Once you’re out on the water, you are accompanied by a tour guide and have about a full hour to experience the glacier. Our tour guide stopped multiple times along the way to provide picture taking opportunities, history about the glacier and anecdotes about all the tours they’ve been on and things they’ve seen. We were lucky enough to not only see seals hanging out on floating blocks of ice, but also heard the glacier itself cracking and vibrating – a pretty unforgettable experience.
Overall, the entire tour from putting your suits on to getting dropped back off is a full two hours. One important thing to note is that the public bathrooms in the parking lot close at 7pm, so make sure to go to the bathroom when you get back to the trailer!
After the tour, we decided to spend another 30 minutes of taking pictures of the glaciers and walking around Jökulsárlón, now without any of the pressure of needing to arrive on time for the tour. We spent this time going up on the hill and then down by the water – it’s pretty mesmerizing how there are just chunks of ice that float up on shore, like seashells at a beach. We loved everything about this attraction and would recommend to anyone!