I did the 6 day Journey North trip at the end of October this year. I have never been on a cruise before but I loved this one!!

If you haven't booked yet, compare prices on their Norwegian website compared to your local one. Being a travel geek, I read the online T&Cs and saw prices in my local website were fixed as at Oct 16. I knew the GBP had strengthened a bit at the time and saved £900 on the price of our trip. This means you need to have any correspondence handled by the Norway team as opposed to your local team but I did so fine via email.

We travelled on the Nordnorge, one of several boats refurbished in 2016. We had a mini suite on the 5th deck and it was great. Lots of space to move and chill out in as we had effectively double the ordinary cabin size. The promenade deck was outside but we weren't bothered by people staring in at all. There are 2 Arctic Suite rooms at the front of the boat. They had long windows, but people would stand in front of them obviously as you are on the most forward part of the boat if you wanted to take pictures etc. Being on deck 5 also meant we were able to pop out quickly onto the deck when photo ops came by. I am glad we weren't on another deck. The room had a huge screen tv with always great reception. It was kept clean and tidy with daily servicing.

I'd read reviews on Tripadvisor of poor food or cold/warm food. Not true on my boat. Breakfast and lunch were buffets as well as a couple of dinners. The other dinners were 3 course set meals where you had allocated seating and sitting times. I'm not a great fish fan but it was served only about 4 times, twice each as a starter and main. I only declined one when it was a blue muscle soup. The others I tried and enjoyed. The buffets were my favourite as you could stuff yourself silly if you wanted to. The only problem with lunch was that on 2 occassions we had to have it at 10 or 11am as we'd booked the excursions which were on during the middle of the day.

If you buy one of the alcoholic drinks packages, be aware that you can only get your beer or wine during meal times, so on those 2 occasions mentioned above it wasn't appropriate (well, at least for us!) not to start drinking at that time. There is also a tea/coffee package that comes included for Select and Premium pax, along with premium free wifi.

The boat holds 600 passengers but I don't think it was full - if it was it never felt crowded. We never had to hunt for a space at the restaurant nor at the bar at night. Along with the main restaurant (included in the cost of your fare) there is a fine dining one (ie pricey!) a bistro (mainly used by day pax traveling between ports) and a cafe/ice cream bar that we used a couple of times. There are two outdoor spas, a gym (both being used) a sauna and a laundry room (no need to bring soap, it's automatically dispensed when you buy your tokens) that also has an iron. There were two "Theatre" rooms used for talks and discussions - not for shows.

In 6 nights it stops around 35 times. Some stops are only around 30 mins, some 15, one 5! At least once a day it will stop for 2 to 4 hours and that's when most of the excursions take place. There are a couple where you get off in one port and the bus takes you to the next!! We did 3 of the optional extra excursion tours. A bus ride in the Fjords(October only), a tour of Tromso and the trip to the North Cape. The latter I found overpriced for a 45 minute coach ride to a glorified cafe and statue. Apparently if you pre book it's cheaper but if you book onboard you get 10% discount if you buy 3 or more, so it balanced out. In Tromso the boat was very close to the centre so we just did it ourselves, even walking over the bridge to the modern cathedral. In Bodo we walked around ourselves but it was Sunday and very little was open.

We never found the stops annoying or disturbing, even during the night. I actually found this better than some transatlantic crossings that I've heard where you are at sea for days. We got to witness some emotional moments of locals arriving back to distance ports being greeted by their family. We were never out of sight of land - and the scenery was beautiful. From Bergen we had a show of Autumn colours. When we got up after crossing the Arctic Circle it had started to snow so we had fantastic imagery on the mountains and farm houses.

The crew were fantastic - even more so knowing they aren't working for tips. The wait staff would double as the cabin cleaners during non meal times, but always served with a smile. The main bar lady was such a professional knowing many languages and of course many cocktails too. The "expedition" staff were like a very chilled comedy duo keeping us entertained with stories and jokes while explaining the trips they were trying to sell, or just imparting some local knowledge. Even at the end of our leg in Kirkenes several crew also left the boat and came to the airport to go home and they were still very chatty to the pax. If I'd been working for a number of days non-stop I'd tell the pax to leave me alone!!!

We did manage to see the Northern Lights. Just. On our welcome briefing we were told that the crew don't look out for them particularly as their aim is to pilot the boat understanbly so if any of the passengers saw it we should tell the crew who would announce it on the tannoy. We had completely clear skies on our first and last night only. At the start we were too low down for them, but on the last night, a lady that was a dinner table companion with us came into the bar area saying she thought the lights were out. We rushed out on the back deck to see a small and faint squidge for about 90 mins that changed shape and spread out. It looked better on our pictures than in real life! This meant anyone doing the 12 night trip couldn't invoke the Northern Lights Guarantee of a free 6 night trip if you fail to see the lights. There was another lady we met who has using her guarantee when the boat she was on had problems and got stuck in port. She came back for a 3rd attempt and they flew her to Svalbard.

We chose this trip over going to Iceland to see the lights. I didn't fancy being bussed out to the middle of nowhere to some place outside of town for a couple of hours while hoping the lights come out. This was obviously more expensive, but far more comfortable. It may be a glorified ferry service, without some of the bells and whistles of the bigger cruise lines but I came off so relaxed and happy that I wanted to stay on for the return trip!! I only booked the north bound leg as I had never done a cruise before and didn't know what to expect. I was worried about being sea sick and on the 2 occasions it was choppy I took tablets and was fine.

As long as you set your expectations right, ie the scenery is your entertainment and it's in no way a formal cruise, you should come off the trip loving it as much as we did. We've got friends going again next month and we're looking at an opportunity we can do so too.