We’re going on a Northern European cruise at the end of May/early June to celebrate my youngest’s college graduation. We love the itinerary and the price was great, but have discovered that the cost of the excursions are atrocious for Iceland and Norway. So I’m going to arrange our excursions independently.
I’ve rented a car for the day at our first stop, Isafjordur, and we’ll be going on a short hike to visit a waterfall and then stop at an Arctic Fox Research Centre at a cost of $130 for a group of four.
Before I go any farther in my planning, I thought I’d ask for any ideas or tips for our other stops. We’ll be boarding in Reykjavik and ending up in London, but won’t be spending any time there. The only other stop we’ve been to is Amsterdam, where we visited the Anne Frank house and Rijksmuseum. So we’re looking at other options there, and open to all suggestions for the other five stops. We’ll be going whale and puffin watching in Iceland or Norway, but I haven’t decided which location yet. We’ll have about 8 hours in each location.
Thanks for any assistance that can be provided!
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That looks like an amazing cruise! Have you looked at Cruise Critic yet? You can log on to their message board (Roll Call) and talk to other people who might be on your actual cruise, and also see what shore excursions people are planning for different dates, same itinerary, or reviews about the ones they’ve done. We did that with a Royal Caribbean cruise, and ended up meeting many of the group that we’d talked to online, going on group excursions with them. We ended up seeing many of them throughout the cruise, and it was nice to have people we kind of knew, plus they arranged the excursions, and we just jumped on to the ones that sounded appealing. This was all arranged ahead of time.
And if you don’t want to do shore excursions with any of these people, at least there’s plenty of ideas on the Cruise Critic Roll Call that are very specific to your port stops.
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Thank you! I’ll try that!
No excursion reco, but if you are a reader - Karen Swan’s novel ‘The Christmas Lights’ is set in Gerainger… it’s a fun, vacation novel about some influencers but with a historical back story… great descriptions of the scenery and locale…
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Thank you! I just read on Cruise Critic (thanks @busdriver11 !), that Geiranger is a wonderful and very scenic stop. Getting more excited by the day, but have lots of research to do to get the maximum experience out of eight hours!
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Southampton is a coastal city and not part of London. If you have 8 hours and want to see London as a day trip, you will need to get a round trip train ticket. That trip will be roughly 2.50+ hours, at about $50 per person.
Maybe you’re only going to London one way, but just wanted you to be aware. Sounds like a cool trip.
Southampton is the disembarkation port. We get in at 6am, will probably get a transfer to a hotel near Heathrow, drop off luggage, and then spend the afternoon in London (3 of four of the group have visited twice). We fly back home noonish the next day.
To clarify, we fly into Reykjavik, and out of London.
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Got it.
I encourage you go right into London and not bother going to Heathrow, as it’s then a schlep back into London.
I can’t think of any convenient way to get from Southampton to Heathrow without an expensive private car. A car to Heathrow will probably take almost as long as a train to London. The shuttle between Southampton and LHR takes almost two hours, longer than a train to London.
If you take a train from Southampton to Heathrow, you will likely go into London (or have to change trains in Reading), then back out to Heathrow. Then you’ll have to get on a tube back into London, then out to Heathrow again, all in one day. You’ll spend a LOT of time on transport and not so much time in London, where there is always something new to see.
Plus, it’s REALLY noisy out at Heathrow.
I’d go right to a hotel in London and stay the night. There will be plenty of hotels near Victoria or Waterloo, and they will secure your bags until check in. Trains from Southampton get in at Victoria or Waterloo. If Victoria, it’s close to Buckingham Palace, etc… Waterloo will put you very close to the London Eye and Central London, but both are good locations. With a noon flight out of Heathrow, you won’t have to wake up too early.
There are quick ways to get to Heathrow from Central London. The new Elizabeth line is fast and super modern, worth a ride on its own. The Paddington Express is fast but expensive, and the Piccadilly Line goes right through Victoria Station.
Just to add, I used the Liz Line last week. The new line has eased up a lot of tube traffic, at least as far as getting to LHR is concerned. It’s really fast. I had a flight at 11:40 am. I was on the tube by 8 am and had plenty of time to spare before my flight.
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Thanks, that’s very helpful! The planning for this trip is going to take a lot of time, despite it being a cruise! Our last trip to Costa Rica was easy since I used KimKim to make all the arrangements for us. We just waited at the appropriate place for someone to pick us up and drop us off the whole week.
Sadly they couldn’t help with this one as they only deal with trips of 5 days or longer in one location.
In addition to booking a transfer in Reykjavik, I’m having to rent a locker also bc we arrive at 6am and the ship leaves at 6pm. Can’t walk around town dragging luggage…
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Check Sandeman Free Walking Tours
and City Walk
https://citywalk.is/tours/
These walks are the way to go when you have limited time
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