West and north coast of Norway by ship

The boat stops at the major ports for several hours. You can book tours on the boat for these ports. You would not have enough time to do organize this your self once arriving at the place. There's everything from city tours to bald eagle spotting to whatever.

If you look at the Hurtigruten schedule on their web site, you'll see that you seldom have more than a couple of hours in any port.

--Dav

I'm not sure how seldom "seldom" means, but of the 34 ports visited from Bergen to Kirkenes, around 15 ports have 30 minutes to an hour layovers, these are usually villages where you get off to stretch your legs or buy a coke or whatever. 6 ports are visited for well over an hour, including Tromso which is 4 hours.

I don't disagree about the timing; just what you can do with it. We spent two days in Tromso and could have spent more. Four hours is about enough to get your bearings and look around a bit before you have to think about getting back to the ship.

And just a little nit picking, it doesn't actually go around the North Cape as it goes south of Magerøya.

Hi,
I would recommend a break in Bodo as you can catch the ferry to the Lofoten Islands. We took that route in 2006.
Best,
Seema