My Passport’s Travels

Saturday, June 13, 2026

We had an early morning today. We met Flora at Guest Services who helped switch out our luggage tags for tomorrow. We changed to the airport transfers that included a city tour, which meant we needed an earlier departure time. She was super sweet and helped us, even verifying that our original transfers had been refunded properly. She was quite a bundle of energy for so early!

Breakfast was at the Grand Dutch Cafe on deck 3 – we’ve walked by many times but never been able to get a seat. It was so nice having a fancy coffee with my toasted ham and cheese.

The ship was cleared and we are good to go ashore in Isafjörður, Iceland! We had seen more of the big circle things in the water outside our porthole, like what we saw in Seyðisfjördur. I asked an officer on the dock and he explained that they are fish farms. Icelandic salmon is especially prized for its pink color and the farms allow the farmers to control the shrimp fed to the salmon – enhancing the pink color and, therefore, the price.

We booked an excursion through Viator: Dynjandi & More Shore Tour from Isafjörður for cruise passengers. It was provided by Tours Islandia with a passenger capacity of 19. Our guide Johnathan (from Venezuela) picked us up at the dock and off we went!

Is means Ice in Icelandic, so Isafjörður literally means icy fjord. All of the fjords were created by glaciers. We would see many, many fjords today.

Avalanches are an issue in the winter, many of the cliffs had things built in to either catch rock slides or break up the snow on its way down so less damage is done.

During the tour today, we took three tunnels through mountains. The first two were just over 5 kilometers long and took about 6 minutes to traverse. The tunnels are narrow; in places there’s not room for cars to go both ways. Inbound traffic to Isafjörður has right of way. If you’re outbound and you see a car coming, you pull off onto a turnout (they are regularly placed throughout) until the car passes. Sadly, Johnathan did not honk as we went through any of the tunnels.

Back out into the sunshine!

Iceland’s electricity mix is 20% hydroelectric, 65% geothermal, and the remaining is fossil fuels. This waterfall feeds into a power plant.

Our first stop is Dynjandi (Fjallfoss: foss translates to falls). It is absolutely stunning!

There is a rocky path that goes about halfway up the falls. It’s lined with rope to help with balance along the way up. Everyone was so nice, people were offering to help when people needed an extra hand for steadiness or while going up or down a large rock.

Hi Mom!!

Looking behind us, you can see the parking lot close to the water’s edge. You can’t see them, but off to the left of the parking lot were several little huts with restrooms.

We had a bit more time at this stop, so we wandered to the water. Down by the water edge, we found this silly looking bird – a Pied Oystercatcher!

Back on the bus and on the road! The hobbit hole-looking pipe is actually on of the tunnels through the mountain.

Sheep!

Next stop – Flateyri, a small fishing village. We had been scheduled for a cliff-edge viewing platform, but the road was closed, so Johnathan found this lovely village for us. Many of the buildings had murals.

This wall makes a boundary between the town and the fjord.

We saw fields and fields of the Alaska Lupine during the drive. On my excursion Thursday, our guide Raptice had told us how the Alaska Lupine was brought in to help the soil conditions, but they didn’t read all the instructions and missed the part about how to keep them from spreading.

Back through the tunnels to Isafjörður, passing through the town.

The road was lined with fish drying huts.

We continued on to Ósvör. It’s a tiny fishing village outside of Bolungarvík used in the 1800s. A young local gentleman dressed in the traditional sheepskin clothing to tell us about the life of the fishermen. (Interestingly, he’s about to leave for college in Kansas on a swimming scholarship!)

The village is made up of 3 tiny, grass-covered huts which were only used during the winter as the locals farmed in the summer. 7 men and 1 woman would head to the village for 10 days at a time making several trips out during the time.

The huts had no heat source except for body heat, which was why they were so tiny. My hand is on the ceiling here!

The last stop was just up the road at the Óshólar Lighthouse. Mom pointed out – it’s the only lighthouse we’ve seen in Iceland, which is amazing with all the fjords. And it’s tiny!

Time to head back to the ship. But we had some more beautiful scenery to enjoy along the way.

Johnathan gave each of us a small coin and told us the story of the four protectors of Iceland, who are featured on every coin. https://allthingsiceland.com/the-four-protectors-of-iceland-folklore-friday/

Isafjörður had some of the cheapest gas we saw on the trip – it was approximately $6.82/gallon.

Johnathan dropped us back at the ship, where it was well past time for lunch! Mom and I ate at the Dive In – Mom had a hot dog and I had a burger. The gelato place next door was calling our names for dessert!

After our meal, the time had come. We needed to pack (it’s lovely that Holland America did not need bags outside the stateroom until midnight tonight). The cruise line left us some lovely farewell gifts!

As is our tradition, we had booked specialty dining for the last dinner of the cruise – at Canaletto, the Italian restaurant. First the iffy – the restaurant is in the buffet. It’s glassed off on the sides, but there’s enough open space that the noise still came in. We were next to the dessert stations, and then the last night parade made its way through the buffet. Definitely not the quiet, relaxing atmosphere specialty dining should have.

Now the wonderful – the meal was fantastic! Mom had the meatball appetizer, ossobuco and ricotta cheesecake. I had the house salad, Italian sausage in red sauce over homemade pasta and an Affogato (rum gelato with espresso poured over). Winata, our server, was sweet and took very good care of us. He even made this rose and butterfly for us!

We rolled back down to our stateroom, threw the last couple of things in the suitcases we are sending out and went to bed. Tomorrow is an early morning.

Trip Report Index
* Thursday – Saturday, June 4-6, 2026 – Flight over and Rotterdam 
Sunday June 7, 2026 – Embarkation day
Monday June 8, 2026 – Day at Sea** Tuesday June 9, 2026 – Invergorden, Scotland
Wednesday June 10, 2026 – Day at Sea
Thursday June 11, 2026 – Seydisfjördur, Iceland
Friday June 12, 2026 – Akureyri, Iceland
Saturday June 13, 2026 – ľsafjörður, Iceland
Sunday – Monday, June 14-15, 2026 – Reykjavik, Iceland and Helsinki, Finland

Today’s Daily:

Debarkation Information:

Trip Report Index
Previous
Thursday – Saturday, June 4-6, 2026 – Flight over and Rotterdam 
Sunday June 7, 2026 – Embarkation day
Monday June 8, 2026 – Day at Sea** Tuesday June 9, 2026 – Invergorden, Scotland
Wednesday June 10, 2026 – Day at Sea
Thursday June 11, 2026 – Seydisfjördur, Iceland
Friday June 12, 2026 – Akureyri, Iceland
Current
Saturday June 13, 2026 – ľsafjörður, Iceland
Coming soon
Sunday June 14, 2026 – Reykjavik, Iceland and Helsinki, Finland
Monday June 15, 2026 – Helsinki, Finland and flight home