Not going to lie. There was a lot of stress going into the trip. A lot.
First off, it is easily the most expensive trip I’ve had.
We went through AAA, which was helpful because they recommended to us Hurtigruten. You can search a lot online and it’s stressful figuring out which are good cruise lines and which aren’t.
Going through a travel agent is super helpful since they can take care of the plane arrangements, hotel travel, and such. We did have to adjust the plane rides, though, since the layover in MIA was too short of our liking.
Second, there was a mandatory doctor note.
Be sure to read all your documents carefully. I missed this and ended up scrambling at the very last month.
Surprise! Mandatory COVID test.
This one is a little hard to figure out if they just dropped this on us, or if it was in the said documents. Using WayBackMachine, I lean toward that the mandate wasn’t there before. I was angry about it at the time but, in retrospect, Covid protocols have been a moving target lately so I don’t know if I can fault them actually. My experience with Hurtigruten was overall excellent, so I think that I’m willing to look past this, assuming it was their fault.
Pack Light
I failed at packing light. I brought too many layers. The truth is you just need a nice warm base layer (like a fleece sweater or something) or two. Check with your cruise line in case they provide you a waterproof jacket. If not, definitely find something waterproof. The one thing I did end up buying on the ship were waterproof gloves. Some destinations were rainy and it’s quite unpleasant to have wet gloves and icy wind. You'll get miserable real fast.