It’s hard to review cruises, isn’t it? Every person has different things they want from the experience, different expectations, etc. Even if we’d taken the exact same cruise on the same dates, we very well might have drawn different conclusions. My review was my honest evaluation of the experience, as a person who hasn’t taken very many traditional cruises. Thank you for sharing your impressions! What do you mean by AGM? Is that excursions? And by “Med season” you mean one of the Mediterranean cruises?

I’m not sure what you mean … could you (or anyone else reading this) explain exactly what happens, because I’m not seeing any forced navigation to GetYourGuide.

I’m glad it was helpful! We had a few hours each in Alesund and Tromso, and then we flew back from Kirkenes to Tromso, so we had more time in Tromso. As for Lofoten, there are several short stops, but you pretty much have to take an excursion, I’d say, to see much. With either Havila or Hurtigruten, you can book it so that you get off at any port, stay a couple of nights and get back on to continue the journey. But that means packing up more often, of course.

Did you intend this comment on the other article, about how Americans see the Netherlands? I meant both articles to be rather light-hearted looks at some stereotypes I’ve come across – I don’t think I ever implied that everyone (in either country) believes these things! I certainly don’t, though there’s often some kernel of truth …

I intended this to be a list of the stereotypes that Dutch believe about Americans, with my guess at where each stereotype came from. I did NOT say that I agreed or believed them! I did not say they were all Southerners either; I said that the media likes to choose a person with a Southern accent to represent all Americans, which feeds these stereotypes. I didn’t say that was right!

Again, you are lumping all Americans into one group. There isn’t an “American Attitude” there are a variety of “American Attitude(s)” . . . I apologize that we have people in our country who can be unkind . . . but isn’t that just a human trait across the world – unkindness? All human beings have the capacity to be unkind. Sometimes it’s a lifelong trait; sometimes it’s an angry error and hopefully they apologize. . . Let’s cool the temperature in our conversations if we can . . . we know the planet is in danger of overheating so let’s make that worse with our tempers. There kind and unkind people all over the world. Most kind people have been unkind at least a few times in their lives. . . Turn the temperature now a bit. Yes, I’m raised in the South. No, we aren’t all hillbillies though I live in the hills!