Frequently asked questions

The Cruise Pier is 127.5 m long with 12 m alongside. Maximum LOA 400 m, maximum draft 12 m, beam no restriction, air draft in the port area no restriction. Quay height 3.1 m above lowest astronomical tide; fendering Yokohama, 2.4 m. Bollards: Eight bollards: the four springs, 75 t, stand on the quay structure itself; the breasts at 200 t and the outer pair at 150 t stand on shore, clear of each end of it.

Longest handled alongside: Queen Mary 2, 345 m, 18 May 2026 and 8 August 2026. Largest by lower berths: Arvia, 5,200 lower berths at undefined m, 9 September 2026. Full data set on the technical page.

Yes — 4 of the 41 calls in 2026 are at anchor. The designated anchorage is Haugsbukta, 61°29.471' N / 007°35.231' E, about 600 m from the tender pier, seabed mud and clay, slope about 5 %. Minimum depth: Approx. 40 m. Photographs of ships at anchor on request.

Two. Tollesundet to the north is 620 m wide, minimum depth 50 m; Havhella to the south is 750 m wide at the same depth. The turning basin is 1,000 m wide and 25 m deep. Pilotage is compulsory.

Pilotage is compulsory. No tugs are stationed in Skjolden and tug assistance is not compulsory. Order via national agent (nearest Florø or Bergen). Booking deadline 36 hours. Pilots and tugs are ordered on the same number, +47 33 03 48 00.

The charted clearance is 45 m. The charted clearance applies to the lowest point of the span, mid-fjord. The cables run summit to summit, so clearance increases substantially towards the sides. Vessels with an air draft approaching or exceeding the charted clearance must clear the passage with the pilot service. Statnett is notified of cruise calls and avoids line work on call days. The passage is the pilot's call; the pilots hold the current navigational warnings for the fairway.

Channel 12, with Channel 16 on standby. Applies to all movements at Skjolden, including the ship-to-ship transfer. Where an agent's form still shows Channel 13 for Skjolden, that entry is out of date.

A 36 m floating concrete pier in three 12 m sections, 3.6 m wide, minimum 5 m alongside. Freeboard: Approx. 0.5 m. Tenders alongside at the same time: Maximum 2. Speed limit 5 knots at the entrance.

The ship works it from the outside and has it to itself, sheltered behind the breakwater; the only other traffic is the local excursion RIBs. The coach apron sits directly above the pier, behind the gate.

Tidal range 1.5 m, current at the berth up to 0.5 knots, swell none at the berth. Wind is normally light, but a south-westerly follows the line of the fjord and can build a noticeable sea in the bay; current runs stronger when the rivers are in flood. The tender operation lies behind the breakwater and stays workable in wind.

No. Ships use their own gangway — the same answer in every questionnaire the port has returned since 2024.

Not permitted: chemicals, painting from the quay or on the ship's side alongside, and hot work outside the ship. Most other maintenance is, including chipping, rust removal and painting from the ship's own paint raft. Drills, chipping, painting, washing and welding must be notified in advance. The full list, item by item, is on the technical page.

The ship's public address system is acceptable; the horn is not — there are farms with young livestock close to the quay. Alarms during crew drills are fine with notice. Discharge of sewage and grey water in the fjord is prohibited.

Port facility NOSLN-0001 operates at Security Level 1, with Beredskap.no as the Recognised Security Organisation, and a Declaration of Security is signed per call between ship and facility. Screening, the gate and the PFSO contact point are set out in full on the access page.

No. There is no fresh water bunkering anywhere in Skjolden — no supply point, no barge, no flow rate, no price. Plan it elsewhere in the itinerary.

No. The port has studied shore power with Sweco, nothing has been built, and the grid connection is the constraint. No date is set, so no connection can be offered at any voltage or frequency. The status is on the sustainability page.

No bunkering of any kind: no fuel, no LNG, and no bunker, water or garbage barge. Plan it for another port in the itinerary.

Yes, by truck — there is no garbage barge. Ordered through the agent in advance, prices on request. Deadline: Order at least 3 working days before arrival.

Ordered directly from the supplier by the agent. Notify the port in advance for logistics. The tanker drives onto the pier, so the notice is a logistics requirement. The port holds no waste tariff of its own, and this is rarely ordered here.

Grey water reception is available on request. Discharge of sewage and grey water in the fjord is prohibited. Treat Skjolden as a no-discharge call and agree reception in advance.

The port owns none, and Skjolden is remote enough that hiring in is difficult. Final wording: Not available.

Yes. The port books the Luster urgent care clinic and pre-books a taxi to be waiting on arrival; capacity is limited and one cannot be found on the day. Nearest hospital Lærdal, 95 km; the Norwegian emergency medical number is 113. Contact the port early with the patient's details.

No. Skjolden is a Schengen transit call with no customs or immigration facilities and no booths; officials do not board and the port issues no shore passes. Responsible authority: Bergen Regiontollsted.

A terminal building at the pier with WC, free WiFi and a town map, and a 450 m² marketplace for local vendors. The Fjordstova visitor centre in the village has exhibitions, WC and WiFi. Distances: Bryggjehuset 900 m on a paved footpath, village centre 1200 m, gangway to the tour coaches 70–100 m.

By email to post@skjoldenport.com. The request needs five fields: Vessel name, Date, ETA and ETD, Passengers (lower berths), Previous and next port. The written confirmation always states three things: confirmed position — pier or anchorage; time window; whether another call is booked that day — not which vessel and not its position. Series requests are confirmed as a block, call by call.

No. A capacity check is answered date by date and is not binding. Since December 2025 there have been no provisional or grey-pencil options: first come, first served, by the timestamp of the confirmed booking. Only the written confirmation holds the date.

Bookings are confirmed as far ahead as 2033. Beyond next season, the port does not publish volumes. For 2027, 67 calls stand confirmed. Lines commonly plan a season directly with the port, with formal registration through the agent. Both steps are needed: a blocked date is not a registered call.

First come, first served, by the timestamp of the confirmed booking. A vessel with at least 1,000 more lower berths than a confirmed booking may be allocated the pier, moving the smaller vessel to anchor. The exception can only be applied before 1 January of the year of the call. Once the calendar year of the call begins, confirmed berths are fixed. Any reallocation must keep total port capacity within 5,500 lower berths (pier and anchorage combined).

Yes — one alongside and one at anchor, provided the combined total stays within 5,500 lower berths, of which at most 2,000 at anchor. The port measures combined guest numbers against shore excursion capacity before confirming, not just against the berth. Where two calls overlap by a few hours, the pier can be shared through the day.

Yes. Send the change to post@skjoldenport.com. ETA and ETD changes are confirmed in writing, normally the same day. Routine unless they conflict with another ship alongside, where the port proposes an earlier departure, a berth at anchor, or another date. Whole-season lists are handled in one go.

By email. Every cancellation is confirmed in writing, naming ship and date. Where a season list asks that earlier reservations not on it be cancelled, that is confirmed in the same reply.

In addition to the commercial booking, arrival must be notified through SafeSeaNet Norway (shiprep.no) to NOSLN, Skjolden Cruisekai. The commercial booking is the email to the port, the statutory notification is SafeSeaNet, and one does not replace the other. The port approves the quay request in the system once it appears.

Yes, when the pier is free; staying at anchor overnight is unproblematic. Where another ship is booked in the morning, the port states the hour the berth must be clear. At short notice the port can agree an ISPS arrangement in which the ship mans its own gangway gate overnight while the terminal is closed. Fees for an extra day are under fees and invoicing.

Every booking confirmation states whether another ship is scheduled that day, and the port writes to you if that changes.

The port operations plan — the same arrangement on every call, published in full and as a dated PDF. It covers the three shore gates, the phases of the call, who provides what, and the M/S Holly ship-to-ship transfer of up to 74 guests per crossing, and ends with three questions to answer before arrival.

10 hours at the port, ETA to ETD, which leaves 9 hours ashore: up to 3,000 guests on tour, both eight-hour tours, two coach waves with the statutory break inside the day. At 7 hours ashore the two eight-hour tours no longer fit and the second coach wave shortens to a shuttle — the programme keeps its guests but loses a fifth of its value. The full curve, and why, is on the shore excursions page.

First excursion leaves the pier ETA + 30 minutes; every guest back on board ETD − 30 minutes. The same on every call — see the shore excursions page.

By shuttling rather than adding vehicles: the coach sets down at the viewpoint, turns and comes straight back, moving a coachload every round trip instead of one for the day. In the 9-hour window a 10-hour call leaves ashore, one vehicle completes 9 runs on Best of Skjolden; 7 runs on Oscarshaug; 4 runs on Berdalsnosi; and 3 runs on Urnes. It is not free capacity — a coach on a shuttle is a coach not on a tour — and it is sold as a transfer, not a guided tour.

13 coaches owned outright, 577 seats: 10 King Long C12HD at 47 seats, 2 Temsa MD9 at 34 seats, and one at 39 seats for routes with a 10 m vehicle limit. With contracted coaches on top, standard availability is 19 coaches per call. Guides: 50+ certified, 20–30 English-speaking. The catamaran M/S Holly carries 74 passengers per departure.

Preliminary numbers monthly until four weeks before the call, then weekly. Final numbers 24 hours before arrival. Cancellation 24 hours before arrival. Bus list with driver names and registration plates several days in advance — plates are loaded into the ANPR gate.

Urnes Stave Church (UNESCO World Heritage, c. 1130) takes 17 guests every half hour, 34 an hour, and only coaches under 12 m can use the road. Groups split: half visit the church, half visit Ornes Shipyard, then swap. Allow about five hours for the full product.

The two-and-a-half-hour Urnes shuttle is a different thing and the same rules bind it: a full coach of 34 is two guided tours at the church, not one. It visits the church and nothing else — no shipyard, no ferry, no café. The rules and the reasoning are on the shore excursions page.

Yes, and there are now four of them, sold as a category of their own rather than as spare capacity. Best of Skjolden is a hop-on hop-off loop of the village, about 14 kilometres round — the marina, the service building, the centre, the llama farm, the viewpoint above the village, the Sengjaberget trailhead and Åsafossen — with the coach coming past each stop once an hour. Above that, a two-hour run to the Oscarshaug viewpoint, a two-hour run to the Berdalsnosi viewpoint on the mountain coaches, and a two-and-a-half-hour shuttle to Urnes stave church with admission included. The village itself is walkable on a paved footpath, so the loop is a convenience, not a necessity.

The shuttle fares are fixed, published, and the same in both channels: Best of Skjolden, the village loop NOK 300; the Oscarshaug viewpoint run NOK 600; Berdalsnosi NOK 900; the Urnes shuttle NOK 900, per guest. Admission to the stave church is inside the Urnes fare. A guest pays the same figure at the kiosk on the quay as through the ship, and the price does not move with group size — a minimum of ten guests applies to a departure, not to the fare.

These four are the only prices the port publishes. Every other excursion is quoted per call against the programme booked, and rates for those come from shorex@skjoldenport.com.

Only through the published access policy: a Pier Access Application in advance, the plate loaded into the gate system, priority to local suppliers, the fee paid before arrival, and no third-party movements while the ship's own excursions board. Foreign-registered coaches must also document Norwegian cabotage compliance — details on the access page.

In full, with a dated PDF, on the pricing page. Rates effective from 1 January 2026, last revised 22 October 2025: quay fee NOK 0.8765 per GT and mooring fee NOK 0.186 per GT, both on a minimum of 25,000 GT; passenger fee NOK 10.31 and ISPS security fee NOK 10.31 per passenger, both on a minimum of 500 passengers. Adjusted annually by the Norwegian consumer price index.

The Environmental Port Index applies to quay, mooring, passenger and security fees. The adjustment runs from -25 % to +60 %, with the breakpoint at 45 points. Values are taken exclusively from the EPI portal (DNV). Ships must report within 72 hours of departure; unreported calls are assessed at zero points. Invoices are issued after departure, once the value is available. The mechanism is set out in full on the pricing page.

Vessels at anchor are not charged quay or mooring fees. Passenger and security fees apply, for one day. The first two fall away because the ship uses neither the quay nor the port's mooring service; the other two follow the guests ashore.

Quay fee and passenger fee are charged per day begun; the mooring fee is charged once, because the ship moors once. The ISPS security fee depends on who mans the gate: where the ship mans its own gangway gate overnight and the terminal is closed, the port has not charged it.

The agent registered on the call, at the invoice address in the SafeSeaNet quay request. The basis is gross tonnage per the tonnage certificate and passengers as lower berths, checkable against the published tariff. Port dues are invoiced without VAT; a wrong tonnage or agent gets a credit note and a corrected invoice.

Guides, dispatch and turnaround on the pier are commercial services, quoted per call against the programme booked. Rates are not published; ask shorex@skjoldenport.com. Capacities, durations, seasons and group limits are in the shore excursion manual.

The one exception is the shuttle category: four products carry a fixed guest fare that is published, and it is the same ashore as on board. It is listed with the shore excursion questions.

One document governs a call here, published in full as the terms and conditions for cruise calls: eleven numbered clauses covering scope, booking and berth allocation, amendments and cancellation, charges, the Environmental Port Index, invoicing, ISPS obligations, environmental conditions, liability and governing law. The written booking confirmation and the current tariff govern where anything conflicts with it.

No. The port does not sell excursions to individual guests or arrange private tours; they are sold through your cruise line and operated locally. If a tour shows as sold out, ask the ship's shore excursion desk — the allocation sits with the ship.

The village centre is a short walk on a paved footpath, with the Fjordstova visitor centre, the marketplace and the Åsafossen waterfall within reach. Bryggjehuset (log-built 1774, moved here 1878), restored, stands on the waterfront. Bryggjehuset is 900 m from the quay, the centre 1200 m. Skjolden is a village, not a town: a Coop Prix, the Fjordstova centre and the Skjolden Hotel. Guests who want more than that take an excursion.

No public transport. Taxis must be pre-booked on +47 57 68 16 20; capacity is limited and one cannot be found on arrival. Nearest airport Sogndal Haukåsen (SOG), 70 km; nearest hospital Lærdal, 95 km.

The Cruise Pier is wheelchair accessible with disabled facilities; gangway to the tour coaches 70–100 m, footpath to the village paved. Tender access may require assistance, and accessibility is stated tour by tour — the glacier centre path is not accessible.

Skjolden takes cruise calls from mid-April to mid-October — not year-round. The port lies at 61.4832°N 7.5921°E, UN/LOCODE NOSLN, at the head of the Sognefjord: the world's longest ice-free fjord — Norway's longest and deepest. It is 205 km from the open sea to the quay, and guests arrive by ship.

Media enquiries go to the press room: boilerplate in two lengths, the season figures with their definitions, a named contact, and the claims about Skjolden the port cannot stand behind — four of them appeared on its own previous website. Every figure is dated, and the date should travel with it. Anything else goes to the Port Director, Viggo Sundvold, on post@skjoldenport.com.

The facility is ISPS-restricted, so filming, photography, interviews and site visits are arranged in advance with the Port Director, not on the day. No high-resolution editorial set is published yet; ask for what you need.