Iceland cruise excursions, by port

We sell 188 shore excursions across Iceland's cruise ports. Booking direct with the operator is normally cheaper than the same tour from the ship's desk, and the operators here are the ones the ships buy from anyway. The catch is that you carry the risk of getting back late — so every list on these pages is sorted by whether the tour actually fits a port call, which is the question the ship's brochure never answers.

  • One checkout, any number of operators

  • Rankings are not for sale

  • 153 operators vetted, and not all of them accepted

  • If it falls short, we fix it

Reykjavík

110 excursions · 22 operators · typically €270

Reykjavík is the one Icelandic port where the excursion choice is genuinely large, and that is the problem. Plenty of what is sold as a Reykjavík day tour is a ten- or eleven-hour South Coast run built for people staying in a hotel, not for a ship that sails at five.

46 fit a normal call →

Akureyri

27 excursions · 9 operators · typically €192

Akureyri is a short walk from a real town with a botanical garden, a swimming pool, bakeries and a church on a hill, which is more than most Icelandic ports offer. The excursions push east: Goðafoss is 35 minutes away, Mývatn about 90, and the Diamond Circle with Dettifoss and Ásbyrgi is a full day.

17 fit a normal call →

Ísafjörður

13 excursions · 7 operators · typically €202

This is our own home port; Formáli is registered on Hafnarstræti. Ísafjörður is the smallest of the three and the excursion list is short, which is honest rather than a failing — the Westfjords have few operators and the ones here are small.

11 fit a normal call →

How long is safe?

A ship ashore from 08:00 to 17:00 gives you nine hours, and you want to be at the gangway an hour before it sails. So seven hours of tour is the realistic ceiling on a normal call, and anything over nine is not a port-call tour at all — it is a tour for people staying in a hotel, listed in the same catalogue.

We band every excursion against that. "Fits a normal call" means five to seven hours. "Only on a long call" means eight or nine, which works if your ship is in until seven in the evening and not otherwise. "Longer than most calls" is there so you can see what exists, not because we recommend it.

Bands are a starting point, and your ship is not typical. Each port page has a back on board by box: put in the hours you are actually alongside and the list re-filters to what fits, with the departure time and rough end time on every excursion. We treat the last hour and a half before all-aboard as unusable — shuttle, gangway queue, and whatever the road does — so a tour that lands inside it counts as not fitting rather than as tight.

The one real difference from booking through the ship

If a ship-sold excursion runs late, the ship waits. If ours does, it does not. That is the honest trade for the lower price, and it is why we would rather sell you a six-hour tour than an eight-hour one. Operators here know the sailing times and build in margin, but weather in Iceland does what it likes — so on a tight call, take the shorter tour.

Smaller calls

We have some inventory at these but not enough for a page of its own. Tell us your ship and date and we will say plainly whether there is anything worth booking.

  • Grundarfjörður— Snæfellsnes — Kirkjufell is 15 minutes away
  • Djúpivogur— East Iceland — the excursions run inland to Egilsstaðir
  • Hafnarfjörður— Shares the Reykjavík excursion list

Email [email protected] or call +354 497 1373.