Documenting August 16, 2024.
The tl;dr for today is that we:
- Disembarked from the ship
- Picked up our rental car
- Visited some sights
- Checked in to our Airbnb
Before I get to the fun stuff, I want to put a few notes up front here for next time with respect to renting a car. If you don’t care about renting a car in Iceland after doing a cruise, feel free to skip ahead to ‘➡️ The fun begins here’. 🙂
A day or two after booking the cruise, months ago, I researched and made a car rental reservation at a place that showed as a 15-20 minute walk from the Reykjavik cruise terminal we’d be docking at. I figured we’d get off the ship, I’d hoof it over to pick up the car, and I’d swing back over to the terminal and pick the rest of the family up.
Once on the cruise, midway through the voyage, Guest Services took a poll through the (terrible) Celebrity app, surveying people’s disembarkation transportation plans. I don’t recall the exact answer I gave, but it was along the lines of “don’t worry about us, we’ve already made plans.” A day or two later, Guest Services left a letter in our room, the gist of which was “Transportation can be a challenge here in Iceland, there aren’t a lot of taxis, it would be better if you organized transportation through us.” I was still content with my plan until I hit this line in the letter: “Please note that the port is a secured area.” At other major ports such as Miami or Ft Lauderdale, you need to provide rideshare/taxi/limo ID in order to drive over to the actual pick up area, and I had no idea if similar restrictions would be in place.
So then the next few days I was riddled with self-doubt about my original plan. In the end, I decided we’d go with the herd. We arranged bus transfers through Celebrity over to the Reykjavik central bus terminal… at $20 per person for a 20 minute trip. For reference, Disney Cruise charges $34 per person to pick up from a variety of Disney hotels and deliver you an hour away. I cancelled that car reservation walking distance to the CRUISE terminal and replaced it with Hertz by the domestic airport, around a 20 minute walk from the BUS terminal.
While riding our $80 bus, I kept my eyes peeled and WE TOTALLY COULD’VE GONE WITH THE ORIGINAL PLAN. There were ample places for the family to wait just beyond the secured area, with plenty of out of traffic spots for me to do a grab-and-go. The only bright side in this scenario is that we ended up with a Tesla Model Y instead of a Toyota Proace City, which probably would’ve been fine but much less familiar to drive.
We made it to the bus terminal, and then me and Rowan hoofed it over to Hertz’ Downtown Office, around 20 minutes walk away. We swung back to the bus terminal for the girls, found the right stacking and angle to fit all the luggage, and then were on our way.
➡️ The fun begins here.
We left Reykjavik straight away and started toward the south coast. The route took us through Selfoss, a city we were familiar with from last year. We even happened across the same bakery we made our first stop at last year. We had pastries and warm drinks, then popped across the parking lot to Bónus grocery store for some snacks and sodas. This was still mid-morning with a check-in time of 4pm, which meant we still had a lot of time ahead of us. (Thankfully I wasn’t fighting 2 hours of sleep the night before and jet lag.)
Our first stop after breakfast was at LAVA Centre, around 40 minutes from our Airbnb in Steinar. https://lavacentre.is/ For some reason I was expecting real lava – somehow – but the movie and exhibits were still really well done, and I was happy with this stop.
They had an observation deck, from which you could see multiple volcanos in the distance:
Inside there are displays seismic activity all around Iceland:
And multiple interactive exhibits about earthquakes, lava, and eruptions:
Our second stop was a random waterfall we happened to notice off the Ring Road. This would end up being Seljalandsfoss, one of the notable South Iceland must-see waterfalls. If we’d had our plans more together, we wouldn’t have been surprised by this. We parked, paid with their weird parking app, then walked over to the main waterfall. This one you could walk behind but it was too cold, misty, and muddy for us. There’s also a secondary waterfall about a kilometer away along a decent (and flat) path, so we opted for that as well. Happy with the side quest and that we’d killed some time, we moved on.
Next we were generally heading towards Vik and the black sand beach there, and also keeping an eye out for lunch. A few miles past our Airbnb we noticed a decent place on the left called Heimamenn (they also had a Street Food sign 🤷♂️) and looked promising for at least a check-out. They had some of the best fish and chips I’ve had anywhere. Granted it was 3500 ISK (~USD26) but I didn’t even care. This was a nice stop.
Once fed, we set our sights on Vik and its famous black sand beaches. I was expecting something different, like a loooong sandy walk down to the water, dodging travel influencers the whole time. It wasn’t like that at all. There were relatively few people there, the weather was amazing – breezy, sure, but in the mid 50’s – and between the surf, sand, cliffs, grasses, and birds, it felt like a special place.
While in Vik, we bought some essentials at the grocery, then made the 40 minute drive back to our Airbnb to check in.
Sherri powered through most of the day feeling under the weather, but we now know it’s a nice hefty case of COVID. She’s been in the dumps for 2 days now, though seemingly trending better. In retrospect, I probably had COVID onboard the ship but with milder symptoms that presented more like a cold. We’re crossing our fingers the kids don’t pick it up.
As far as feedback on the lodging, it feels like an 80% complete Airbnb, and isn’t as good a value as the others we had last year. There’s no grill nor hot tub nor even patio furniture. There are two bedrooms with two queen beds, which cannot be separated. We borrowed a mattress cover from one bed and made a floor bed for Rowan, but overnight it ended up being too “spidery” there and he retreated to the couch. There are a few other nits that aren’t worth mentioning. On the positive side, the kitchen was well stocked with spices and a variety of pots and pans. Overall I wished for better accommodations here in South Iceland but we did book our cruise and post-cruise Iceland visit very late, so there wasn’t much to choose from.
All that said, it’s hard to argue with the view.
Our sunset for today:
(If you look closely, you can see Heimaey off in the distance there.)