Our hand-picked favorite 2025 Iceland Cruise

A dozen or more companies are offering cruises around Iceland in 2025. How do you pick the best 2025 Iceland Cruise for you? Here are some things to consider, along with our recommendations.

No matter which Iceland cruise you pick, we can book it for you! Clients who book their 2025 Iceland Cruise with us often save hundreds or thousands of dollars because of our Iceland expertise. We’ll work with you individually to pick excursions, whether they’re provided by your cruise line or not. We’ll pick the best airport transfers for you, often saving hundreds compared to what the cruise lines charge. And we can customize your itineraries for before and after the cruise to help you find classic sites and hidden gems throughout Iceland

Look for circumnavigation itineraries for your 2025 Iceland Cruise

Iceland is only about the size of Kentucky, and so it’s easy to make it around the entire island with a 7-10 day cruise. You’ll spend less time sailing and more time at each port, since you’re never cruising between countries.

This also makes airline tickets easier, since you can purchase a roundtrip ticket to and from Iceland instead of having to deal with multiple cities.

Here’s what a typical itinerary looks like:

Look for a smaller ship for your 2025 Iceland Cruise

There are larger ships from Norwegian and Celebrity that do circumnavigation Iceland cruises. But these ships can overwhelm the smaller ports in Iceland. Did you know that Iceland has fewer than 400,000 people who live there, and most of those people live in or near Reykjavik? If you look at the map above, Grundarfjörður is a lovely village in West Iceland with a population of around 900. Nine hundred! Imagine if 2,000 people pour off of a cruise ship into that town.

Look for a ship with a capacity of under 1,000 people, and preferably under 500 or so.

Sailing on a smaller boat almost always ends up costing more than on one of the mega cruise ships. That’s already a splurge. But beyond that, most people should find the service and amenities more than adequate on any of these small ships. Okay, you do get more with the ultra-luxury small-ship lines. Seabourn has a submarine on their ship, if that’s important to you!

But the least expensive small-ship cruises around Iceland are fantastic. They’ll have 24-hour room service, tastefully decorated suites, luxury dining options, and impeccable service.

Our picks for your 2025 Iceland Cruise

Here are the 2025 Iceland Cruises that we think are great options for many travelers! All of these companies are offering 1 or more sailings in the summer of 2025. We’re also planning lots of cruises for the 2026 Iceland Eclipse; fill out the form below if that’s what you’re looking for!

Windstar Around Iceland

Windstar’s Star Pride ship makes weekly trips around Iceland from June through August 2025. The ship holds just 312 passengers, and that’s only if all of the triple rooms have 3 people in them. Prices start at $3,699 per person (double occupancy) though you’ll likely want to spend a few hundred more than that for a larger picture window.

Atlas is a new cruise line, having launched in 2019 (and then not doing much cruising during Covid.) The ship holds just 196 passengers, which I think is a perfect size for an Iceland cruise.

Prices start at just under $5,000 per person, which is a really exceptional price for a ship this small. (Moving up to the next cabin level gets you a much larger room, though!) And Atlas doesn’t skimp on the amenities, including 24-hour room service, and alcohol is included.

There’s only one sailing of this itinerary in 2025, from June 19-26, 2025.

Hurtigruten split off its expedition cruises in 2024, under the new brand HX. So the Iceland cruises are now under the HX Travel brand.

Because of the split, in 2025 HX will only have a ship in Iceland in May. That’s early in the Iceland cruise season, but it’s a great time to visit: You’ll find fewer crowds but still 24 hours of daylight.

The ship is the MS Fridtjof Nansen, which was just built in 2020. It holds 490 people, so it’s the largest of the small ship cruises I’m recommending here. But it’s a great ship, which was named the safest and most sustainable cruise ship in the world soon after it was built. And there’s an on board science lab for doing citizen science experiments!

Elemental Iceland sailing dates are May 10, 17, and 24 in 2025. Prices start at $4,119 per person, or even less if you are a member of AARP. (Fill out the form below for more information about that!) And even the most expensive cabins top at under $7,000 per person, and include your own private hot tub!

Let us help you plan the perfect 2025 Iceland cruise (or 2026!)

We’re a certified Iceland Specialist Travel Agency, and I’ve personally taken 2 Iceland circumnavigation cruises! We’d love to work with you to plan your Iceland trip. Just fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch!

(We can also help with cruises from any other company, including Silversea, Seabourn, Celebrity, Norwgian, Viking, and more!)