First, I must mention a similar cruise reviewed by Alfie111 in May 2018. It appears Alfie111 was surprised that two whole days of the tour were spent at sea transiting to and from Norway. The itinerary in the Fred Olsen brochure clearly shows arrival and departure times at each port - depart Rosyth evening and arrive Norway following evening.
Our cruise on the ms. ‘Balmoral’ was 7 nights from Newcastle to the Fjords departing on 22nd July 2018 and our first experience of cruising. First thing to mention is the ms. ‘Balmoral’ is a 30 year old ship, so if your preference is for a megaship carrying thousands of passengers then the ms. ‘Balmoral’ is not for you. We specifically chose Fred Olsen because their ships are small and have that classical ocean liner look. We were not disappointed even though the ms. ‘Balmoral’ is the largest ship in their fleet. The ship has style and ambiance to match. Indeed, when I saw the public rooms I immediately thought how nice they looked with superb furnishings and pictures of sailing ships.
The food served was excellent quality. Our evening meals were booked in the Avon restaurant where service was a bit slow but generally, it did not matter. If the ship was sailing past beautiful scenery then we could skip the Avon restaurant and have a meal in the excellent Palms restaurant which served a buffet with good choices of food. Breakfast and lunch could be taken in any one of the restaurants.