to dress up accordingly.

Buffet had too much choice and too many types of food. It’s no wonder that a week on a cruise ship results in weight going up. The desserts variety was tremendous. There was a big group of Indians on our ship so each day for lunch and dinner they had a full counter for Indian food and another counter for Jain food. Then they had a place which made hamburgers and hot dogs. If you wanted to spend money there were specialized restaurants – Italian, Japanese and grill.

The health club/gym was huge and you could enjoy the views from the huge glass windows while working out or on treadmill. I used the gym in evenings after coming back from excursions and it was quite empty at that time. Many would go early morning for stretching and yoga with trainers. Morning was always very busy. When the ship sailed from different ports, it crossed the Fjords at many places and it was a really nice view. Then I would spend some time in the warm jacuzzi which again had a great view of the outside.

As I mentioned earlier – there was a bar everywhere. This is a big money spinner as you are not allowed to get booze from outside. The luggage is X Rayed and even hand luggage is scanned at each port once you come back. A lot of bar guys were Indians and they were kind enough to give me a generous pour once they realised that I was without a drinks package. With Euro 2024 in full flow the sports bar and celebrity bar were very popular as they had TV screens. As sun was setting past midnight – you could feel that it was night if you came to lower floors as they had covered the windows . If you did want to enjoy the views till late at night then sky lounge on 12th floor was perfect.

A detailed programme for the following day was provided each evening at the stateroom. I would go through it and plan the next day accordingly. We attended interesting talks (about sharks, dangerous sea creatures, European Art…….etc etc) , participated in games like Jenga & Bingo, danced at musical sing alongs ,watched some super performances at the theatre, played put put golf and participated in liquor tasting sessions each day. You could join the dance sessions or special gym sessions. At times it was very confusing as simultaneously some good programmes were held in different venues. The most popular evening was the time they had ABBA sing along at the atrium. The one hour programme extended to 90 minutes and there were people everywhere and all were dancing and enjoying every moment.

Navigating the Norwegian towns

Norway is an expensive country. We have been to Oslo and Bergen earlier so were aware what to expect. Bergen was a great place and very scenic. Norway has the 2nd longest shore line in the world (After Canada) and we stopped at 4 different towns but we didn’t cross the Arctic circle. On this trip we didn’t buy any shore excursions from the cruise company but did excursions on our own. The others in our group did do a Fjords boat ride at Stavenger arranged by the cruise ship and they loved it.

Molde : Our first stop was here. One can just walk along the sea shore for 15-20 minutes to reach the city centre. There are 2 things you can do here. Go up to a peak called the Varden and enjoy the views or drive to the picturesque Atlantic Ocean road. We didn’t hike up to the Varden (many people do it) but went by bus and taxi. I mean some went by bus and some by taxi as bus had only a few seats left. This we did from city centre without any prior booking. Atlantic ocean road is a bit further so we avoided that though I am told that it is a great drive. There was enough beauty to be seen from the ship and the peaks of Molde. Molde did have a mall in city centre and realising that I will need some more clothes I did buy some stuff from there. There was a Thai restaurant in the town so we decided to have a leisurely lunch here.

Olden : The best stop of the ship. The view from ship itself was stunning and the ship was going to sail late from here so we had enough time. We took a Glacier bus (I booked online but there was their office also at the port) which took us to the point from where you could go by troll cars or hike up. We hiked for 45 minutes and reached the glacial lake and admired the glacier. The hike was lovely and I am glad we walked through such natural beauty instead of coming on a vehicle. It had waterfalls, forests , mountain river and great views of the Briksdal Glacier. The weather was great so it was a lovely hike both ways.

We came back to the port but decided to go to Loen Skylift. We didn’t even enter the ship but had hamburger lunch outside. The same company had vehicles to go here also and we bought the tickets (bus ride and skylift) but forgot to take discount as we realised later that they were offering discount on the 2nd excursion on the same day. The views from that height were stunning but it was also extremely cold. I think it was around 3 deg C at the top and very windy. We braved the cold for 40 minutes and then rushed back to the cable car.

Alesund : It is a lovely town and is known for art nouveau architecture. It is a gateway to some spectacular fjords –Hjørundfjord being one of them, the UNESCO-listed Geirangerfjord another. We took the small sightseeing train from the port which introduced us to the town and it’s history. It took us to the Aksala mountain for photographs and then dropped us off at embarkation point. Rest of the time we spent exploring the city and the shops and trying to understand what art nouveau was. We could admire all the fjords, villages and waterfalls from the ship once the ship sailed. The announcement in the ship the same morning had told us to make sure that we were on the decks to admire this at a prescribed time.

Stavenger : Another town near the Fjords but much larger than other towns we visited. Some of the group went for a fjords boat ride while rest of us just roamed around the city centre and did some shopping. The place had nice shops and lovely pubs and cafes. It was nice to sit in great weather and have beer while watching the people. For those who have never experienced fjords from close quarters this was a great opportunity to see the lovely Norwegian villages and beautiful waterfalls in the fjords by small boats which take you to them.

The cruise ends : The bags are packed the night before and left outside the stateroom for them to be carried away. We got them when we disembarked the next morning at around 9 AM at Rotterdam after breakfast. The ship sailing card is linked to your credit card so that is taken care of but you can always pay them before disembarking if you so wish. A 7 night cruise covering 4 cities with 2 sailing days was a good cruise to do. By the 7th day we knew we have had enough and it was good to get back to the shore and go to normal restaurants for meals and sleep on normal beds.

Was it all smooth ? The North sea is an open sea with strong currents. A couple of days the ship did sway around and it was more apparent at night. Many who didn’t drink any alcohol were also swaying while walking. It does make the heart get flappy but this adds to the fun of cruise holiday.