Tours from Reykjavik

We are on Q614 and will be over-nighting in Reykjavik so having the chance to do two tours. I note that places visited with the 'Ring of Fire' and 'Golden Circle' tours overlap somewhat. Has anyone done these tours? Would doing both be a waste of money?

Regards

DJ

We did an Iceland cruise last summer. I looked on Tripadvisor and booked tours on there with local tour operators. They were very good and had no problem.

In one of the ports of call we did a trip with two other couples arranged via the roll call for our cruise.

Iceland is very expensive, but still worked out much cheaper than via shp's excursions. We really enjoyed it as it was something different.

We were there end of July and had very changeable weather including a lot of rain. We had waterproof coats and waterproof trousers.

We are on Q614 and will be over-nighting in Reykjavik so having the chance to do two tours. I note that places visited with the 'Ring of Fire' and 'Golden Circle' tours overlap somewhat. Has anyone done these tours? Would doing both be a waste of money?

 

Regards

 

DJ

We overnighted in Reykjavik a few years back. We did the Golden Circle tour with Cunard. It was very good and is probably the best tour to do. We also went to the blue lagoon which was just amazing. Unlike anything else we had ever done.

I'm afraid I don't remember the ring of fire tour. We also did the tour from Akureyri that visited pools of bubbling mud. That was amazing too.

We also found a midnight whale watching trip in Reykjavik which we booked independently online. We were there in June and it was pretty light all night. The company came and picked us up from the ship and returned us afterwards. Unfortunately we didn't see any whales but we had a great time!

It was definitely one of our best ever cruises. Have a great time.

Iceland is fabulous! We had a one-day port stop in Rekjavik and we were so intrigued that we went back for a land trip, driving all the way around (on the one and only highway!)

If you've got a port stop in Akureyri, I think that might be a better place to take a whale watch excursion. You'd probably have to go with a ship's tour, as I don't recall any whale trips going right from the city. The whale watch we did was out of a different town in the north, and that seems to be where the best whale sightings are.

I don't know what's in the ship's ring of fire and golden circle tours, but read the stops and decide what's more important for you to see, because there will be overlap. The big things on those tours are the waterfalls, geysers, and the Mid-Atlantic Rift, where two of Earth's plates meet. Because we were on our own, we could make our own choices. We saw waterfalls and the Rift (number 1 on DH's must-see list), but skipped the geysers.

I agree with the poster who said to check out other tour vendors. Lots of tour buses go out of the bus station all day long. I found Trip Advisor to be very helpful when researching our land trip.

Don't ignore the city itself. There is an excellent maritime museum, a really cool modern church, history museums, and just fun walking around.

And if you like craft beer, check out the local brews!

Hi Davyjones,

We are on the Q614 in August too but haven't found a roll call yet. We are hoping to do some tours too but are not sure whether to pick Cunard or to try some private ones. The Golden Circle tour with Cunard seems to work out at about £109 but I have seen it for £72 with private operators.

We're on this cruise too! We've visited Iceland before & done the golden circle tour so this time have booked a tour to Vik through a company we found on trip advisor. The second day in Reykjavik we plan to spend time seeing the town again & also head to the blue lagoon.

We're still debating over Akureyri - there's a trip through cunard and also a smaller group independent tour we've found. Neither does quite what we want - need to decide soon as I believe there are a number of ships in port on the same day.

Really looking forward to seeing Iceland again - it's the reason we booked Thai cruise!