Norwegian Fjords Disney Cruise Line Report — Day 4

After a meandering through Reinheimen National Park, we arrived at what I guess is the “peak” of Trollstigen, a visitor area known as Stigrøra. This area offers a sweeping view down on the “Troll Ladder,” its 11 hairpin bends, and the mountains in the distance.

Stigrøra itself is quite beautiful, too. It was designed by Reiulf Ramstad Architects with dramatic lines and organic integration into the rock, soil, and water. I surmise that this was done both for aesthetic reasons and to minimize the buildings’ exposure to brutal winter weather.

According to VisitNorway.com, it also houses a restaurant and the Trollstigen Road Museum exhibiting photos, models and hand tools from its construction. Unfortunately, we were not able to step inside the visitor center at Stigrøra…

By biggest complaint about this Port Adventure is the time provided at the Stigrøra viewpoints and visitor center, which is the main stop at the top of the Path of Trolls and what offers the best view of the “Troll Ladder” of hairpin turns.

Our Stigrøra stop was only 30 minutes, which was a disproportionate amount of time as compared to other stops and to the quality of this location.

It would have been quite easy to spend an hour here, and I suspect that’s about the amount of time necessary to take in the viewpoints and briefly peruse the museum.

As we got off the bus, our guide informed our group that it takes 15 minutes each way to get to and from the far viewing point, with the suggestion that we may not want to go there because that walk there and back would take all of the time at this stop.

We ended up running to make it in time. Even had we walked, that would have been an exaggeration. It was more like 7-10 minutes.

I know there are some people in our Port Adventure group who didn’t even go to the far viewing point, which is really unfortunate. The two views are not the same, and it’s really no trouble to get to the second location.

Suffice to say, if you do the Path of Trolls, whatever you do, go to the far viewing point. The view is unbeatable, and this is the place from where all the “iconic” photos on Pinterest, etc., are shot. This is one of the most dramatic mountain views I’ve ever seen, and is far superior to the lower viewpoint.

After spending every possible moment at these two viewpoints, we ran back to the bus, and boarded with one minute to spare. We were not even the last ones back on, huzzah!

At this point, we began our descent through the 11 hairpin turns of the Path of Trolls (or Troll’s Ladder)…

There’s another reason I’m glad we did the Path of Trolls as a Port Adventure, and that’s because I cannot fathom driving that Trollstigen stretch of 11 hairpin turns on our own. It was a nerve-wrecking experience as a passenger. It probably didn’t help that we had a front row seat on the bus, and could see just how close the driver got to the guard rail with each turn.

Those in the back of the bus were probably none the wiser, and might have the perspective that this was a leisurely drive through troll country. It was not. We’ve done some scary stretches of road in the U.S. National Parks, and while this did not have any drops like that, it had plenty incredibly narrow portions and modest drops. And let’s be real: there’s no practical difference between a 20’ drop and a 200’ one. You’re dead either way.

What made this more disconcerting was all of the buses and the fact that you’re in a foreign country. I can’t say getting into a car accident is my idea of a good time anywhere, but that’s even less the case when in another country, on vacation.

The Path of Trolls itself was incredible. I’ve done some of the best drives in the United States, including Going to the Sun Road, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Park Loop Road in Acadia, etc., and none of them compare to this. It was stunning.

Shortly after finishing the hairpin section of the Path of Trolls, we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant at a place that felt a bit like the Norwegian equivalent of a truck stop shopping center.

This was a huge buffet, with tables set up for something like 11 buses full of visitors. As I mentioned on the first page, the food actually was not too shabby, although I would’ve preferred to purchase the version of this itinerary that did not include lunch.

What’s dumb, in my opinion, is that the version without lunch still stops at this truck stop, and just provides “leisure time” for guests to buy souvenirs and purchase their own lunch. The stop is 75 minutes long, which is too long for lunch (most people on our tour were done within 25 minutes), let alone for shopping.

It also makes the prior stop at Path of Trolls far too short by comparison. One benefit to renting a car would’ve been skipping this stop entirely and getting back to Ã…lesund 75 minutes earlier.

Still, I made lemonade out of lemons by adding to my blossoming portfolio of novelty roadside troll photos…

We continued on, with the next stop being at Troll Wall…

This cool, but not nearly as impressive as Path of Trolls itself. It also didn’t help that the sky had clouded over again, and there was light drizzle. We had 30 minutes here, but we both would’ve been fine with a shorter stop.

After that, we began the 2-hour bus ride back to Alesund. Although we both tried to stay alert and watch our surroundings during the entirety of the bus ride, we each fell asleep at various points of this ride.

Our guide was hoping people would have questions at one point, but no one offered anything, so she started cycling through random topics about Norwegian life, all of which was pretty fascinating.

A lot of this focused on Norwegian folklore, particularly that about trolls. We both found this incredibly interesting, and pretty funny, too. I really wanted to ask about Julenissen, but I was not entirely sure whether it’s an actual mainstream “thing” or something obscure cherrypicked for Epcot.

I think folklore is something that’s generally fascinating to Americans, even if we’re comparatively lacking in our own. When you think about it, you could say much American folklore comes from Disney, which is actually just adapted European folklore. Our status as a relatively young country and one that has developed during an era of cinema seems to have caused us to have less oral folklore. On Page 3, we arrive back in Ã…lesund and explore more of the city, experience a midnight sunset…oh, and we ask for your help!

68 Responses to “Norwegian Fjords Disney Cruise Line Report — Day 4”
  1. Luciana Misura July 9, 2023
  2. Becky Klein July 4, 2017

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