Cruising

I have never taken a cruise, but we go to Iceland often. If you want to actually see and experience Iceland, then go by land. The cruise port stops are incredibly limited and you will only get to see a teensy tint bit of the country.

Our first rip to Iceland was to drive the Ring Road. We circumnavigated the island and stopped at quite a few wonderful places. There is no place on earth like Iceland.

Several years later we had several days in Rekayvik on a Disney Cruise of the North Atlantic. We had two tours, the first to an electric plant fueled by geothermal energy and Thingvellir, and the second to Myvatn and points west. We enjoyed both tours, but we had been to those sites on our first trip, so their brevity was not disappointing.

We have since graduated to Viking cruises, and next fall we will be stopping in Iceland again on our Arctic cruise. If you are thinking about Viking's "Iceland's Natural Beauty" cruise I'm sure you will enjoy it. If you are new to cruising or have never visited Iceland you will have a treat in store. The ocean ships are beautiful, the service is top notch, and the ports of call indicated on the map duplicate those night-time stops we made on our first trip.

I think the first question is have you cruised before and did you like it? If you have enjoyed cruising, you are likely to enjoy a cruise around Iceland. It is pointless to compare a land trip with a cruise because they are two completely different types of travel. They each have advantages and disadvantages. What matters is what you are looking for as the top priorities for your trip.

I have noticed that excursions in Iceland tend to be expensive, even by cruise standards. Make sure when you are pricing your trip that you consider the total cost and not just the base fare.

We cruised around the island on Windstar, after four days with a car. We've been on ten cruises, so I am not bad-mouthing cruises when I observe that you are very limited as to what you can reach from a cruise-ship bus when cruising Iceland. It's just too big a place, with narrow roads and slower speeds.

Look at the ports where the cruise stops. Many are very small towns where you either have to take the (expensive) Viking excursion or be stuck walking around doing nothing for several hours. I'm not knocking Viking, but if I were you I'd research the cruise ports to see what the activities are and how much the excursions cost.

Some of the included tours that Viking offers--there is at least one in each port--are actually decent. and there is always an option for independent exploration We are healthy seniors and enjoy independent travel but we are approaching the age where we are aging out of car rentals and luggage schlepping and appreciate allowing someone else to drive and handle details. We were a lot younger when we rented a car in Iceland, in Italy, and Costa Rica.

We just finished the Viking Iceland's Natural Beauty 8 day cruise around Iceland and enjoyed it very much. we added 2 days pre-cruise and 3 days post cruise on our own in Reykjavik and with those additional days we managed to see the sites we wanted to see along the Ring Road from the 5 ports of call and then once back in Reykjavik did a bus tour of the Golden Circle and the South Coast. We were there also for the solar Eclipse, which wasn't that successful because of the cloud cover, but still a memorable experience nonetheless. I'll write up a trip report later.

Contrary to the prevailing belief on this forum, I disagree that the only way to see Iceland is to drive. We did not drive.We weren't going to drive. with proper planning and booking third party tours from each port, we saw the major sites including the major waterfalls, the glacial lagoon and diamond beach, Lake Myvatn, etc.

We were never going to do a glacial cave hike or lava tube walk or hike out to the crashed airplane, so even if we had driven around the island, we were never going to do those things anyway.

So, we liked the cruise and recommend it as long as you add some extra time to do Iceland on your own from Reykjavik.

On our own in Reykjavik, we ate at wonderful restaurants like Skal and Messinn. We did Flyover Iceland, the Lava Show and the Perlan Museum. We saw a show at the harpa concert all called "How to be Icelandic in 60 minutes" which was funny and well done.
We did a walking tour, where we learned a lot about the social aspects of living in Iceland. The walking tour was excellent and a good way to start your visit here, and a food tour, which we also did pre-cruise. We shopped at the Handkniiters Association store and two second hand stores along Laugevegar street for authentic Icelandic wool sweaters.. We shopped at bookstores and bought copies of the books our tour guide recomended we read such as "Independent People" by Halldor Laxness, Iceland's only Nobel laureate in Literature.

So more later in a trip report. Don't let the majority of people on this forum tell you that driving is the only way to see Iceland. It isn't.