Arriving in Stavanger on our P&O Iona Norwegian Fjords cruise, we knew we wanted to do the hike up to Pulpit Rock. Having done a rib boat ride to the bottom of it on our previous cruise, we wanted to see Pulpit Rock from the top this time.
If you want to get to Pulpit Rock from a cruise ship in Stavanger you have a couple of options – and we think we found the most convenient, quickest and cheapest way of doing so…
One option of course is simply to book the excursion direct with the cruise company, which will take you on a coach journey of about 45-minutes from Stavanger to the ‘Preikestolen’ car park, which is the trail-head for the hike up to the top of the rock.
However, on our P&O cruise on Iona, this excursion got fully booked very quickly.
Also, for a family of four, it was expensive – especially given we had three other days to fill with similar excursions, which can really see the costs mount up.
There are private tour companies in Stavanger that will take you to Pulpit Rock, but again they are pretty costly – and we really preferred the idea of doing the trip under our own steam.
Instead, we chose what we felt was the best way to get to Pulpit Rock from Stavanger, which was to use an app called ‘GetAround’, which is basically like the Airbnb of car hire / sharing in Norway, which enabled us to hire a local resident’s car for the day.
It was an incredibly convenient and low cost way of getting to Pulpit Rock.
I had downloaded the GetAround app prior to our cruise, so had already set up an account and gone through the process of uploading my driving license and validating my ID (which was quick and simple, but worth doing before your cruise).
There were several residents around the Stavanger town area who had their cars listed for hire on the app – and we were lucky enough to get one that was literally 4-minutes’ walk from the cruise dock.
It wasn’t even necessary for us to meet the owner of the vehicle, we could simply walk up to his driveway and start the rental of the car immediately, so barely 10-minutes after getting off the ship we were in the car and on our way, following Google Maps directions to the Preikestolen car park where the hike up to Pulpit Rock begins.
One thing we were concerned about was whether we had enough time to do the Pulpit Rock hike before P&O Iona set sail in the afternoon.
Iona’s stop in Stavanger is one of the shorter ones – arriving (on our cruise in 2025 at least) at 9am and departing at 4pm.
Would there be enough time to do the 45 minute drive to Pulpit Rock from Stavanger, then do the hike up to the rock, spend time up there and hike and drive all the way back again before the ship left at 4pm?
Advice we’d seen online suggested you needed 4 to 5 hours in total to complete the hike which, if accurate, would leave very little time to do the journey, the hike up and down – and include time spent at the top.
But we gambled that we could do it quicker than the estimated time, especially considering that P&O themselves run an excursion there, so it obviously is achievable.
As it happened, we had no cause for concern regarding timings – and there was definitely plenty of time to fit in the hike up to Pulpit Rock before the ship departed.
There was minimal traffic on the roads on our journey to the trail-head and we were there and parked up within 55-minutes of leaving the ship – beating all the other excursion passengers.
There are facilities at the Pulpit Rock trail car park – a cafe / restaurant, toilets, a shop – and plenty of parking space.
The trail up to Pulpit Rock is well signposted – follow the big signs towards ‘Preikestolen’, up into the woods along a well made path.
The hike to Pulpit Rock is fairly demanding. It’s steep in places and the path, whilst well marked out and well made up, is rocky in places.
You definitely need to be able-bodied and reasonably fit.
You can take children up (we saw several families) but if they’re very young you’d need to have them in a carrier and you’ll want to be aware that there are steep drops off the side off the path on a few occasions on the route up (and of course the ultimate steep drop off the edge of Pulpit Rock itself when you arrive up there).
Conscious of the time limit imposed by our ship’s departure, we hiked up pretty quickly – and were approaching the top after 1.5-hours of hiking, considerably quicker than the estimated 2 to 2.5-hours we’d originally seen suggested and leaving us in no doubt that we’d be able to get back down and back to the ship again well before departure time.
We certainly didn’t run or go especially fast; we’re a family of four (with older children though) and, although fit and used to mountain hiking, we’re not endurance athletes or anything like that, we just didn’t hang around and kept up a reasonably brisk walking pace most of the way.
Though by the time we reached the top our legs were definitely burning and we were looking forward to the rest!
It is of course possible to take it at a more leisurely pace of your own but, either way, the hike will require quite a bit of physical effort.
But one thing’s for sure, it is absolutely worth every ounce of that effort when you reach the ultimate goal of Pulpit Rock itself.
It’s incredible, beautiful and terrifying in equal measures!
It’s a 600m sheer, vertical drop off the edge of the rock down to the fjord below and there’s nothing at the edge to separate you from the drop.
No fence, no railings – just a terrifying drop off the edge.
You can get as close to (or stay as far away from) the edge as you want.
We watched some daredevils get right up to the edge and even sit on the edge – presumably risking their lives for the perfect Instagram post!
Most people stayed a more sensible distance from the edge.
We got as close as we dared but with enough space that a slip or trip wouldn’t have plunged us off the side, only getting a bit closer by crawling or laying down – and even that was terrifying enough!
But what it’s really all about are the views, which are mind-blowing.
You can actually walk a bit further up from the Pulpit Rock ledge itself and get a view from above, which is worth doing to really appreciate the nature of the place.
We loved doing the rib ride to the rock on our last Norwegian Fjords cruise – and it’s hard to choose whether seeing it from the water below or being up on the rock itself is best. Basically we’re glad we’ve got to do both, as both excursions were absolutely memorable experiences.
We spent about 45-minutes up at the top, enjoying the views, taking photos and resting our legs after the tiring hike, before heading back down.
The journey back down was slightly quicker, although no less punishing on the legs – in fact coming down was if anything even harder work on the legs!
We arrived back at the car park in plenty of time – and 45 minutes later were parking the GetAround hire car back on the owner’s driveway directly in view of the amazing Iona just a couple of minutes away.
Our worries about whether we’d have enough time to do the hike to Pulpit Rock from Stavanger were unfounded – and we were actually back on board much earlier than we’d originally expected, refuelling in the buffet by about 3pm.
So, in answer to the question “how to get to Pulpit Rock from Stavanger?” Our advice would be use the GetAround car hire app and drive to Preikestolen car park yourself.
It’s cheaper and very convenient – although we were very lucky to get a rental car so close to the ship.
Other cars were available slightly further away, but because you’re using a private individual’s car, availability will always be different on the app from one day to the next.
And in answer to the question “how long does it take to do the Pulpit Rock hike excursion”? And “is there enough time to hike to Pulpit Rock before Iona departs Stavanger?” The answers are…
- About 3-hours hiking in total, if you’re fit enough to go reasonably fast on the hike (not including time spent at the top)
- Yes, there definitely is time to do it and get back to Iona before all-aboard time – but keep a track of your timings and know at what point you need to turn around and head back.
Finally, to the question “is the Pulpit Rock hike worth doing” – absolutely, 100% yes – it was amazing.
The only reason I can think of not to do so is perhaps if the weather is really terrible and visibility from the top is limited, in which case much of the effort of hiking up there might’ve been wasted if you can’t see the views and appreciate the vast scale of the place.
Otherwise, it’s absolutely worth doing and one of our favourite cruise excursions we’ve done over the two Iona cruises we’ve been on.
Useful info