No quay and no tender — a 220-metre floating walkway drives out and collects you. The 30-metre Myklebust ship is a 700-metre stroll away. The glacier everyone sells you is ninety minutes each way. Here is what is worth your day.
Nordfjordeid has no cruise quay and no tender. Your ship moors to four buoys out in the fjord, bow to the shore, and a 220-metre floating walkway unfolds and drives itself out on thrusters to meet the hull. You walk off down it. It is called the SeaWalk, it handles four thousand people an hour, and it folds away when you leave. Nothing else on the Norwegian coast works like this.
The thing worth knowing before you plan anything: this port exists because it saves your ship two hours of sailing compared with Olden. That was the pitch to the cruise lines when it opened in 2019, and it is why you are here. What it does not save is your time. The famous Nordfjord excursions — Briksdal, the Loen Skylift, Geirangerfjord — are all sold from this pier, and every one of them is further from Nordfjordeid than from the port it replaced. Briksdal is ninety minutes each way and the bus drives past Olden to get there.
Meanwhile the one thing that exists only here is 700 metres away: the Myklebust ship at Sagastad, 30 metres of it, the largest Viking ship ever found in Norway, rebuilt full size and open to walk on board. Walk to the ship.
If this were my port day
Yes, and it is one of the easiest ports on the coast to do well — because the good thing is close and the mistakes are all far away. Nordfjordeid is a small village at the head of the fjord: an old street of white houses, a church, an opera house, a salmon river, and a black modern building by the water with a Viking longship inside it. The mistake is treating this as an excursion port. It is sold as one, because the tour desks need to fill buses, and the buses go to places your itinerary probably already covers.
The Port-Day Clock
Set your ship's scheduled arrival and all-aboard time. I hold back a 45-minute safety buffer — then show only what fits with real margin.
Drag the two handles to match your ship's arrival and all-aboard times. As you drag, your time ashore updates — and the cards below show what fits.
Drag the handles · snaps to 15 minutes
The same tool, with a port selector, lives on the Port-Day Clock page.
Not sure when to sail? See the best time of year for a fjords cruise.
Browse by what you can actually do
Filter by how you want to spend the day. As you drag the clock above, these re-sort — fjord cruises first, hikes last.
Most of these are GetYourGuide tours, free to cancel up to 24 hours before, so you can book now and still adjust if your ship's schedule shifts.
The whole Nordfjordeid decision in one page: the Viking ship 700 metres away against a five-and-a-half-hour glacier round trip, with the honest timings and what the bus actually costs you. Free to read before you book anything.
The one big trip from here that is not another cruise port. Out to the island of Selja on the Stad coast and the ruins of Norway’s oldest monastery, where the legend of St Sunniva begins. Cheapest of the long excursions, and the only one that shows you something your itinerary will not.
My caution: Four hours, out on the exposed coast, and it depends on the boat crossing — a weather call. Long calls only.
Seventy minutes out onto the Eidsfjord in an open boat from the village. Short enough to pair with Sagastad on a normal call, which is more than the bus tours can say.
My caution: The priciest thing here per minute, and RIBs are generic to every Norwegian port. Open and exposed — dress colder than the morning suggests.
Two quiet hours on the fjord under your own power, aimed at people who have never held a paddle. Meets on the grass by the river beach — look for the red kayaks.
My caution: Weather-dependent and you will get wet. Fine on a long call; on a short one it eats the time Sagastad wants.
Over the mountain to the UNESCO Geirangerfjord and out on it by sightseeing boat, then back. The big-ticket day trip from this pier, meeting 50 metres from the cruise gate.
My caution: Check your itinerary before you book this. Many ships calling at Nordfjordeid also call at Geiranger or Hellesylt, and you would be paying to visit a port you are sailing into anyway. If Geiranger is on your list, skip this.
The same Geirangerfjord trip with the covered boat swapped for an open RIB — faster on the water, colder, and closer to the falls.
My caution: The most expensive card on this page, and the same warning as the boat version: if your ship already calls at Geiranger or Hellesylt, you are buying a day trip to your own next port.
Dollar amounts are approximate.
No experiences match that filter yet.
Getting around from the quay
Yes — everything worth doing here is on foot, and the arrival is unlike any other port in Norway. There is no cruise quay at Nordfjordeid. Your ship moors between four buoys out in the fjord, bow towards the shore on a course of 111 degrees, with the nearest buoy about 100 metres off the beach and the mains 400 metres apart. Then the SeaWalk comes to you: a 220-metre steel walkway, 4.2 metres wide, floating on eight wave-damping pontoons, driven by two diesel-powered hydraulic thrusters and steered from a remote unit. It moors against the hull with the walkway two and a half metres off the ship’s side, your own gangway drops onto its deck, and you walk 220 metres to Norway. It is designed to move with the ship in the swell — the makers call it soft-edge — and it folds back into storage after you sail. One ship at a time, up to 340 metres and 7,000 passengers, four thousand people an hour off the boat. The terminal at the shore end has toilets, a souvenir shop, tourist information and the excursion desk.
You are here — 220 m of floating pier, no quay, no tender
700 m — about 10 minutes along the fjord
~5 min on foot — first excavated in 1874
~20 min on foot — the breed’s home valley
Every tour desk on this pier sells Briksdal, and the operator publishes its own timetable: depart, arrive the glacier ninety minutes later, two and a half hours there, and back at the ship five and a half hours after you left. The drive runs along Hornindalsvatnet, the deepest lake in Europe at 514 metres — which is genuinely worth seeing and is the one honest argument for going. But look at where the bus goes: it drives towards Olden, past the Innvik fjord, and up Oldedalen. From Olden’s quay that same glacier is a 40 to 45 minute drive. If Olden is on your itinerary, you are spending five and a half hours here to reach something that is under an hour away on another day. And if you go anyway, the Troll Cars up the valley have limited capacity and want booking ahead — the operator suggests booking one for about 100 minutes after your bus leaves Nordfjordeid. Briksdal from here is not sold on GetYourGuide; book it direct with the pier operator, or read the full comparison first.
Match the plan to your call length
| Option | Time it needs | Worth it? |
|---|---|---|
| Sagastad (the Viking ship) | 1–2.5 hours | Yes — the reason to be here |
| The village on foot | ~2 hours | Yes — flat, free, close |
| Fjord horse centre | ~1.5 hours | Yes, if horses interest you |
| RIB safari | 70 min | Fine — short enough to add on |
| Selja Monastery | 4 hours | The one big trip that is not another port |
| Geirangerfjord by bus + boat | 4–4.5 hours | Only if Geiranger is not on your itinerary |
| Briksdal glacier | 5.5 hours | No — 45 min from Olden’s quay instead |
If the weather turns
Nordfjordeid sits at the head of the fjord with mountains around it, so it is a little softer than the open coast — but this is still western Norway and the rain arrives without asking. Layers and a waterproof, always. The village itself is flat and sheltered and a shower there costs you nothing; the fjord is a different matter. On the RIB or in a kayak you will be colder and wetter than the morning suggests, and the Selja crossing is out on the exposed Stad coast, which is one of the roughest stretches of water in the country.
Practical essentials
Your ship moors to buoys in the fjord and a 220-metre floating walkway drives out to meet it. You walk ashore down the SeaWalk on your ship’s own gangway. One ship at a time — the berth is guaranteed once booked.
Ticket sales end at 16.30, and the centre asks you to arrive at least an hour before closing — so 15.30 is your real deadline. Adult entry is 240 kroner, children 6–15 are 140, a family of two adults and three children is 690. Buy direct at sagastad.no; it is not sold through GetYourGuide.
Sagastad is 700 m from the pier, the burial mound about five minutes, the old street and the church less than that, the fjord horse centre twenty minutes. There is no shuttle because there is nothing to shuttle to.
The port opened in 2019, privately built and privately run on a 50-year concession. Its selling point to the cruise lines is two hours less sailing than Olden. That is a saving for the ship, not for you — the excursions from this pier are all further away than they would be from the port it replaced.
Prices, timetables and seasonal openings change. Confirm the current details (as of July 2026) before you commit to any plan.
Cruise-passenger FAQ
No, and it is not a conventional dock either. The ship moors between four buoys out in the fjord and a 220-metre floating pier called the SeaWalk drives itself out and moors against the hull. You walk ashore down it using your ship’s own gangway. It handles more than 4,000 passengers an hour and takes ships up to 340 metres.
Yes. Sagastad is 700 metres from the pier — about ten minutes along the fjord. The port’s own time budget is one to two and a half hours including the walk. Inside is the Myklebust ship: 30 metres long, the largest Viking ship ever found in Norway, rebuilt full size by local boatbuilders, and you can walk on board.
For most people, no. The operator’s own timetable is ninety minutes each way with two and a half hours at the glacier — five and a half hours door to door. The bus drives towards Olden to get there, and from Olden’s quay the same glacier is a 40 to 45 minute drive. If Olden is on your itinerary, do it from there instead. The one genuine argument for going is the route itself, along Hornindalsvatnet, Europe’s deepest lake at 514 metres.
Because it saves them two hours of sailing compared with Olden. The port was built privately and opened in 2019 specifically to put the Nordfjord excursion market within reach of more ships with less time at sea. It took 80 calls and 228,747 passengers in 2025.
The originals at Bygdøy in Oslo are not on display — that museum closed in 2021 and reopens in late 2027. What Sagastad has is a full-size reconstruction of the Myklebust ship, built from the archaeology of the burial mound five minutes from this quay. It is not an original, and you can walk on board it, which you cannot do with an original anywhere.
No. Buy direct at sagastad.no — adult 240 kroner as of July 2026. The same goes for the Briksdal bus from this pier, which is booked through the local operator rather than a booking site.
Check your itinerary first. Several ships that call at Nordfjordeid also call at Geiranger or Hellesylt later in the week, and these trips cost 1,295 to 1,595 kroner to visit a fjord you may be sailing into anyway. If Geiranger is not on your list, it is a fair way to see it. If it is, spend the day here instead.
I've walked these routes myself and base my timings on operator schedules and official sources, re-checked every season. I'm independent — not a cruise line, port authority, or tour operator. Booking links may be affiliate links; they never change which option I recommend or the order I rank them in. Return-to-ship safety always comes first.
