Question about Isafjordur Excursion

Well, I can't tell you about the Isafjordur excursions, but I can tell you that generally harbor seals like to sleep on rocks, and every time I've seen them, they have been on rocks. Those rocks are difficult to walk on. My daughter and I saw harbour seals on Snaefellsnes in Iceland, and I couldn't even get that close because the rocks were too difficult to walk on. My daughter, who is younger and much more agile and athletic than I am, was hopping over them with ease, but I wouldn't have tried it, and I'm pretty mobile.

The fact that the harbor seals are on a rocky shore tells me that there will be rocks you're going to have to walk over. You might be able to get close enough for photos without walking on the rocks, but you might not.

Plus, keep in mind it's an additional 4 hours longer than the first excursion. 6 1/2 hours can be a long time when you're walking. I realize that it says you're only walking for 2 1/2 hours, but even 2 1/2 hours over gravelled and uneven terrain can be tiring, especially if you have mobility issues.

I would think twice about signing up for the second one, given what you have said about your own mobility. The first one sounds like it would be much easier and since you do know your own limitations, I'm sure common sense would tell you that that should be the one to choose. 😊

Option two, hands down.

Onunfjordur is a very small pier. There is a nice sandy beach there, but overall the beach and pier are worth maybe 15 minutes. The tunnel is like any other tunnel, not unique like the one lane ones you can find in Iceland. Bunarfoss is on the edge of town, right by the campground. It is pretty, but I think you would have difficulty walking up to it.

The second option has so much more to offer. Saltverk is interesting. Heydalur is wonderful! The entire property is interesting and from what you have said in your posts, I think the walking would be just fine for you. Their restaurant is good. and they have a really funny parakeet in there. The blueberry fields go out to the fjord, and if you are there at low tide, even better. The views are great too. Heydalur has an indoor pool that is inside a greenhouse which also houses the horse saddles and helmets. Hvítanes is a nice area. If they stop at Litlibaer then even better. It is a tiny cafe/Waffle House with views over the fjord.

Mardee and milkiz97

Thank you both for offering your opinions.

There is plenty of time to consider my options and there are even more offerings. There are about 16 shore excursions for Isafjordur. Of course several would not work at all and can not be considered.

Mardee, I have seen seals up close although I do not know if I have been as close as one might get on the excursion. I have lived in San Francisco and I believe that there were places to get close to the seals. If there were challenging rocks, I would choose not to attempt to get too close to the seals.

I will watch youtube videos although that might wait until I get back from London.

And I will not be booking any excursion until I get back from London.

The third party tour we took in Isafjordur was;

Isafjordur: Dynjandi Waterfall and farm Tour- Shore Excursion.
We booked it with BusTravel Iceland and we saw the listing on GetYour Guide.

The third party tours we took were always cheaper than the ship excursions and got us back to port with ample time.

Is this your only Iceland stop? I'd hate to stop in Iceland and not see one of the many beautiful waterfalls.
On this tour, we also got to feed the Icelandic horses.

Hi Derek

There is one other Iceland port but can not think of the name right now. I am in London and maybe going to have to deal with terrible weather for the next two days.

I am on vacation for a week but weather has not been cooperating. Today was the first nice day. And it may turn out to be the only nice day b

Hello

I do not know if anyone will be coming back to this post but

I am back from London and now I have to get serious about this cruise.

Isafjordur is a tender port and from what other guests have said about tender ports when sailing Norwegian, it is best to buy a Norwegian excursion so as to have an easy time getting a tender.

Those who did not were at the back of the line when it came to leaving the boat.

bostonphil--I have no input on the cruise itself, but yes from a ship there you would need a tender. The town itself is very small and compact, much smaller than what most people envision.

Hello mikliz97

it seems that Isafjordur would be a port that one can do themselves

But because it is a tender port, that now presents difficulties When I first began to sail Norwegian and you had a tender port, you got in line to get the tender.

I do not know when Norwegian changed it but you now have a timed tender. You can not leave the ship until your tender is called

Those who book. an excursion through Norwegian get priority, Those who book through a third party company are next in line but for those who just want to get off the ship, good luck. I have read reviews that there is confusion and chaos just trying to get a number for a tender if you do not have a booked excursion. And some persons write about how difficult it is to get off of the ship without a booked excursion.

I think that I am going to book the two hour excursion that I posted about previously. It is Easy and I realize that I probably need to stick with Easy. I think Moderate is now too challenging for my situation. This is going to limit me as there are not many Easy excursions offered.

However we are arriving in port at 8 am and sail away is 6 pm. My excursion is not until 12 pm. I will not be able to leave the ship until it is time to leave for the excursion but maybe I will have another hour or so to explore Isafjordur on my own after my excursion. Sometimes they let you off in town rather than take you back to the ship.

You might double check on if this is a tender port - we were just on a Norwegian cruise there and i think there is a new cruise port that eliminates the need to tender? I know we did not tender there but maybe it depends on schedule?

TheOrdinaryRebecca

Well my itinerary still says Tender Port.

I just spoke to my cruise consultant so I won't call back today but will call and check next week.

Did you do the Reykjavik to Southampton? What ship? I am on the Prima.

Yes, we did Reykjavik to Southampton. So maybe it depends on the schedule? I know we walked from the ship into town. Our ship was the Star, which I think they are retiring after this year. We did the Game of Thrones excursion in Akureyri, which was excellent; and the "spectacular" fjord cruise in Maloy Norway, which was not good and NCL refunded some of our money because there were so many complaints!

TheOrdinaryRebecca

The Star is considered to be a small or medium size ship when compared to the Prima. Maybe the size of the ship has to do where you port and whether or not you need to tender.

Will you consider writing a TR because I would love to read it.

Thank you for offering info about Games of Thrones and Spectacular Fiords excursions. The latter must have been really bad because NCL does not readily refund.

bostonphil--Yes, the size of the ship matters there. The smaller ones can pull right in, but the larger need to stay further out. I have no idea beyond that what is considered small etc so am no help with that.

BostonPHil

Based on your posts regarding Akureyi, and you concern about the cost of shore excursions,
Isafjordur is the one port that I would consider not taking a shore excursion (especially the described shore excursions) and just walking to the port into the small downtown area.

The highlights of one of the tours you are considering "enjoy close=up views of the natural wonders on the outskirts of Isafjordur"
is PURE BS. From the ship, you can look across the fjord and see the hills/mountains that surround Isafjordur and you can do that for FREE.
More BS: ... See the wooden pier,,,,, REALLY? you want to pay to see a wooden pier?
More BS... Behold the churning waters of bunarfoss..... Bunarfoss is NOTHING compared to Godafoss on the shore excursion for Akureyri.

Save your money here and spend it on a shore excursion in Akureyri to see Godafoss and to soak in Forest Lagoon.

Derek--Oh my gosh, I am laughing so hard because you told it like it is, not holding back;) Very true all that you wrote.

If I remember correctly, this is a very small town, which can be "seen" in an hour's walk or less. We took a long (ship) bus ride to hike up a steep trail to the Dynjandi waterfall, which was mentioned by another poster. This was spectacular, but it is NOT suitable for Phil. One of our cruise passengers had a misstep in a muddy section and fell and suffered a moderate injury. So his bus was late getting back to the ship, and the ship left quite late. There was a minor, historical-political-history stop on the way to Dynjandi, to fill out the day. We encountered unexpected snow (in July) on the mountainous (but well-paved) bus road over the mountains. Zero snow at either end of the trip.

This reminds me to say that you need waterproof, low boots for some waterfall visits, even with level grassy approaches. It rains a lot, and there are puddles and depressions. You could need a raincoat for an hour on any given day. It can be very windy in Iceland. The rental cars have stickers telling you to hold the door with two hands when you open it.

I am working on a trip report but here is what I have for the Iceland stops for the NCL cruise (we went in Sept 2026, and were on the Norwegian Star):

Sept 4 we docked at Isafjordur. The thing to do here is get a tour out to Westfjords (a tour to Vigur Island would have been good, but we were not there during puffin season), but everything was extremely pricey via NCL ($400 kayaking anyone?), so we just decided to have an easy day (we were pretty tired from the first 3 days of travel!) and walked into town, which is very small but quite cute (but also, not much to do). We had coffee and pastry, checked out the library (free wifi!), and looped around town. There are a few shops, a mini version of a rainbow street, and some nice scenery if the weather is good. All of this took maybe 1.5 hours. We opted to have lunch back on the ship, at O’Sheehan’s again and we should have known better - yuck. After that, this was a happy hour stop only. And we figured out that the best way to enjoy happy hour was to get drinks and find music. We enjoyed the Starlight Trio (all female, cello, piano, violin) for some pop renditions and a quiz about animal names before heading to Cagney’s Steakhouse, one of two included dinners at “specialty” restaurants on board. It was good (although later we had dinner at Le Bistro and that was actually better steak).

Sept 5 we docked at Ayekuri, where we had booked the NCL “Game of Thrones” tour. It was, of course, pricey, but it was also most of a day and included lunch. While we had never seen the show, it went to all the natural features you would want to see here. And it was very good, we would recommend it. The tour provided plenty of time at all the stops, which included Godafoss falls, Dimmuborgir, Grjotagja, Hverir geothermal field. Lunch was at a family-run spot at the Dimmuborgir park, with 3 choices of homemade soups and bread, all delicious. Note: depending on the time of year - bring a buff (neck gaiter) or if you have netting - the midges were absolutely awful, you will want as much of your face, head, neck covered as possible.

Back in town, we wandered a bit (lots of shops!) and some folks got the famous Icelandic hot dog, and we tried to get ice cream at a well-regarded shop but their credit card lines were down and none of us had cash. Back on ship, the Starlight Trio was doing Broadway show tunes, and we checked out Gatsby’s for drinks - it’s called a “champagne bar” but they had all the same wine/beer/cocktails as the other venues. Nice and cozy - only downside is that it was close to the casino, and you could smell the cigarette smoke at times. We had dinner at Aqua (included) and that was also quite good.