Zuiderdam - Voyage of the Vikings: Solar Eclipse

Where this cruise calls, day by day

24 ports and 12 sea days over 35 Nights.

1. Day 1

   Boston, MA

   United StatesDepart

   Flynn Cruiseport sits on Black Falcon Avenue in South Boston's Seaport, and its selling point is Logan: about four miles away through the Ted Williams Tunnel, often fifteen minutes. Boston works both as a homeport for Canada/New England and Bermuda runs and as a port call where you can walk off the ship and immediately be somewhere worth being.

   • The Freedom Trail - follow the red line from Boston Common to Bunker Hill, about three hours end to end
   • Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, touristy but efficient
   • The Institute of Contemporary Art, a 15-minute Harborwalk stroll from the terminal
   • The North End for dinner, which is the real argument for coming in a day early

   Getting ashore

   Flynn Cruiseport Boston uses the Black Falcon Terminal in the Seaport District; Logan is about 4 miles by the Ted Williams Tunnel, usually 15-20 minutes.

   Best months

   May-Oct (Sep-Oct for the foliage sailings north)

2. Day 2

   Portland, ME

   United StatesPort

   Portland is the easiest stop in New England: larger ships tie up at Ocean Gateway, smaller ones at the Maine State Pier, and the Old Port's cobbled blocks of brick warehouses begin about five minutes from the gangway. It is a walking call, which means you can skip the excursion entirely and still fill the day.

   • The Old Port - Commercial, Fore and Exchange Streets for lobster rolls, bookshops and breweries
   • Portland Head Light at Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth, 15 minutes out of town
   • The Portland Museum of Art, strong on Winslow Homer
   • A Casco Bay Lines mailboat run out through the islands if you have most of a day

   Getting ashore

   Ocean Gateway Terminal takes the larger ships and the Maine State Pier the smaller ones; both are a 5-10 minute walk from the Old Port, and the Jetport is about 15 minutes by road.

   Best months

   Jun-Oct (the season is short; late Sep-Oct brings foliage cruises and cold mornings)

3. Day 3 · At sea

4. Day 4

   Sydney

   CanadaPort

   Sydney is the way into Cape Breton rather than the reason for the day. The pier is marked by a giant fiddle sculpture on the boardwalk, and the town behind it has been quiet since the coal mines and the steel plant shut. Nearly everything worth the day is a drive away, so decide before you dock - unplanned, Sydney runs out in about an hour.

   • Fortress of Louisbourg, a reconstructed 18th-century French garrison town, about 45 minutes away
   • The Cabot Trail and Cape Breton Highlands National Park, a full-day loop
   • Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site at Baddeck, roughly an hour out
   • Cape Breton Miners' Museum in Glace Bay, with an underground tour led by former miners

   Getting ashore

   Docked at the Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion on the Sydney boardwalk; the town is a short walk, but the sights all need a coach or taxi.

   Best months

   Sep-Oct (Cabot Trail fall colour); Jun-Oct season

5. Day 5

   Corner Brook

   CanadaPort

   Corner Brook is a mill town - the pulp and paper plant sits right beside the berth and on the wrong wind you can smell it. About 19,000 people live up the hillsides above the Humber Arm. The reason ships stop is Gros Morne National Park an hour north, where glaciers carved freshwater fjords into the plateau and the Tablelands expose bare mantle rock at the surface.

   • Gros Morne National Park - the orange Tablelands and the Western Brook Pond fjord boat
   • The Captain James Cook Monument on Crow Hill, above the Bay of Islands he charted in the 1760s
   • Marble Mountain, with a summer lift and a zipline over the Humber valley
   • The drive out the Bay of Islands to Lark Harbour and Blow Me Down Provincial Park

   Getting ashore

   Docked at the Western Terminal beside the mill, with a complimentary shuttle into the downtown core; Gros Morne needs a coach or a hire car.

   Best months

   Sep-Oct (fall colour); a long season, Mar-Oct in 2025

6. Day 6

   Red Bay, Newfoundland & Labrador

   CanadaPort

   Red Bay is a village of a bit over a hundred people on the Labrador coast, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site because in the 1500s it was the largest whaling port in the world. Basque crews sailed here for right and bowhead whales and rendered the oil on the shore; a galleon that sank in 1565 still lies in the harbour. Everything else about the place is genuinely tiny.

   • The Red Bay National Historic Site centres, with a recovered Basque chalupa whaleboat
   • Saddle Island, a short boat hop away, with the whalers' cemetery and scatters of red roof tile
   • The Boney Shore trail, along a beach where whale bone from the rendering still turns up
   • The boardwalk climb up Tracey Hill for the view over the harbour and the Strait of Belle Isle

   Getting ashore

   Effectively tender-only - a village of 142 has no cruise berth - and the Parks Canada site only opens June to early October, so a shoulder-season call finds nothing running.

   Best months

   Jun-early Oct (the historic site closes in early Oct)

7. Day 7 · At sea

8. Day 8

   Paamiut

   GreenlandPort

   Paamiut is a fishing town of a little over a thousand people on Greenland's southwest coast, and it appears on very few itineraries. The cod fishery that built it collapsed decades ago and the population has been falling since. Ashore there is a harbour, a small museum in the old colonial quarter, and an unusually good carved wooden church from 1909 - then tundra.

   • Paamiut Church, the carved wooden church of 1909 that is the town's landmark
   • The town museum, in preserved buildings including an old carpenter's workshop and a salt warehouse
   • Walking the shoreline and tundra paths behind town, watching for white-tailed eagles and whales offshore

   Getting ashore

   Tender - Paamiut has no cruise pier, so ships anchor in the bay and land you a few minutes from the middle of town. Assume no tourist services at all.

   Best months

   Jul-Aug

9. Day 9

   Nanortalik

   GreenlandPort

   Nanortalik is Greenland's southernmost town - about 1,100 people on a small island, with a name meaning 'the place of polar bears'. The town is a harbour, a church, a shop and a cluster of painted houses, and that is all of it. What justifies the call is the setting: granite walls and drifting ice at the mouth of Tasermiut Fjord, which runs 70km inland.

   • The open-air museum - ten preserved colonial buildings around the old harbour
   • The climb up Ravnefjeldet, the 308m cliff behind town, for the view over the ice-strewn sound
   • A kaffemik, being hosted for coffee and cake in a local family's house
   • Iceberg and glacier boat trips from the harbour toward the big walls of Tasermiut Fjord

   Getting ashore

   Tender only - about a 500m tender ride to the pier, then a five-minute walk into town, but drift ice and swell in the approach cancel calls regularly.

   Best months

   Jul-Aug

10. Day 10

    Prince Christian Sound (scenic cruising)

    GreenlandPort

    Prince Christian Sound is a channel about 100km long cutting across the southern tip of Greenland, used so ships can avoid the open water round Cape Farewell. It narrows to 500m in places, the walls rise straight out of the water, and glaciers calve into it. The transit takes most of a day, and ice and fog govern whether it happens at all.

    • Glaciers calving directly into the sound, with the ship slowed right down through the ice
    • Aappilattoq, 86 people below a red mountain and the only settlement on the sound - passed close but never called at
    • The narrows, where the channel pinches to a few hundred metres between the walls
    • Deck time, dressed for it - this runs most of a day, outdoors, with no landing

    Getting ashore

    No landing at all. The captain decides on the day: blocked ice at one entrance often means a re-route rather than a cancellation, and fog can leave you transiting without seeing much of it.

    Best months

    Jun-Aug (transit season); closed by pack ice in winter

11. Day 11 · At sea

12. Day 12

    Reykjavik

    IcelandPort

    Most ships berth at Skarfabakki, a plain working pier about 4km northeast of the centre with nothing around it, so it is a shuttle or a taxi in - only smaller ships get Midbakki in the Old Harbour. Reykjavik itself is compact and low-rise and takes a couple of hours. The point of the day is usually outside it: the Golden Circle fills a whole one, the lagoons half.

    • The Golden Circle - Thingvellir's rift valley, the Strokkur geyser at Geysir, and Gullfoss
    • Hallgrimskirkja's tower for the view over the coloured rooftops
    • Harpa concert hall, and the whale and puffin boats from the Old Harbour
    • The Blue Lagoon out on the Reykjanes peninsula, or the Sky Lagoon much closer to town

    Getting ashore

    Docked at Skarfabakki, roughly 4km out, with a paid shuttle or taxi into town; small ships get Midbakki in the Old Harbour, half a kilometre from downtown.

    Best months

    Jun-Aug (midnight sun); May and Sep quieter

13. Day 13

    Reykjavik

    IcelandPort

    Most ships berth at Skarfabakki, a plain working pier about 4km northeast of the centre with nothing around it, so it is a shuttle or a taxi in - only smaller ships get Midbakki in the Old Harbour. Reykjavik itself is compact and low-rise and takes a couple of hours. The point of the day is usually outside it: the Golden Circle fills a whole one, the lagoons half.

    • The Golden Circle - Thingvellir's rift valley, the Strokkur geyser at Geysir, and Gullfoss
    • Hallgrimskirkja's tower for the view over the coloured rooftops
    • Harpa concert hall, and the whale and puffin boats from the Old Harbour
    • The Blue Lagoon out on the Reykjanes peninsula, or the Sky Lagoon much closer to town

    Getting ashore

    Docked at Skarfabakki, roughly 4km out, with a paid shuttle or taxi into town; small ships get Midbakki in the Old Harbour, half a kilometre from downtown.

    Best months

    Jun-Aug (midnight sun); May and Sep quieter

14. Day 14 · At sea

15. Day 15 · At sea

16. Day 16

    Eidfjord

    NorwayPort

    A village of a few hundred at the inner end of the Eidfjord arm of Hardangerfjord, with mountains rising straight from the quay. It exists on the cruise circuit because of what is up the valley behind it: the Måbødalen gorge and Vøringsfossen, a 182 m waterfall now crossed by a steel step-bridge over the ravine.

    • Vøringsfossen waterfall and the footbridge across the gorge
    • The Hardangervidda Nature Centre at Øvre Eidfjord
    • Måbødalen valley and the old zigzag road
    • Kjeåsen mountain farm, perched 530 m above the fjord

    Getting ashore

    Ships dock alongside at the village quay and you walk straight off; everything beyond the village needs a coach or taxi, with Vøringsfossen about 30 minutes away.

    Best months

    May-Sep

17. Day 17 · At sea

18. Day 18

    Rotterdam

    NetherlandsPort

    Europe's largest seaport, and a city that looks nothing like the rest of the Netherlands - flattened in 1940 and rebuilt as an experiment in modern architecture. Cruise ships tie up at the old Holland America headquarters on the Wilhelminakade, directly under the Erasmus Bridge, with the skyline of the Kop van Zuid overhead.

    • The Cube Houses and Markthal at Blaak
    • Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, the mirrored art storage building you can walk through
    • Euromast for the view over the port
    • Delft or The Hague, both about 30 minutes by train

    Getting ashore

    Ships berth alongside at Cruise Terminal Rotterdam on the Wilhelminakade; the centre is a 20-minute walk over the Erasmus Bridge or one metro stop from Wilhelminaplein.

    Best months

    Apr-Oct

19. Day 19

    Rotterdam

    NetherlandsPort

    Europe's largest seaport, and a city that looks nothing like the rest of the Netherlands - flattened in 1940 and rebuilt as an experiment in modern architecture. Cruise ships tie up at the old Holland America headquarters on the Wilhelminakade, directly under the Erasmus Bridge, with the skyline of the Kop van Zuid overhead.

    • The Cube Houses and Markthal at Blaak
    • Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, the mirrored art storage building you can walk through
    • Euromast for the view over the port
    • Delft or The Hague, both about 30 minutes by train

    Getting ashore

    Ships berth alongside at Cruise Terminal Rotterdam on the Wilhelminakade; the centre is a 20-minute walk over the Erasmus Bridge or one metro stop from Wilhelminaplein.

    Best months

    Apr-Oct

20. Day 20 · At sea

21. Day 21

    Douglas, Isle of Man

    Isle of ManPort

    The capital of a self-governing Crown dependency in the Irish Sea, with a two-mile Victorian seafront crescent, a horse-drawn tram still running along it in season, and the TT motorcycle course starting a block inland. The island has its own parliament, Tynwald, which claims to be the oldest continuous one in the world.

    • The Manx Electric Railway up the coast to Laxey and its Great Wheel
    • Snaefell Mountain Railway to the island's highest point
    • Castle Rushen at Castletown, unusually complete
    • The Douglas horse trams and the Manx Museum

    Getting ashore

    Historically a tender port with ships anchoring in Douglas Bay and tendering to the pontoon by Victoria Pier; a new deepwater berth on Victoria Pier has been funded, so confirm with your line whether your ship docks or tenders.

    Best months

    May-Sep

22. Day 22

    Belfast

    United KingdomPort

    A shipbuilding city that has turned its own hardest history into its two main visits: the slipways where Titanic was built, and the political murals and peace walls of the Falls and Shankill roads. The Victorian centre around City Hall is handsome and walkable, but the berth is out in the docks, so you will be on a bus one way or another.

    • Titanic Belfast, on the slipway where the ship was laid down
    • A black taxi tour of the Falls Road and Shankill murals
    • The Giant's Causeway, about an hour up the Antrim coast
    • Crumlin Road Gaol and the Victorian Grand Opera House

    Getting ashore

    Ships dock alongside at Stormont Wharf or Belfast Harbour, roughly 3 km from the centre with no safe walking route, so take the shuttle or a taxi (about 10 minutes).

    Best months

    May-Sep

23. Day 23 · At sea

24. Day 24

    Seydisfjordur

    IcelandPort

    Seydisfjordur is about 700 people at the head of a long, steep-sided fjord on Iceland's east coast, and it has the berth used by the Norrona ferry from Denmark. The town is a row of Norwegian timber houses shipped in between 1895 and 1922, a pale blue church, and a rainbow-painted street leading up to it - the whole place takes half an hour to walk.

    • The Blue Church at the top of the painted Rainbow Street, which is the town's photograph
    • Gufufoss, one of some twenty-five waterfalls along the Fjardara on the road out of the fjord
    • Skaftfell Center for Visual Art, and the Skalanes nature reserve out toward the fjord mouth
    • The switchback drive over the Fjardarheidi pass toward Egilsstadir and the Lagarfljot valley

    Getting ashore

    Docked at pontoons in the middle of the village - it has Iceland's only purpose-built cruise terminal - though larger ships tender, especially on Thursdays when the Norrona has the berth.

    Best months

    Jun-Aug

25. Day 25

    Husavik

    IcelandPort

    Husavik is a town of about 2,300 on Skjalfandi bay that built its reputation on whales. The oak schooners tied up in the harbour go out for humpbacks and minke most days of the summer, with a high success rate. Beyond that there is a serious whale museum, a 1907 timber church, and geothermal seawater baths on the cliff looking back over the bay.

    • Whale watching from the harbour on the traditional oak boats - humpbacks are the usual sighting
    • The Husavik Whale Museum by the harbour, and the Exploration Museum with its monument to the Apollo crews who trained on the lava nearby
    • GeoSea, the geothermal sea baths on the headland above the bay
    • Godafoss and Lake Myvatn, about 45 minutes inland on the Diamond Circle route

    Getting ashore

    Mid-size ships berth at Bokugardur, effectively in the town centre; anything much over 220m anchors and tenders. Either way you land beside the whale boats.

    Best months

    Jun-Aug (peak whale season)

26. Day 26

    Grundarfjordur

    IcelandPort

    Grundarfjordur is a fishing village of under a thousand people on the north side of the Snaefellsnes peninsula, and it is on itineraries almost entirely because of the mountain outside it. Kirkjufell is the cone that appears on half the photographs ever taken of Iceland. The town behind the pier is a harbour, a pool and a shop, and locals in traditional dress meet the ship.

    • Kirkjufell and the Kirkjufellsfoss waterfall, about 2.5km along the road from the pier
    • Snaefellsjokull National Park and the glacier-capped volcano at the end of the peninsula
    • The black-pebble beach at Djupalonssandur and the clifftop path at Arnarstapi
    • Budakirkja, the black timber church standing alone on the lava field at Budir

    Getting ashore

    Docked at the village pier, five minutes' walk from the centre; the two berths are short, so bigger ships use the separate tender pier.

    Best months

    Jun-Aug

27. Day 27 · At sea

28. Day 28

    Prince Christian Sound (scenic cruising)

    GreenlandPort

    Prince Christian Sound is a channel about 100km long cutting across the southern tip of Greenland, used so ships can avoid the open water round Cape Farewell. It narrows to 500m in places, the walls rise straight out of the water, and glaciers calve into it. The transit takes most of a day, and ice and fog govern whether it happens at all.

    • Glaciers calving directly into the sound, with the ship slowed right down through the ice
    • Aappilattoq, 86 people below a red mountain and the only settlement on the sound - passed close but never called at
    • The narrows, where the channel pinches to a few hundred metres between the walls
    • Deck time, dressed for it - this runs most of a day, outdoors, with no landing

    Getting ashore

    No landing at all. The captain decides on the day: blocked ice at one entrance often means a re-route rather than a cancellation, and fog can leave you transiting without seeing much of it.

    Best months

    Jun-Aug (transit season); closed by pack ice in winter

29. Day 29

    Qaqortoq

    GreenlandPort

    Qaqortoq is the largest town in south Greenland, which means about 3,000 people in painted timber houses stacked up a rocky bowl above the harbour. There is one cobbled square, a fountain, a supermarket and a tannery, and you can walk the whole town inside an hour. Tenders land roughly a hundred metres below the square, and fog or swell can cancel the call outright.

    • Stone and Man - more than forty faces and figures carved into the rock outcrops around town since the 1990s
    • Mindebronden on the main square, the oldest fountain in Greenland
    • Great Greenland, the sealskin tannery, and the town museum's tupilak carvings
    • A boat out to Hvalsey, 19km up the fjord, the best-preserved Norse ruin in Greenland

    Getting ashore

    Tender only - there is no cruise berth - and swell or fog cancels calls here with little warning.

    Best months

    Jul-Aug (peak); Jun-Sep season

30. Day 30 · At sea

31. Day 31

    St. Anthony, Newfoundland

    CanadaPort

    St. Anthony is a fishing town of about 2,200 at the top of Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula, and it exists on itineraries as the way to L'Anse aux Meadows - the sod-house site where Norse crews built a camp around the year 1000, the only confirmed Viking settlement in North America. The town also sits on Iceberg Alley, so in early summer there is usually something white in the bay.

    • L'Anse aux Meadows, the Norse site with reconstructed sod buildings, about 45 minutes north
    • Norstead, a Viking-age port reconstruction next door with a full-size knarr replica
    • Grenfell Historic Properties - the mission house and centre for Wilfred Grenfell's medical work on this coast
    • Fishing Point Park for icebergs, whales and the clifftop Santana and Iceberg trails

    Getting ashore

    Some ships berth at the town wharf and others anchor and tender; note that L'Anse aux Meadows and the Grenfell properties both close for the season in early October.

    Best months

    Jun-Jul (icebergs and whales); Jun-Sep season

32. Day 32

    St. John's

    CanadaPort

    Ships come in through The Narrows, a cleft in the cliffs a couple of hundred metres wide with Signal Hill standing over it, and it is one of the better arrivals in North America. St. John's is the oldest European-founded city on the continent, painted in the row-house colours that end up on every postcard, and the berth is in the middle of it. Icebergs drift past in early summer.

    • Signal Hill and Cabot Tower, where Marconi picked up the first transatlantic wireless signal
    • Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America, about 20 minutes out
    • Boat tours to the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve for puffins, whales and icebergs
    • The Jellybean Row houses, George Street's pubs and a screech-in if you want one

    Getting ashore

    Docked in the downtown harbour; the city, the row houses and George Street are all within a few blocks of the gangway.

    Best months

    Jun-Jul (icebergs, puffins, whales); Jun-Sep season

33. Day 33 · At sea

34. Day 34

    Halifax

    CanadaPort

    Halifax was the port that recovered the Titanic dead, and it has never entirely let go of them - 121 graves in Fairview Lawn, an unclaimed deckchair in the Maritime Museum. Ships tie up at the Seaport piers at the south end of a long boardwalk that walks you into downtown past Pier 21, where a million immigrants first set foot in Canada. It is an easy, self-guided port.

    • The Titanic graves at Fairview Lawn Cemetery, laid out in the curve of a hull
    • Maritime Museum of the Atlantic for the Titanic and Halifax Explosion galleries
    • Halifax Citadel National Historic Site and the noon gun
    • Peggy's Cove lighthouse and the granite barrens, about 45 minutes out

    Getting ashore

    Docked at the Halifax Seaport piers; the boardwalk runs from the gangway into downtown in 10-15 minutes.

    Best months

    Jun-Oct; late Sep-mid Oct for fall colour

35. Day 35 · At sea

36. Day 36

    Boston, MA

    United StatesArrive

    Flynn Cruiseport sits on Black Falcon Avenue in South Boston's Seaport, and its selling point is Logan: about four miles away through the Ted Williams Tunnel, often fifteen minutes. Boston works both as a homeport for Canada/New England and Bermuda runs and as a port call where you can walk off the ship and immediately be somewhere worth being.

    • The Freedom Trail - follow the red line from Boston Common to Bunker Hill, about three hours end to end
    • Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, touristy but efficient
    • The Institute of Contemporary Art, a 15-minute Harborwalk stroll from the terminal
    • The North End for dinner, which is the real argument for coming in a day early

    Getting ashore

    Flynn Cruiseport Boston uses the Black Falcon Terminal in the Seaport District; Logan is about 4 miles by the Ted Williams Tunnel, usually 15-20 minutes.

    Best months

    May-Oct (Sep-Oct for the foliage sailings north)