Bergen fjord cruise reviews
Six listings, and four of them go to the same place. The three scheduled Mostraumen boats and the open RIB run the same enclosed fjord, through the same tidal strait, up to the same waterfall, and back to Bergen the same afternoon. So a review of any one of them is not a review of the scenery. It is a review of the guiding, the quay you walk to, the boat you sit in and what you paid. I have written all four that way. The two full-day trips are a different product and a different question, and that one is about hours.
Picking a boat?The three Mostraumen cruises sail the same water. What differs is the guiding, the price and which quay you walk to.
Compare all sixWhat a review of these boats can honestly judge
The water is fixed. Every Mostraumen sailing leaves the harbour basin at Vågen, passes Bryggen, runs out along Byfjorden and Salhusfjorden, under the Nordhordland Bridge, into Osterfjorden and Romarheimsfjorden, threads the Mostraumen strait into Mofjorden, and turns at the village of Mo in Modalen. Nobody goes ashore. Three to three and a half hours later you are back where you started. I have set the route out in full on the page about which fjord each boat actually reaches, because that is the thing most people get wrong before they pay.
What moves between the four is smaller than the price gap suggests, and it is worth naming precisely. The guiding: one runs recorded audio, one puts a human on the microphone, and the RIB gives you the captain at the key points with audio in between. The quay: two addresses about 320 m apart on foot, which is a short walk unless you are standing at the wrong one at departure time — the pier page has both. The boat: the largest in the Bergen sightseeing fleet takes 297 passengers, the one usually on this run takes 147, one competitor runs boats under 99, and the RIB is open to the weather. And the price, which spreads further than any of that. The four are compared side by side here.
The six, reviewed
Mostraumen Cruise, Guided by Locals
The cheapest ticket here, and it undercuts every operator’s dock price.
from NOK 672Read the full review ›
The Original Fjord Cruise to Mostraumen
By far the most-booked. Audio guide, and reviewers say it is hard to hear on deck.
from NOK 739Read the full review ›
Mostraumen Cruise with Live Guide
Same water, a person on the microphone instead of a recording. That is the trade.
from NOK 840Read the full review ›
Mostraumen Fjord Safari by Premium RIB
Open boat, gear lent, about 2.5 hours. It also turns several groups away.
from NOK 1,490Read the full review ›
UNESCO Fjord Cruise, Flåm & Stegastein
The actual World Heritage fjord, lunch included, and most of your day gone.
from NOK 2,900Read the full review ›
Viking Village, Nærøyfjord & Flåm Railway
The longest and dearest day here, on an all-electric boat, with no food included.
from NOK 3,990Read the full review ›What the ratings are worth
Two of these scores rest on enough ratings to have settled and one rests on very few. The most-booked listing carries 10,168 ratings behind its 4.7 and the cheapest carries 4,435 behind its 4.6; those numbers mean something, and a single bad month would barely move either. The RIB carries 169 behind a 4.8. That is not nothing, but it is roughly a sixtieth of the sample under the flagship, and a 4.8 built on 169 ratings is a different kind of claim from a 4.7 built on ten thousand. I say so in that review rather than letting the higher number sit there looking better.
The second thing averages hide here is that they are averages of different expectations. The two day trips are rated by people who spent nine to twelve hours and a great deal of money to reach a World Heritage fjord, and the three-hour boats are rated by people who spent an afternoon. Both groups are satisfied. They are not answering the same question, which is why I would read the day-trip page and the cost page before reading any of the scores as a verdict on the fjord itself.
Frequently asked questions
Which Bergen fjord cruise should I book?
If the three-hour boat is what you want, the choice is about guiding and price rather than scenery, because all of them sail the same fjord. The cheapest is the honest default and the live-guide boat is what you pay more for. The four short cruises are compared here. If you are after the fjord from the photograph, no three-hour boat goes there.
Do the reviews tell me which fjord I will actually see?
That is the first thing each of them settles. The three-hour boats reach Mostraumen and Mofjorden, up the Osterfjord, which is a separate fjord system north-east of Bergen and is not part of any World Heritage listing. Here is what each boat reaches, and what it does not.
Are these reviews independent?
Yes. I am an independent writer, not an operator and not a booking agent. I earn a small commission if you book through a link here, at no extra cost to you, and it does not change what I write — the cheapest listing on the site is the one I recommend most often, and the review of the dearest one leads on what it leaves out. Whether any of it is worth it is a separate page.