Sagastad or Briksdal? Nordfjordeid Cruise Day

Why this port exists

It was built to be a shortcut.

The cruise pier at Nordfjordeid opened in 2019 — privately financed, privately run, on a 50-year concession, purpose-built for cruise ships and nothing else. It is not an old harbour that grew into the trade. It is a 220-metre floating walkway that folds out of storage, drives itself to your hull on diesel thrusters, and folds away again after you sail.

The pitch to the cruise lines was simple and it is on the record: sailing time here is two hours less than to Olden. Olden sits deeper inside the fjord system. Nordfjordeid is nearer the sea. Same region, same excursions, two hours less steaming — and once the ship is alongside, the same tour desks sell you Briksdal, the Loen Skylift and Geirangerfjord.

That is a good deal for a ship’s schedule. It is not a good deal for a port day, because the distance did not disappear. It moved onto your coach.

The Briksdal maths

Five and a half hours, and the operator publishes it themselves.

The timetable from the pier reads: depart, arrive Briksdal ninety minutes later, two and a half hours at the glacier, depart again, back at the ship five and a half hours after you left. That is not a hostile reading — that is the tour’s own published schedule.

Now the part they do not put on the schedule. The bus drives towards Olden to get there. It runs down past the Innvik fjord, with photo stops, and turns up the Oldedalen valley. From Olden’s quay, that same valley road to Briksdal is a 40 to 45 minute drive.

So: if Olden is on your itinerary, you would be spending five and a half hours here to reach something that is under an hour away on a different day. Check the itinerary before you book. A lot of ships calling at Nordfjordeid call at Olden too, because they are the same region — that is the whole point of the port.

And when you get there it is the same glacier, the same 3 km up the valley, the same Troll Cars with limited capacity, the same 500-metre walk from where they stop. I have written all of that up for Olden, where it costs you a morning instead of a day: Briksdal Glacier or the Loen Skylift?

The honest argument for going anyway

The road.

The Briksdal bus from Nordfjordeid runs along Hornindalsvatnet, the deepest lake in Europe at 514 metres. That is a genuinely remarkable piece of water and you do not see it from Olden. If your ship is not calling at Olden, if the call is long, and if standing at a glacier is something you have wanted to do — go. It is a real day out and the drive is part of it.

Two practical notes if you do. The Troll Cars up the valley have limited capacity and want booking ahead; the operator suggests booking one for roughly 100 minutes after your bus leaves Nordfjordeid. And this trip is not sold on GetYourGuide — book it direct with the pier operator, which is also cheaper than going through anyone else.

What is 700 metres away

The largest Viking ship ever found in Norway, and you can walk on board it.

Sagastad sits 700 metres from the pier — ten minutes along the fjord, flat the whole way. Inside the black building is the Myklebust ship: 30 metres long, six wide, rebuilt full size by local boatbuilders from the archaeology of a mound that is five minutes from where your ship is moored.

The original was a funeral pyre. It was burned with King Audbjørn Frøybjørnsson, who died fighting Harald Fairhair before Norway was one country. The mound was first dug open in 1874. Five Viking burial mounds were found here in that century; this was the big one.

Be clear what it is and is not. It is a reconstruction, not an original. But the originals — the Oseberg and Gokstad ships at Bygdøy in Oslo — have been off display since 2021 and do not reopen until late 2027. So right now, this is the Viking ship you can actually stand on. See Bygdøy on a cruise day if Oslo is on your itinerary and you were counting on the ships there.

Adult entry is 240 kroner, children 6–15 are 140, a family of two adults and three children is 690. Buy it direct at sagastad.no. It is not on GetYourGuide and I earn nothing when you go.

The timing trap: ticket sales end at 16.30 and the centre asks you to arrive at least an hour before closing. Your real deadline is 15.30, not the 16.30 you will see written down.

If you stay: the plan

• Walk to Sagastad first, not last. It is the one thing here that exists nowhere else, and it has a 15.30 deadline.
• Budget one to two and a half hours for it including the walk — that is the port’s own figure, and it is about right.
• Take in the burial mound on the way. Five minutes from the quay, and it is where the ship came from.
• Then the village: Eidsgata’s white houses, the church, the opera house, a bun and a coffee. It is small and it is flat and it is genuinely a village, not a cruise stage set.
• Twenty minutes on foot gets you the Norwegian Fjord Horse Centre. The breed comes from this valley — this is its home ground.
• If you want the fjord and the call is long enough, the RIB from the village is 70 minutes and fits around all of the above. The kayak is two hours and does not.
• Swim at Sagaparken if the weather is being kind. Five minutes from the pier.

Who should take the bus, and who should not

Take it if Olden is not on your itinerary, your call is long, and the glacier is the thing you came to Norway for. Then it is five and a half honest hours and the lake on the way is worth the ticket by itself.

Do not take it if Olden is on your itinerary. You would be paying a day for something that is 45 minutes from the next quay.

Do not take it on a short call. Five and a half hours plus a return buffer out of a seven-hour stop is the whole day, and you will have seen this village through a bus window.

And if you are not sure: the Viking ship is 700 metres away, it is the reason this place is on the map, and you can be back at the gangway in two hours with the best thing here already done.

Back to the full guide: Nordfjordeid cruise port: where you dock, and what is worth your day.