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Iceland Windstar circumnavigation experiences


sb44
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Would love to hear from those of you who have experienced this cruise with Windstar. We're looking at this for summer 2018 and haven't seen much in reviews of ports, excursions, etc. Seas? Rain? Looking at either the 7 day or the Star Collector leaving from Edinburgh. Thanks for any info.

 

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Ditto. Also how much do excursions add to the cost of the cruise? I am comparing to Scenic and Noble Caledonia which are more expensive but include all excursions, gratuities plus at least some alcohol -- I wonder if the net net is pretty much the same.

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  • 3 weeks later...

We took the Iceland Circumnavigation cruise last August, and it was fabulous! Loved the small fishing villages that were the port stops. We had been on Windstar before and the ship and crew were great as usual. We spent 3 days in Reykjavik after the cruise.

Most of the flights arrive in the morning, and hotels and the ship will not let you check in until afternoon. We went straight to the Blue Lagoon from the airport (purchased bus tix and made reservations ahead of time), and really enjoyed the experience. Then took the bus into town, by the time we got there our hotel room was ready.

If you have not booked this cruise yet, make a decision soon, they sell out fast! We originally wanted to go in July, but all were sold out, so we did August. Weather was nice, in the 50s and 60s. Millions of waterfalls, scenery was unbelievable.

I was lazy and did not submit a review, but will check back and answer any specific questions you have.

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I compared over a dozen different Iceland circumnavigation cruises and land tours, and decided to book the Backroads/Ponant version:

https://www.backroads.com/trips/WIES/iceland-ocean-cruise-walking-hiking-tour

because the ship is very luxurious and the included excursions cover a wide range of natural and historic sights (without being too strenuous).

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We took the Iceland Circumnavigation cruise last August, and it was fabulous! Loved the small fishing villages that were the port stops. We had been on Windstar before and the ship and crew were great as usual. We spent 3 days in Reykjavik after the cruise.

Most of the flights arrive in the morning, and hotels and the ship will not let you check in until afternoon. We went straight to the Blue Lagoon from the airport (purchased bus tix and made reservations ahead of time), and really enjoyed the experience. Then took the bus into town, by the time we got there our hotel room was ready.

If you have not booked this cruise yet, make a decision soon, they sell out fast! We originally wanted to go in July, but all were sold out, so we did August. Weather was nice, in the 50s and 60s. Millions of waterfalls, scenery was unbelievable.

I was lazy and did not submit a review, but will check back and answer any specific questions you have.

Thanks. We wound up booking Alaska for this summer and hope to do Iceland 2019. The times worked better for us this year.

 

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We took this cruise last July and had a very enjoyable time. The ports are all very small with not much to do in port itself, so we did tours most days. There are some local companies but the concentration is really out of Reykjavik, so we used the WS tours. Everything is very beautiful, very green and very relaxing, so the tours tend to mimic that - this is not an area of huge museums or other attractions, it is really about the scenery and the amazingly wonderful people. The one place I was sorry we'd booked the tour was the town with the volcano damage and the buried houses (need to look up the name) it turned out that the attractions were easy walking distance (we actually walked back to ship) and the town looked interesting but we'd spent too much time on the tour to have much left for wandering and shopping. We spent four days in Reykjavik before the cruise and planned to fly out the day the cruise ended. We were coming from London, and had an afternoon flight in, and our rental apartment was ready for us when we got there. We did book a taxi service to/from the airport and were glad we did, KEF is a fair distance. There were many apartment options very close to the main area of town, and we found one that was 5 minutes walking to the city center as also the same distance from where the ship docked. For our itinerary WS docked at the port that's right in town, there's another one further out that serves the big ships. With it so close we were able to drop our bags at the ship by mid-morning and then had several hours to sightsee before embarkation. Plan plenty of time to get back to the airport as the lines are crushingly long and oddly inefficient. We had a bit of a panic when WS posted an incorrect docking time but in the end we were off the ship by 7, or taxi was waiting and we were at the ariport by 8, but even so barely made our 10:30 departure. Plan accordingly.

 

But - an amazing trip.

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We took this cruise last July and had a very enjoyable time. The ports are all very small with not much to do in port itself, so we did tours most days. There are some local companies but the concentration is really out of Reykjavik, so we used the WS tours. Everything is very beautiful, very green and very relaxing, so the tours tend to mimic that - this is not an area of huge museums or other attractions, it is really about the scenery and the amazingly wonderful people. The one place I was sorry we'd booked the tour was the town with the volcano damage and the buried houses (need to look up the name) it turned out that the attractions were easy walking distance (we actually walked back to ship) and the town looked interesting but we'd spent too much time on the tour to have much left for wandering and shopping. We spent four days in Reykjavik before the cruise and planned to fly out the day the cruise ended. We were coming from London, and had an afternoon flight in, and our rental apartment was ready for us when we got there. We did book a taxi service to/from the airport and were glad we did, KEF is a fair distance. There were many apartment options very close to the main area of town, and we found one that was 5 minutes walking to the city center as also the same distance from where the ship docked. For our itinerary WS docked at the port that's right in town, there's another one further out that serves the big ships. With it so close we were able to drop our bags at the ship by mid-morning and then had several hours to sightsee before embarkation. Plan plenty of time to get back to the airport as the lines are crushingly long and oddly inefficient. We had a bit of a panic when WS posted an incorrect docking time but in the end we were off the ship by 7, or taxi was waiting and we were at the ariport by 8, but even so barely made our 10:30 departure. Plan accordingly.

 

But - an amazing trip.

Thanks so much. Really wanted this for 2018 but with good health 2019 is the plan.

 

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Would love to hear from those of you who have experienced this cruise with Windstar. We're looking at this for summer 2018 and haven't seen much in reviews of ports, excursions, etc. Seas? Rain? Looking at either the 7 day or the Star Collector leaving from Edinburgh. Thanks for any info.

 

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I took this trip last July it's a really remarkable beautiful place many things about the Windstar experience were excellent for this particular Cruise however Windstar has made many changes over the years with the new management especially in the last year and the luxurious experience of former Windstar Cruises was lacking on this trip. For instance I'm the day of embarking there was no waiting area there were no seats there was no cover from rain there was no bathroom you simply just get dropped off and one man in a little Guard Station checks your passport and you stand outside waiting for the one arrival time. On a number of the days that we had excursions a very huge ship was parallel next to us and often they had all of the tour groups causing ARS to be delayed on multiple occasions until something was available so there were some glitches with the tours I enjoyed all of the towards that I went on but there were some issues with timing. I don't want to Cajun we return so late that 60 or 70 of us got to the evening barbecue right towards the end of it they did delay the end of the barbecue but as we pulled out of the protective port and into the open ocean all of the dishes and glasses blew off the tables. While this was happening the staff was dancing and enjoying their weekly line dance show very surprised when everything started to fly off the tables when we get the wind. I would strongly suggest booking an independent company for several days post Cruise as we did through your perfect day in Iceland and that allowed us to see some of the Interior sites of Iceland that one cannot see on the periphery as well as booking all of our Blue Lagoon Adventure. The Blue Lagoon used to be extremely special it is now a big tourist trap still special but not as it used to be the truth is that there are many other similar smaller places that will be much more like what you might imagine a natural hot spring experience to be.

 

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  • 1 month later...

I took this cruise last summer; as a matter of fact, it was my first cruise ever. Stayed at the Foss Hotel first night, with transfer to ship via two coaches, boarding was fine.

 

We went on excursions most days. The one day we didn't we roamed around the town after lunch, later learning that friends were disappointed by their excursions there (arctic foxes and druid priests). Best was the all day trip out of Aykureri. Volcano museum itself on Heymey Island wasn't worth it, so wish we'd taken the slightly cheaper tour that skipped it instead.

 

Half day tour between disembarking and airport checkin worked out well at the end as we had seen little of the capital beforehand.

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Thanks so much. We've decided to do Alaska this summer and maybe Iceland next. Or maybe something entirely different. Loved British Isles so much that we may go back for more.

 

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