Getting to Stavanger by ferry
It is the shortest overnight way into Norway: eleven hours, one night, and you land at first light in a city you can cross in a quarter of an hour.
More to the point, you arrive at the gateway to the Lysefjord. Preikestolen, the most photographed rock in the country, is an hour's drive and one ferry from the quay — that is this line's argument, and this page sets it out before turning to hotels and outings.
Which ferries go to Stavanger?
Hirtshals to Stavanger, the only international line
Fjord Line sails all year, once a day in each direction. Eleven to eleven and a half hours at sea, overnight: you fall asleep in Denmark and wake at the foot of the fjords. It is the shortest of the overnight crossings to Norway — six hours less than Bergen, nine less than Kiel.
Count 270 to 550 euros for two people, a car and the cheapest two-berth cabin, depending on season and booking date. The same ship then carries on to Bergen: if your trip is aimed at the west rather than Rogaland, the question is worth asking before you book.
Today's sailing times, the fare scale by vehicle length and frequently asked questions on the route page. See the route page →
Compare prices and book →When it is genuinely worth it
- To tackle the Lysefjord on day one. The ship docks in the morning; Preikestolen can be climbed the same afternoon if you do not linger.
- For the shortest overnight crossing. Eleven hours is one night and nothing more. The other lines to Norway ask for a full extra day at sea.
- To skip the coast road. From Kristiansand it is over three hours to Stavanger, and the E39 is slow going.
- For anyone not driving. The ship takes foot passengers, and central Stavanger is fifteen minutes end to end.
And if you are coming by road
Two ferries sit on the route depending on where you come from and where you are heading. The first is the busiest in Norway; the second opens the road to Preikestolen. Neither is booked, and the toll is charged automatically by number plate.
Boat trips from Stavanger
Everything leaves from the same quay, five minutes from the centre, and everything goes to the same place: the Lysefjord, its thousand-metre walls and the rock above them. The choice is which boat.
The electric Lysefjord cruise, the reference outing
EXCURSION Panorama Rødne's 100 % electric catamaran, operating on the fjord since 1956, glides silently: you hear the waterfalls and feel icy droplets when the pilot moves in close. Warm cinnamon buns take the chill off the break.
- Preikestolen (604 m), Hengjanefossen waterfall and the Vagabond's Cave
- 3h30 electric catamaran · English & Norwegian audio guide
- Free Wi-Fi · snack bar on board · wheelchair accessible
And also
The small-group RIB and the RIB run for anyone who prefers speed and spray to commentary, the guided kayak to see the walls from the surface of the water, and the Kjerag hike in summer — harder than Preikestolen, and far less crowded.
Where to stay in Stavanger on arrival
The ship docks early, often before check-in time: the best plan is to have booked and to leave the bags. Two well-rated addresses, and all the others just below.
Stavanger's oldest hotel, a Victorian building standing on the quay.
- Breakfast included, wide choice
- Station and old town five minutes away
- Street or building-site noise at times
On the wooden wharves of Skagen, by the Vågen, in the heart of Stavanger.
- Free dinner and all-day coffee
- Harbour views from the quayside rooms
- Rooms sometimes small and noisy
What to do in Stavanger
- Gamle Stavanger, a hundred and seventy-three white wooden houses from the eighteenth century, packed into a few cobbled lanes above the harbour. It is the largest such ensemble in northern Europe, and it takes an hour to see.
- The petroleum museum, which explains without flinching where the country's wealth comes from. A striking building on the waterfront, and one of the few industrial museums children do not merely endure.
- Sverd i fjell, three ten-metre swords driven into the rock beside the fjord, twenty minutes from the centre: they mark the battle that unified Norway in 872.
For the whole region — the Lysefjord, the hikes and the rest of the fjords — the guide is on my blog: What to do in Norway's fjord region
Preikestolen, if you only have one day
Four hours' walking there and back, five hundred metres of climb, and at the end a slab of rock as flat as a table, six hundred metres above the fjord. With a guide, transport from Stavanger is included — that is the version without a car.
EXCURSION May sell out Pulpit Rock without the logistics: the coach picks up at Stavanger's cruise terminal, dips under the fjord through the world's deepest subsea tunnel, and a guide born in a Lysefjord village leads the climb to the flat cliff hanging 604 m above the water.
- Round trip from the cruise terminal · 40-min coach ride through the world's deepest subsea tunnel
- About 4 hrs' walking with a guide born in the Lysefjord · snack included
- ⚠️ Guide in English, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish · lunch and water not included · ages 7+
