Has anyone been to Iceland?

Trotter

I've a few days off in April and Im thinking of going somewhere a bit on the unusual side.

I've heard some interesting things about Iceland.. geysers, glaciers, good accomodation etc.

I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who went there for a few days.. just to see what the general opinion is on the place.

Thanks!

jimbon

i was there in Nov for 4 days with my husband. we booked throught a travel agent(city travel) and paid €550 each for return flight and 3 nights @ 4 star holiday. the hotel we stay was very bad, you cannot call that a 4 start hotel at all. (Icelandair Hotel Loftleidir). flight was very bad too because it was a charter flight. it was opearte by a company in england called Wallace travel (http://www.wallacetravelgroup.com/iceland.asp?Action=Breaks). between the flight and hotel was sucks~~~ but iceland is definately a place to visit. all the stuffs u mention, greysir, gullfoss, waterfall, blue lagoon etc etc was amazing. definately worth the trip BUT i will strongly suggest to organise the trip yourself. Ireland-> London -> Reykjavik. i was told by few ppls i met over there and it only cost them €500 between the 2.

useful link: http://www.re.is/ we booked all the excursion throught here, very good value

jimbon

byw, april probably will be a good time to go becos it was snowing so didnt get to see any glaciers and do the snowmobiling etc due to the weather.

PS: dont expect you will see the northern light eventhou they advertis this everywhere. we booked the northen light tour everyday when we were there and it was cancel everyday and we ask the tour guide how many times did she actually see the northern light, she didnt even give u a definate answer. we talk to a women in the airport and she is in her late 50s and she said she only saw the lights 8 times in here life. :rolleyes:

Our man in Havana

Everything there is outrageously expensive. Food, drink, hotels etc all cost an arm and a leg. There are only 1 or 2 airlines flying there and as said could cost €400 each to fly there. It would be cheaper to fly to New york tbh.

jdivision

Bond-007 wrote:

It would be cheaper to fly to New york tbh.

OP didn't ask about that and you're wrong. Cheapest way to fly to Iceland is either book with www.icelandexpress.com or else join the Lucky Fares club on Icelandair.com (all they do is send you the odd email and it doesn't cost anything) and you can get better fares. Also bear in mind it's often cheaper to fly to Glasgow and get the Iceland air flight from there.
Iceland's a great country but to do it properly you need a few tips. First up, if you wanna party while there you have to go at the weekend, it's fairly dead during the week. Best thing to do is go out at around midnight - the pubs at the weekend are open til past 5am so everybody drinks in one anothers houses til then. Pints are around e5.50 if you go to one of the normal pubs but will cost more if you go to one of the beautiful people type places. If you're laid back and would like to meet locals places like Sirkus and what used to be 21 almost across the road are good places to go. A lot of tourists go to Kaffebarinn, which is famous cos Damon Albarn owns a stake in it. It's actually good fun there but it gets very busy and there's usually queues after a certain time.
When you land, the cheapest way of getting to Reykjavik is on the bus. It's about e26 return on the Fly Bus. www.flybus.is http://www.re.is/page.asp?id=526
The same company also do tours, it was around e46 for the day when I went but now appears to be about e75 although there's usually some special offers. It's the Golden Circle tour and lasts for around 8 hours. The Gullfoss, the geysers and the Thingvellir (sp?) where the tectonic plates meet are all kinda cool. Bring your own lunch.
The Blue Lagoon is grand but way more expensive than any other thermal pools. You can go to ones in Reykjavik for the day for about e2.50.
As for eating out yeah it's expensive if you go to restaurants, best bet is to go to cafes or get bar food. Coffee is relatively cheap. Basically you'll spend more than here no matter what you do.
You won't see the Northern Lights in Reykjavik, in general you have to go to the north and even then it's not a given.
And don't stay at the Loftleider, it's a crap ancient hotel. I stay with friends when I'm there so not the best person to ask about accommodation unfortunately. Petrol prices are ridiculously expensive so hiring a car will cost you a lot, internal flights are comparatively good value. By the way there is a rumour Ryanair will start direct flights there next year, it's been reported there i think

purple'n'gold

I would'nt dream of going there until they give up hunting whales. A barbaric and unecessary practise.

Arthurdaly

Would you visit the states or britain? Their troops are slaughtering inoccent people everday! Makes me sick these treehugging hippies!

drrnwbb

been there a few times, luckily i have friends there so i had free accomadation.

will get some links later this evening, but until then:



"most important thing to know about iceland"