Doubling up Cruises

[mm824]

We have a placeholder for the July 30 11-night Iceland cruise in 2021. Ports include UK, Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Copenhagen.

We've toyed with pushing back to September and doubling up between the British Isles route and Norway route.

Has anyone taken both or either of these cruises? Is Iceland worth the stop, to you? Has anyone doubled back to back? Did you enjoy it?

Would love to hear your perspective here - thank you!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We have a placeholder for the July 30 11-night Iceland cruise in 2021. Ports include UK, Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Copenhagen.

We've toyed with pushing back to September and doubling up between the British Isles route and Norway route.

Has anyone taken both or either of these cruises? Is Iceland worth the stop, to you? Has anyone doubled back to back? Did you enjoy it?

Would love to hear your perspective here - thank you!

Haven't done those cruises, but have done B2B cruises. Love them. We like longer cruises, so combining cruises makes them seem like one longer cruise.

I'd go to Iceland, just because I've never been there.

 

[i18mulan]

We’ve been on 12 DCL cruises and our 11 night Iceland is our favorite! Next fave is Alaska. It’s totally worth it for us. We did so much on our overnight in Reykjavik. Rented a car and went on our own. Saved so much $ doing our own tours for our family of 7. Just had to plan ahead and make resrvations for Blue Lagoon and Langjokull Glacier. We had a 7 and 9 year old with us and this itinerary is their favorite as well.
Whatever you decide on, whether Iceland or B2B, I’m sure it will be awesome!

 

[Intr3pid]

Iceland and Norway are great destinations. They are also both expensive to visit on your own. In the case of Norway, a land-based trip presents logistical challenges too.

Unfortunately, Disney's Norway stops are not the first-choice ports that everyone wants to visit. The lateness of finalizing the itineraries leaves those top ports out of reach. We were lucky to visit Geiranger in 2019, but you won't find that port on the 2020 (RIP) or 2021 cruises.

I imagine those two 7-night cruises combined will cost you less than the one 11-nighter to Iceland. One way to counter that is to take the Iceland cruise when the Magic repositions to Dover (from Copenhagen) in August. It would have done so this year (in 2020), and it might do so next time in 2022.

 

[scottishclover]

My very first cruise was Fjords in 2016 and my family loved it. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Went to Stavanger, Alesund, Geiranger and Bergen. I felt it was enough to give me a feel for this beautiful part of Norway and a land based trip would have been very expensive. Prices were eye watering!

This summer we managed to get away for a week’s road trip in Iceland Before all the quarantining kicked in. I cannot emphasise how much there is to see and do and we were only in South Iceland. We just scratched the surface and we were touring pretty much from 8am to 8pm.We had such an amazing time and I mentioned to my husband how we would have missed out on so much if we had come on a cruise. (BTW the port area in Reykjavik was like a ghost town and was very sad to see. Can‘t see how the small tour companies will survive.) To get back to your post - some destinations are fine on a cruise when one day is enough, Iceland is not one of them. My suggestion is to do the Norway cruise and add on a land trip in Iceland afterwards. Best of both worlds. Also we were pleasantly surprised by prices in Iceland. They didn’t live up to the hype, thank goodness.

With regards to British Isles cruise, be aware that the ports are quite industrial, e.g., Greenock, Liverpool and you would need to do an excursion. No strolling into town like in Norway. The British Isles cruise doesn’t appeal to me but then I’m from Scotland

I’m sure you will have a great time regardless what you decide on. Travelling is all about what you make of it anyway.

 

[TikiThunderPirates]

We have a placeholder for the July 30 11-night Iceland cruise in 2021. Ports include UK, Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Copenhagen.

We've toyed with pushing back to September and doubling up between the British Isles route and Norway route.

I haven't done the British Isles specifically but I have done two(3 if you count Dover) of the ports on a WBTA.
We treated Embarkation day as a Port Day in Dover. We came down from London the night before and stayed in Dover and got up bright and early to tour Dover Castle. If you haven't seen Dover Castle, and you have interest in either Castles, Medieval history or WWII history, it's a must. It was AMAZING. If you get there when it opens and plan well and don't take breaks you can see it all in about 3 hours and then head to the Port and get onboard the ship around 2:00pm. If we had more time we would have just relaxed our speed seeing the sites more, but we didn't skip anything inside Dover Castle either.

Dover has several other things we want to do, including a hike along the cliffs, the Dover museum, the Roman Painted house, and the WWII Gun bunkers and such along the coast. We can't wait to get back. Lots of people say "don't stay in Dover, Canterbury is nicer" but for a one night stay before Embarkation on a ship it worked great and allowed us to be there early and have basically a full day of "Port Adventuring" on our own before we even started our cruise.


We really enjoyed our time in Portland England. We booked a PA through DCL because we wanted to do something specific they offer that you can't do on your own. They booked a private tour of a manor house and cream tea, which is not open to the general public for tours. The Minterne Manor House gardens are open to the public, but it doesn't offer general tours inside the home. This was AMAZING. If you enjoy old manor houses, this was WELL worth the time and money. You were basically allowed free reign over the first floor as a guest. You are encouraged by the Lord to walk around, sit on the furniture and take in the house. It felt like someone let us step into a BBC program for an afternoon. I know most people go see Stonehenge in Portland, but if your not interested in seeing stones in a circle, this PA was great. We talk about it fondly often.

Our cruise went to Ringsakiddy Ireland (which is the industrial side of Cobh and a royal pain if your ship goes to that port) but since we knew this ahead of time we booked a private guide for the day to get us to Midleton and Cobh. Your cruise looks like it is going directly to Cobh, and this is an AMAZING port to dock in. The ship pulls up directly alongside the main downtown street. You are steps, in the most literal sense, from shopping, dining, and the Titanic Museum. It's easy enough to then get to Midleton for the Jameson Distillery as well. Cobh was great. With our guide we did a ton of stuff, all of which we loved, and only spent about 90 minutes on Cobh, and wish we had more time there. It's a great town.

I hope that information helps you make your decision. Whatever you do it will be great fun.

 

[MomOTwins]

Couple of things to consider on pricing: since you are using a placeholder, you'd only get the discount on one of the two B2B cruises (i.e., either england or norway, not both) since they are considered separate bookings. Also, it is expected that cruises will require guests to use cruise line excursions only when visiting ports due to stay within the ship's Covid-19 bubble--so no wandering around and exploring ports on your own. That could get expensive really fast on the England/Norway itineraries that have so many port days. Of course, also expensive on the 11-night norway/iceland, but there are fewer port days on that cruise compare to the B2B. So just make sure to factor that in to the price comparison.

Personally, I'd rather do the B2B, because I have a lot of interest in british isles history and touring castles is definitely my jam. My DH would prefer iceland for the natural beauty.