Ferries
 

I'm wondering if I can ship my bike and self to Europe by ferry. Does anyone know of ferries leaving Canada for Iceland and then on to someplace like Amsterdam or Denmark?

Bobo

There are no ferries sailing between Iceland and Canada. Your only change is to use Cargo servic (see other post in this forum) and fly your self with Icelandair (www.icelandair.com)

It would be interesting to hear from other travellers bringing their bikes over to Iceland from Cananda or N-America; How they did it and how much they had to pay for it.

Jakob

What about a ferry from anywhere in europe to Iceland?

can you recomend a service or a website?

www.smyril-line.com

AnteK

I've been looking at the Smyril line website, but I can't make much sense of the routing or fares.

It appears as if you can catch the ferry from either Lerwick in the Shetlands or TOrshaven in the Faroes and then I would assume the ferry goes directly from there to Iceland (Seyasfjord?)

The fares on the site only seem to quote for trips from Scandinavia to Iceland and don't give a very clear idea of the routing.

So I am now awaiting a response from them for a cost based on 1person with m/c travelling from Lerwick to Iceland in June and returning in July. Will keep you posted.

Geoff

(ps ferry cost from Aberdeen to Lerwick is £95 return)

Yup, the timetable is rather strange.
From Lerwick you leave on Sundays 16.30h and arrive in Iceland on Tuesday 9 am with half a day's stay on the Faroes.
From Denmark it's even worse. Takes a day longer and keeps you two nights on the Faroes. In the meantime the ferry sails up to Norway and back, before it carrries on.

Cost for return trip from Lerwick to Seydisfjordur leaving on 15 June and returning 8 July, for 1 pax and 1 motorbike, using cheapest accomodation: £332

Perhaps the reason that Iceland is less visited is the brutal ferry fares which are charged. Pity, it seems like a fascinating country.....

loss of Shetland service
 

I've just spoken to Smyril in Shetland and they're not very hopeful that the service from Lerwick will be running after October 2006. Apparently Smyril are contracted until 2008 but are trying to get out of it. They have won their case in Faroes and its going through the High Court in Copenhagen.

The ferry will still run but it won't stop in Shetland.

I knew I should have gone this year!

Shetland link
 

What is the latest on the loss Shetland link in the UK- Iceland ferry?

Shame, really
 

Its a shame that Iceland seems great but the ferries appear to be in chaos and the prices are wild....

I wouldn't say that the ferry price was wild - £332 for a bike and rider on a 41-hour crossing.

Portsmouth-Bilbao next June return would be £433 with a 2-berth inside cabin both ways, for a slightly shorter crossing.

I've shipped my motorcycle (a Honda ST1100) back and forth between Canada and Europe about a half a dozen times. The cheapest and most trouble-free way to do it is by air out of Montreal or Toronto, either to Paris or to Frankfurt. You can ship out of a US airport to just about anywhere in Europe, but out of Canada to the two above-mentioned airports seems to be considerably less expensive than out of the USA to anywhere.

I use Motorcycle Express to arrange everything. They do a good job, and I doubt if I could set everything up myself for the same price (I've checked, believe me...)

I shipped the bike once by boat from NYC to Southampton, on the Queen Elizabeth II - that cost considerably more, both for the bike and for myself, than air would have.

Sea freight is, I think, a thing of the past, unless you are willing to crate the bike, give it to a forwarder who assembles LTL (less than truckload, or in this case, less than containerload) cargos, and wait 6 to 8 weeks for it to arrive. Even then, if you are not right on the spot to pick it up when it arrives, the demurrage (storage charges) can kill you.

In short - best to organize the shipment by air, and travel on the same plane as the bike travels on. That puts you right at the airport of arrival when the moto arrives.

Michael

Yes, it is fascinating, but it ain't cheap. I was there for a day this summer, passing through whilst ferrying an aircraft from Falkland Islands to Europe. My guess is that if all you really want to do is visit the place, it would be most economical to get a tourist fare on one of the Icelandic carriers out of Chicago, then rent a small car. The island isn't that big, for that reason, I think it's really not worth the trouble of shipping your own moto there to ride it around.

If you want to go on to Europe, you might even find that the net cost of the stopover in Iceland along the way is pretty small (ca. $100 or so) when compared with the price of a North America - Europe air ticket.

Be aware that it can be damn cold there in the summer. I arrived on July 2, the temperature never got above 11°C (about 50°F) the whole time I was there, and the wind was really blowing. I had to dig out sweaters I had packed for the Falkland Islands, even though it was quite warm in Canada the day before, and the UK the day after.

Michael

Iceland with 4x4
 

Jakob - or anyone else... what's the current situation with ferries UK-Iceland? Does anyone know? Smyril website says it has a route but can give no timetables for it...... want to come to Iceland!!!!

frustrated

R :)