Reykjavik: Volcano Express Show Ticket & Harpa Experience

4.83

(155 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

We were already buckled in before I realized how nervous I actually felt — the seats in Harpa’s auditorium look normal, but once the Volcano Express started, it was like being strapped to a rocket. The room went dark, and suddenly we were flying over Reykjavik’s skyline, dipping and soaring above those black lava fields you see in postcards. Our guide, Jón (he told us to call him Jonny if we couldn’t manage the accent), grinned when someone gasped at the first jolt — “That’s nothing,” he said, “wait for the Reykjanes eruption.” He was right.

Icelandic volcanoes always sounded like something out of a storybook to me — but here, with the ground rumbling under my feet and this weirdly warm air blowing across my face (they really do pump in heat), it felt so much more real. At one point, there was this sharp smell — not quite smoke, not quite earth — that made me think of camping trips as a kid. You could hear people whispering in different languages behind us, and then everyone just went quiet when the lava started flowing on screen. I didn’t expect to feel so small watching a virtual eruption, but honestly? It got under my skin.

The whole thing lasted about half an hour, maybe a bit less — time gets fuzzy when you’re being rattled around by simulated earthquakes. There was a moment where we dipped down into a crater and I swear my stomach dropped (Li laughed at me for grabbing her arm). Afterward, Jonny stuck around to answer questions about the 2021–2024 eruptions on Reykjanes peninsula. He even tried teaching us how to say Eyjafjallajökull. I butchered it; he laughed.