La Palma on a cruise stop: what you can fit in

Where you dock and what is in front of you

Cruise ships call at the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma, the island capital, on the east side. The old town is less than a kilometre away: you step off the ship and walk there.

Santa Cruz is good and deserves a while. But if that is your whole call, you leave without seeing what makes this island different, and that is on the other side of the ridge.

The Aridane valley, with Los Llanos and Tazacorte, is about 17 kilometres away as the crow flies, but by mountain road that means roughly forty minutes in the car. They are worth it.

What fits, depending on your hours

Always work your return out with a good hour to spare. The roads twist and anything unexpected shows.

A 5 or 6 hour call

It is tight. Either stay in Santa Cruz and make the most of the old town, or do one single thing on the other side and come back. One, not two.

A 7 or 8 hour call

Now you can cross comfortably. Forty minutes out, a two-and-a-half-hour activity, something to eat and back. It is the most common length of call and gives plenty of room for one good thing done properly.

Ten hours or more

Enough for the whole valley: a visit, lunch at Puerto de Tazacorte by the beach, a while on the black sand and a viewpoint on the way back.

Getting to the other side

Hire car. The most flexible, if you book ahead and pick it up near the port. It lets you go and come back at your own pace.

Taxi. The quickest to organise. Agree the price and the pick-up time before you get in, and keep the driver’s number.

Bus. There are lines that cross the island, but the timetables are not designed to fit a ship. If your call is short, I would not rely on it.

Whichever you choose, set an alarm on your phone for the time you need to be back. It sounds silly until somebody misses it.

What to do in the valley

The two things that work best on a cruise call, because they are short and do not depend on the weather:

The Banana Museum in Tazacorte: two euros, half an hour, Monday to Saturday. It explains what this valley lives on. There is detail in this guide.

A visit to a working farm: two and a half hours walking among the banana plants, ending with a tasting at the table. That is ours, and we say so plainly.

And if you would rather have no plan at all: the beach at Puerto de Tazacorte, black sand with calm water because the pier breaks the swell.

If you want to book with us

Two things that matter for making it work.

First, the times. We run two slots a day, 10:00 to 12:30 and 13:30 to 16:00, and we close on Mondays. If your ship docks at seven in the morning, the 10:00 slot fits perfectly: you arrive, cross over, do the visit and are back with the afternoon ahead of you.

Second, tell us you are coming off a cruise and what time the ship leaves. It does not change the visit, but it lets us keep it in mind so nobody spends the morning watching the clock.

Groups are fifteen people at most, so in cruise season it pays to book a few days ahead.

Mistakes we see over and over

Leaving everything until you arrive. In high season there are no hire cars free at the port at eight in the morning.

Cutting the return too fine. Forty minutes is forty minutes if nothing gets in the way; behind roadworks it can be sixty.

Trying to squeeze the Caldera de Taburiente into a call. There is not time, and it is a shame to rush it.

And the classic: not checking which side of the island the weather is on. It can be cloudy in Santa Cruz and clear in the valley, or the other way round. I cover it in this guide.