German-Speaking Golden Circle Shore Excursion review
Who it’s for
German-speaking cruise passengers, and effectively nobody else. The tour is timed for AIDA, Mein Schiff, MSC and Costa calls, and you state your ship when you book so the operator can match the return to your all-aboard time. There is a free car park for tour vehicles on Skarfagarðar if you are making your own way to the terminal.
Two access notes matter. You must be able to manage two or three bus steps, and walkers or wheelchairs need to be flagged in advance. Bring rain gear and closed shoes, which the operator asks for directly — a sensible request on a route with gravel at Þingvellir and scoria at Kerið. If you want the cruise-terminal pickup but not the German, the full-day coach lists Skarfabakki among its 23 pickup points.
The day in order
This is the longest published stop list of the eight, and it is the reason I rate the itinerary so highly. Eight or nine hours, timed to the ship.
- 40 minutes from Skarfabakki, over the heath.
- Hveragirði, 20 minutes — the town with the earthquake fissure running through it.
- Kerið, 25 minutes, entrance included. Five minutes more than the coach tours give it, which is the difference between the rim and the rim plus the path down.
- Gullfoss, 45 minutes.
- Haukadalur and Geysir, 1 hour.
- Efstidalur II farm, 25 minutes — ice cream made on site and a cow shed you can look into.
- Laugarvatn, a 10-minute photo stop, then a viewpoint for 5 minutes.
- Þingvellir, 1 hour — Öxarárfoss, Almannagjá and the Alþingi site.
- 70 minutes back to the ship, with an optional Hallgrímskirkja photo stop if the timing allows.
An hour at Þingvellir is the most any tour here gives it, and it is enough to walk down to Öxarárfoss properly rather than photograph it from the top. That single line is why I would take this itinerary over the flagship if I had the choice.
What works
- The fullest stop list on this site: eight stops plus a viewpoint, with published minutes for each
- A full hour at Þingvellir, where the coach tours give 45 minutes and the afternoon tour gives 25
- Native-level German guiding — Klaus wrote that his guide was “a native of Iceland… spoke fluent German”, and Marion described one who “is German and has lived in Iceland for a long time” and put “a lot of love and time into doing the full program”
- Nineteen seats in a Sprinter, so the extra stops are actually possible
- It runs in bad weather: Andreas reported that “despite the rain, we made all the planned stops” and Walter had a “great experience with lots of information” in mixed conditions
- Jacqueline found “communication with support was always prompt”, which matters when a ship time is involved
Worth knowing
- Skarfabakki cruise terminal only — no hotel pickup, no city departure
- German only. If your German stops at the menu, you will miss most of the value
- You must manage two or three bus steps; walkers and wheelchairs need advance notice
- 445 ratings, a small sample next to the big coach tours
- Food is not included beyond the Efstidalur ice cream you buy yourself
- The Hallgrímskirkja stop is conditional on your ship’s schedule, not guaranteed
State your ship at booking and then check the return time against your all-aboard, not against the sailing time. Eight to nine hours is a comfortable window against most calls at Reykjavík, but a short call plus a late tender will eat it. If the numbers are tight, the six-hour afternoon tour also picks up from City Hall and BSÍ.
What the extra stops actually add
Efstidalur II is a working dairy where the ice cream is made from the herd you can see through a window, and it is the sort of stop guides on other tours add off their own bat when the schedule allows — on the small-group loop reviewers keep mentioning an unscheduled ice-cream farm. Here it is on the itinerary with 25 minutes attached. Laugarvatn is ten minutes at a lake that most tours drive past without slowing. Hveragirði is a comfort break on other tours; here you are told what the fissure through the town is.
None of that changes the geology of the loop. What it changes is the density of the day. Nine hours with nine things in it feels shorter than eight hours with four, which is why the reviews on this tour rarely mention length at all.
Is it worth the money?
Against the cheapest coach it looks expensive until you count what a nineteen-seat Sprinter with a specialist-language guide costs to run against a full-size coach that fills every day. Against a ship’s own shore excursion it is usually the cheaper option, which is the comparison most of its passengers are actually making. The German-language context, the terminal logistics and the ship lines are set out on the Golden Circle tour in German page, and the loop itself is explained on the guide.
Frequently asked questions
Can I join this tour from a Reykjavík hotel?
No. It departs from the Skarfabakki 312 cruise terminal only and returns there, timed around ship calls, so there is no city pickup. If you want a German-speaking experience of the loop without a ship, you are choosing between an English-language tour and a private guide — see the private tour review.
Which cruise lines does it work with?
It is timed for AIDA, Mein Schiff, MSC and Costa calls at Reykjavík, and you state your ship at booking so the operator can match the return to your all-aboard time. Terminal logistics, including the free tour car park on Skarfagarðar, are covered on the German tour page.
How many stops does it make?
Eight, plus a five-minute viewpoint and an optional Hallgrímskirkja photo stop if the ship’s timing allows: Hveragirði, Kerið, Gullfoss, Geysir, Efstidalur II, Laugarvatn, the viewpoint and Þingvellir. That is the longest list of the eight tours here — the others are compared on Golden Circle stops.