Clyde and I are leaving next week on Holland America’s Norse Legends cruise. One of the highlights of the trip? A stop in Eidjford, one of the most picturesque and exciting destinations in Norway. (See the official website, and a few Flickr photos.)
Suddenly, though, we heard from Holland America that, for “operational reasons,” the ship was substituting the less attractive port of Haguesund for Eidjford.
Now, Haguesund has charms of its own, including access to the 1,000-foot tall Langfoss, one of the world’s most beautiful waterfalls. But when Holland America posted its own excursions for Haguesund, a ship up to Langfoss wasn’t one of the options — and the options they did provide sounded a little lame.
Our first impulse? Book a fjord cruise from a local vendor — but we’re in town on a Monday, and the company offering that option is only open on weekends.
And then, over on CruiseCritic.com, we stumbled on a small group of fellow Norse Legendeers, all of whom were looking for alternatives in Haguesund. The ringleaders even went so far as to contact Holland America and encourage them to offer the locally-sourced fjord tour as an official excursion … but Holland America claimed there simply wasn’t enough time to arrange it.
So Liz, one of our fellow cruisers, contacted the Norwegian company directly. Would they be willing to set up a special sailing for a group of sixteen or more? Why, certainly! So now, the two of us (along with fourteen other total strangers with no connections outside CruiseCritic.com) are booked on an incredible excursion that Holland America itself couldn’t offer.
I’m grateful for Liz’s work. I’m also in awe — again — of the power of the Internet. In this case, a small, passionate group, distributed across the globe, self-organized to arrange an excursion that Holland America couldn’t, in a city none of us had ever visited.
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