Transfer from Reykjavik airport to cruise port

[Msgolferfhcc]

Does anyone have recommendations on doing your own transfer from the airport to the cruise port and back on your own?  I'm wondering if we use Viking's transfer, if we have a 11:40 return flight, if they make us go earlier when the 10:30 flight occurs. Thanks. 

[Peregrina651]

6 hours ago, Msgolferfhcc said:

I'm wondering if we use Viking's transfer, if we have a 11:40 return flight, if they make us go earlier when the 10:30 flight occurs. Thanks. 

 

I would think that it depends on how many people are on the 11:40 am flight and you might not know that until on board, when they start collecting the flight information and then organize the departure schedule

 

As for private transfers both FlyBus (link on the KEF website) and GrayLine offer private van transfers. There are other companies but these are the only two that I have looked into.

 

[Clay Clayton]

8 hours ago, Msgolferfhcc said:

Does anyone have recommendations on doing your own transfer from the airport to the cruise port and back on your own?  I'm wondering if we use Viking's transfer, if we have a 11:40 return flight, if they make us go earlier when the 10:30 flight occurs. Thanks. 

If you’re on the July 10th cruise and would like to share a ride, drop me a line. We have a car booked for three of us for about the same costs as Viking transfer but we could get a mini van and save money and not have to deal with a whole bus load of other folks.  

[Travel2Learn]

18 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

If you’re on the July 10th cruise and would like to share a ride, drop me a line. We have a car booked for three of us for about the same costs as Viking transfer but we could get a mini van and save money and not have to deal with a whole bus load of other folks.  

We (2 people) are also on the 11:40 flight to EWR.  I wonder how long it will take from the cabin to the van.  Since the cruise  is only Iceland will we stand in line for a customs inspection at the cruise terminal?  Does Viking arrange luggage so it is easy to find bags, ie by deck, a tag number, etc.? 

 

Clay, how do I send a private message?  

Edited May 9, 2021 by Travel2Learn

[Clay Clayton]

7 minutes ago, Travel2Learn said:

We (2 people) are also on the 11:40 flight to EWR.  I wonder how long it will take from the cabin to the van. 
I don’t know but have asked the transfer service to tell us a good pickup time. 
 

Since the cruise  is only Iceland will we stand in line for a customs inspection at the cruise terminal? 

I would suspect not but until the first cruisers go, we won’t know. 

 

Does Viking arrange luggage so it is easy to find bags, ie by deck, a tag number, etc.? 
Yes-by color and with only 930 max onboard it’s usually pretty easy to find one’s luggage 

 

Clay, how do I send a private message?  Email me at BigNCBear@aol.com

See responses above. Are you disembarking on July 17th?

[Peregrina651]

Since all of our ports of call are within Iceland, no border control to deal with (otherwise, we would be dealing with it in each port).  Disembarkation is a breeze. Time from cabin to van depends on how long the line is at disembarkation (we have to tap our cards one last time so they know we have disembarked),  how fast we walk and how quickly we can find your luggage. Me, I walk really slowly on disembarkation day. 

 

We won't be anywhere near booked to full capacity. I've heard 50% and I've heard 725. Personally, I think we are going to be closer to 50%.

 

4 hours ago, Travel2Learn said:

Clay, how do I send a private message?  

 

For the record, there is no private messaging on Cruise Critic; we have to exchange e-mail addresses

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

I'm not on your cruise, but just booked an August one (Iceland Natural Beauty) and starting to have questions.  So I'm following this discussion, but can't provide answers to the initial questions posed.  We were in Reykjavik once, but on a stopover, and didn't go to the port.  We rented a car and spent time in Iceland, returning the car to the airport.  Renting was a slow process, but of course that's often the case in other cities.  It's probably worse now.

 

For this cruise, I decided to take Viking's air, which means we will be given their transfers.  But the likely flight we'll be assigned to get back home doesn't leave until 4 something.  I'd love to be able to store our luggage somewhere in the city that morning and get to the airport on our own a few hours later, as that would allow me to see a little more of the city.  But is there luggage storage somewhere?  Will we be allowed to go outside the Viking cruise bubble to do that?  And if we use Viking's transfers, is it likely Viking will take us to the airport at the time that we need to get off the ship (9 AM maybe???) or is it possible we might be allowed to stay in a public area a little later?  I realize it depends upon how many people are flying back home at that time, but just trying to get a wild guess. (There's not much in KEF airport.)

[Peregrina651]

There are many suggestions for you sprinkled through the various roll calls. I know, it's a lot reading. Here are some that I remember

 

If you are interested in driving around on your own, there is a car rental near the dock. Check their opening hours. No need to worry about luggage storage. Automatic transmissions seem to be readily available.

 

Other people are doing private transfers that include a tour. Some companies offer a transfer that includes a stop at the Blue Lagoon. Again, no luggage storage but possibly restriction on number of bags pp.

 

Pre Covid, departing pax were off the ship by 10am (with exceptions allowed in some ports). So far we have no idea what the drill will be in Iceland post Covid.

[Travel2Learn]

19 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

See responses above. Are you disembarking on July 17th?

Disembark July 20.  We leave for Iceland on July 10, hence my confusion and mistake.  Sorry.  

[Clay Clayton]

6 minutes ago, Travel2Learn said:

Disembark July 20.  We leave for Iceland on July 10, hence my confusion and mistake.  Sorry.  

No problem.  If you want info on what I found just drop me an email.  Happy to share. 

[amcher4]

We landed in Reykjavik cruise port Skarfabakki, on the Norwegian Prima cruise and wanted to get to the airport to rent a car from Blue Car rental. I had booked the airport transfer through Greyline with Viator for a 9 am pickup. I did not see any airport shuttle and I was there past 10. Looks like when the cruise landed all the shuttles were doing excursions to Blue Lagoon and Golden circle. So I took a cab to the bus terminal 10$, and got a flybus to the airport 30$. So what I have learnt- there were a lot more flybus and mbus shuttles than Greyline. If you want to pick up the car at the airport then do what I did.( there are free shuttles from the cruise port to the city center not the bus terminal) Other options are get the car from rental place near the cruise port, but blue car does not have an location there- maybe they can drop it off at the cruise port. Or pick up the car at a rental location in the city center. Another tip- our ship had docked a day before disembarking so that night you can park the rental car in a designated parking location for rental cars right next to the ship. I was looking around for overnight parking, you don’t have to worry about that. 

[Peregrina651]

33 minutes ago, amcher4 said:

I had booked the airport transfer through Greyline with Viator for a 9 am pickup.

 

@amcher4, welcome aboard. Sorry you had trouble with your arrangements in Reykjavik. The idea of picking up a car the day before disembarkation is an interesting one.

 

For those who are still in the planning stages, let me say that in checking out vendors in Iceland for our trips in 2020 (cancelledx2) and 2021, I got the distinct impression that the vendors much preferred that people deal directly with them and that if there were any problems with arrangements booked through a third-party, they had to be handled through the third-party. I was researching on Trip Advisor and reading the reviews for various companies; any time there was a complaint from someone who had used a third-party to book, they were told to talk to the third-party.

 

Just based on those comments, when it came time to book two tours and transfers to the airport, I booked directly with the vendor. We used Grayline for tours and airport transfer for our post cruise stay during Covid and had no issues.

[LindaS272]

We just rented a car in Reykjavik getting off Saturn on July 19. The Europcar office is only about a mile from the port. Dave was going to get the #6 bus and come back to pick me up with the luggage, but it was easier & quicker to just take a taxi. Lots lined up at disembarkation. 
 

Then we had time to nip into town to the cathedral to meet up with Clay & Mike before their grand adventure. 😎

[Critically Cruising]

To/from KEF, the simplest way is the FlyBus or FlyBus+.  Private transfers are for those with money to set on fire.

 

And unless you are heading out into the countryside, there's no reason to go out to KEF to rent the car, just to bring it back into Reykjavik.  Unless you like driving on Icelandic roads.

 

 

[Clay Clayton]

On 8/1/2023 at 2:19 PM, LindaS272 said:

We just rented a car in Reykjavik getting off Saturn on July 19. The Europcar office is only about a mile from the port. Dave was going to get the #6 bus and come back to pick me up with the luggage, but it was easier & quicker to just take a taxi. Lots lined up at disembarkation. 
 

Then we had time to nip into town to the cathedral to meet up with Clay & Mike before their grand adventure. 😎

How was the rest of your trip?  We just finished packing our dirties from the two nights in Oslo into our screaming suitcases ( hope the zippers hold) to lighten the underseat bags for our flight home which leaves in 6 hours. 

[LindaS272]

4 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

How was the rest of your trip?  We just finished packing our dirties from the two nights in Oslo into our screaming suitcases ( hope the zippers hold) to lighten the underseat bags for our flight home which leaves in 6 hours. 

We posted a couple shots here on our last day 

We enjoyed our five days in the West and Westfjords. Snaefellenes is different than the rest of Iceland round the ring road. More farms, interesting cliffside ocean paths, a few waterfalls and—swans! Several sites about early settlement, including a ninth century well with a whale bone that was uncovered in the late 20th century,

 

Westfjords is quite remote—lots of cliffside unpaved roads. They make it worth your while though with the Sea Monster Museum & the Witches & Sorcery Museum (history of witch burnings in the late 1600s & best fish soup in Iceland. Will post pictures on our thread.

 

Safe journey home!

Edited August 4, 2023 by LindaS272