journeys cruise to Greenland

[xyzcruiser]

Considering a 14 Journeys cruise to Greenland. I'm more interested in wildlife, northern lights, glaciers and icebergs and hiking, kayaking etc than I am in touring villages, sightseeing, and learning local history. I have looked at the ports of call forums and most people are speaking a lot of walking around villages, local crafts, and shopping. For those of you that have cruised to Greenland before, do you think I would be happy on this cruise, knowing I'm mainly interested in "nature-y" excursions?

[RoperDK]

I'm interested, too.

[mets07]

I think you will be happy IF you sign up for excursions (for example, boat tours that take you close to icebergs) or do the types of things (hikes) you have mentioned. Hikes are mostly on your own. We did not see any wildlife. We went in September on Royal. We enjoyed it but it is certainly very rustic. Sometimes you see things you are surprised by e.g. a lot of discarded junk next to beautiful water and scenery. 

 

We saw the Northern Lights, but they were not vivid. 

 

Best wishes.

[jimbo5544]

On the other hand, we tried and failed to get there.  Two hurricanes got in the way, many unhappy cruisers, especially with some who booked outside excursions.  Saw a lot of Canada at really high cost.   . 

[kdr69]

I think like @jimbo5544 alluded to you have to be of a mindset on these types of cruises that you may miss ports or not get there at all.  We had a port skipped on our Iceland Cruise due to weather as well. The other thing to note is there may not be a lot of private excursion companies in Greenland so they can get booked up quick and/or cost a lot of money.

[jsglow]

I've not been to Greenland but I would suggest you'll have your best opportunity for all of that in Alaska. Our experience is with Iceland and that's about geothermal/fault line features, waterfalls, tundra, and tiny fishing villages.

[Mangrove Snapper]

We visited Qaqortoq with Celebrity in August, 2022.  We did an excursion to Hvalsey to view the Nordic ruins and we also did an iceberg tour by boat.  You are taken to Hvalsey by boat.  The scenery is remote and pristine.  We had good views of icebergs on the way to and from Hvalsey but we had better views of larger icebergs on the iceberg tour.  Our iceberg tour was for six people in a boat but you could go out to the front or back to take photos.  There was another iceberg tour offered on a RIB and people we spoke to really enjoyed it. 

 

We did not have time to hike to the lake in Qaqortoq but would like to do so if we go back.  On that cruise, Qaqortoq was the only stop in Greenland, although we did go through Prins Christian Sund on our way to Iceland, which was amazing scenery. 

 

On our trip the conditions were right for the Northern Lights on a few nights but there was too much cloud cover and we did not see them.  On the return trip I heard that they did get to see the Northern Lights at least once. 

 

We are also interested in Carnival's Greenland cruise.  We recently took a Panama Canal Journeys cruise and loved it.