Today the Zuiderdam visits Djupivogur, Iceland. Yesterday, I heard that the secret to the Icelandic words is to ignore the letter’ j’; it’s silent. That makes it easier to say where we are going today!
Djupivogur Morning
We were up at 5 am. I put away the clean laundry so I can work on sending more out later this morning. Then went up to Lido to get coffee and take it to the crow’s nest to journal and enjoy the view.
We had gone to bed to wind and rain and woke to clear sunny skies.
We had breakfast today in the buffet for expediency as we have a tour ashore.
Valley of the Waterfalls Tour
We got our stickers in the showroom and I got a couple of bottles of water before leaving to board the tender ashore. The vehicles for this tour are all a mishmash of trucks, SUV’s and one Mercedes Benz minibus that was mashed with a dodge ram truck. They have special tires for the road we’ll be taking later.
We were assigned to the mini bus.
The seats were extremely close to each other and not comfortable. But that ended up being the least of my complaints about this tour. It became apparent that all the vehicles (about 18 or so) were going to travel in a convoy. Why didn’t become clear until later when we learned just one of the guides does the talking so we all had to be together to hear it (over 100 people)!
Our bus had a tour guide who gave us information as we left and described the sights in the town. The first stop was right off the road and a nice waterfall.
Steve posed for me here.
Then we continued on to where we’d spend the next 2-3 hours. A bumpy long road going further and further inland. We did see waterfalls and they were pretty.
Apparently not as nice as usual because they hadn’t had rain for 3 weeks. I don’t fault them for that; can’t control Mother Nature. Most of the time when we were driving no commentary was provided. It was just riding on the bumpiest dirt road (due to all the rocks) until the next stop. We made several stops after the first waterfall.
Then over four hours after we met in the showroom a bathroom stop. It was one outdoor toilet and we also had our snack here.
No running water to wash hands and people were to grab pastries out of box themselves. There was also coffee, tea and hot chocolate.
Several people on the tour took to going to the bathroom outside during the tour which wasn’t good for them or those of us seeing it. 🙂 The line for the bathroom took over an hour to service all of the 104 of us that were willing to wait in line.
Finally we went back. The last stop I appreciated. It was to see the 34 egg artwork named Eggin í Gleðivík by Sigurður Guðmundsson.
This was pretty cool and I wish we had more time here and a lot less bouncing around in the hills.
There’s our ship behind the big egg!
Djupivodur Afternoon
Back on the ship we headed to the lido after dropping our bags. This time they were still serving lunch so we had some carved turkey along with side dishes and dessert.
After cleaning up we had drinks in the Ocean Bar. I went to shore excursions when it opened to cancel Steve’s ticket for tomorrow and a few others. He has had it with the bus tours! My feedback didn’t garner me any consideration for a partial refund. I don’t recommend this tour and think it’s greatly overpriced ($319 in 2023).
I cancelled both of us for blue lagoon. As much as I want to go it’s just too early after a long tour tomorrow (11 am – 7 pm at a minimum). I kept my ticket for the tour in Halifax but canceled his.
I also went by the library to exchange books as I finished “Chicken Sisters”. Very good!
Djupivodur Evening
Tonight we have dinner at Cannaeleto the specialty Italian restaurant carved out of a section the buffet.
The meal started with olive bread and different spreads.
I tried both the pesto and the red pepper spread and liked them. Steve enjoyed the balsamic vinegar and olive oil with his. I started with Canaletto salad which was very good.
Steve had tigers shrimp which he enjoyed.
He shared the meatballs with me and the hype is true.
They are wonderful; so tender! For entrees I selected osso Buco.
It was a large serving but very good. I’m afraid I didn’t get even half of it eaten. There is a large bone there and I was given a marrow spoon but I’m not a marrow fan. Steve ordered the chicken Parmesan with spaghetti instead of potatoes. He enjoyed it.
He gave me a taste of the chicken and it was very good. For dessert I had the chocolate tart (yummy!)…
and Steve had tiramisu.
While there we saw a woman throw a fit because the eggplant in her husband’s entree was a purée and he was expecting another form. She was awful. I felt sorry for the hostess and the waiter who had to listen to her.
Steve got his smile back after that tour! Originally I had wanted to go to the BBC Earth show tonight but was tired about the day so went to the cabin to relax before lights out.
Below is today’s daily program. Click the image for the full PDF.
My husband and I are on this cruise next year 2026, and are interested in your approach to excursions. How do I read your blog in date order? Would you do this cruise again?
Hi Alice. We mostly took tours via the cruise ship as I had a lot of onboard credit. To start at the trip beginning click the Voyage of the Vikings tag at the bottom of the post (or snippet). Then chose the furthest out page for the first post which is currently page 6. As you can see it’s taken me a long time to get it all posted but I’ll work at it more this summer.