We arrived for our first day in Norway at the port of Stavanger with no excursions pre-booked, hoping to be able to find something suitable to do ourselves – ideally a boat ride to the famous Pulpit Rock.
Pretty much as you step off the ship you’ll see a tourist information centre in the harbour, so we headed there for some ideas and advice.
We’d disembarked as soon as we were allowed – around 10am – and were glad we did, as a queue had already formed at the tourist office and we could hear some of the people in front of us enquiring about excursions and tours and being told they were fully booked already.
However we were in luck, as there were spaces available on a couple of boat trips – including a ride on a rib boat through the Fjord to Pulpit Rock.
The man in the tourist office was helpful – and said he’d recommend a rib boat tour over the large tourist cruiser boat, as it was faster, more exciting, with fewer people on board and enabled you to get up much closer to things than the bigger tour boats.
So that’s what we picked – and we were very pleased with the choice, and thankful that we’d got there early because there were only 10 spaces on the rib, four of which were taken by us – and the others quickly booked up shortly after.
You can book a very similar rib excursion with P&O, but this way, we booked directly with the rib owner – Stavanger Rib – and paid around £350 in total, which was less than the P&O excursion (which had actually been fully booked long before our cruise even started).
We met the rib owner at the other end of the harbour and he kitted us all out with full-body wet-weather suits, life jackets and goggles.
Tip: Make sure you say yes when he offers you the goggles as they make a big difference to how much you can see with the wind battering into your face out on the fjord.
We were lucky to have a beautiful sunny day (rare in Norway it turns out) but even in the sun, with the full wet weather suits on, it was pretty chilly, so you’ll definitely want warm layers of clothing for this excursion.
We headed out into the fjord, fairly sedately at first and gradually picking up speed as the rib skipped and jumped over the waves.
Already we knew we’d made the right choice between this and the bigger tour boat – it was immediately fun and exciting.
The children were loving it and it felt like we had the whole fjord to ourselves, compared with being crammed onto a larger tour boat, jostling for space, which is the experience we’ve had on similar boat trips in the past.
Soon we were pulling up close to waterfalls, darting into little hidden coves and even getting up close with leaping salmon and seals playing around right by our boat – things you just couldn’t experience on a bigger boat.
Eventually we arrived at the famous landmark of Pulpit Rock, our skipper telling us entertaining stories about the local region whilst we took in the incredible views from a unique viewpoint.
We were absolutely loving it and so grateful we’d got off the ship fast in the morning and managed to get one of the few spaces on the Stavanger Rib.
We were out for a couple of hours, but the time had flown by as there was so much to see and do and we were having so much fun.
After a few more sights, it was time to head back and this time the skipper really opened up the throttle on the rib.
We thought we’d been going fast before, but now this was something else – the speed these ribs travel at is absolutely breathtaking and we could hardly wipe the smiles from our faces as we hammered back through the fjords at full speed.
There was a family with a little girl on the rib with us and, at the start, the mentioned that she was a bit nervous about going on it.
Our children are older and perhaps a bit more used to this kind of activity – and all of them, including the other girl who had been worried, were loving it.
It is an exhilarating, high speed experience and the boat leaps over waves, which does involve having to hold on tight and brace yourself for the big ones – but at no point did it feel dangerous, it was just fun and exciting the whole way, with amazing views to look at all around.
Eventually we arrived back at the harbour, with a perfect view of our ship Iona as we sailed right next to it.
Whether it’s a P&O-booked excursion, or one you do independently, we can definitely highly recommend a Stavanger fjord rib tour – it was an excursion to remember.
The advantage of booking direct with P&O is that you’ll be certain of getting on a boat (assuming the P&O one isn’t already booked up, which does happen fast) and you’re guaranteed the ship will never leave without you if you’re late back.
However we arrived back about midday – in plenty of time (the ship left about 5pm) and in perfect time to get back on Iona for an all you can eat buffet lunch in Horizon restaurant, which was a great end to the morning’s action.
Afterwards, with the rare Norwegian sun beating down on Iona, we went up to the sun decks and lounged around with beer and cocktails enjoying the scenery from the vantage point high on the ship’s upper decks.
We had originally intended to book an excursion up to the top of Pulpit Rock, which is another popular one – and it would’ve been great to see the whole fjord from such a high vantage point.
But in the end we were glad we picked the rib tour – especially as the children might not have been so enthusiastic about the long drive and hike up to the Pulpit Rock itself!
Useful information
- Stavanger Rib – the company we booked with, highly recommended