Trying to book a trip to Iceland….

[VillageFete]

Hi,

Looking ahead to booking a surprise trip to Iceland next year for my partner’s 40th. Jan/Feb/March/April are out of the question as our baby will be too young to be left, so will need to be Summer onwards, however i’m reading that the optimal time for Northern lights is late August to end of March - any recommendations on what month to go next year?

Also, those that have been, did you book a package holiday? I’ve looked on TUI so far. Ideally i’d like transfers included.

My partner will definitely want to do Northern lights tour, Blue Lagoon and Golden Circle tour. Any idea where is best to book these tours, or do some package holidays include them?

Any help appreciated, i’m lost with it all!

How long are you planning to go for?

It’s amazing county to road trip around, it has a ring road that goes around the whole of the outside edge. It takes about 2 weeks to do the whole thing or you can do about 1/3 of it in a week. The landscape is really unlike anywhere else.

I have no experience of package holidays there.

If you just want to do the tours you could book accommodation in Reykjavik and you probably arrange the rest when you’re there if you wanted to such as the golden circle etc. There are lots of smaller thermal spas as well as the blue lagoon.

The blue lagoon is close to the airport so maybe a good thing to do on your last day and then stay close to the airport before your flights home? If you look on the website I imagine they’ll have a section on how to get there from reykjavik.

I do think that you miss out though if you don’t hire a car or go a bit further a field. Have a google of places like Jökulsárlón and the Skaftafell Glacier. There are so many amazing things to see there.

We just stopped at places we found along the way in booking.com

Sounds brilliant. You could book September/October onwards for northern Lights and maybe on his actual birthday book a Planetarium visit as a taster?

Thank you!

I’m afraid only 4 nights/5 days due to the kids. We’ll need to cram things in!

DP has always wanted to do the Blue Lagoon (I don’t think it always lives up to the hype from what i’ve read, but he’ll be adamant on that)

I was hoping there’d be some kind of package holiday that included excursions, just to make things a bit easier.

It appears you can do day trips to the Golden circle, so we’ll definitely do that. I’d love to do whale watching but it says it’s only available in the Winter months and I think latest we’ll go is October.

You don't need a package holiday, it's easy enough to sort yourself. I booked flights with easyJet, airport bus to Reykjavik and accommodation separately. There are plenty of companies offering tours too, just arrange it when you get there. That way you can pick a day with good weather forecast to go on the tour.

Thank you, will have a look at booking separately.

Flights only go up to March next year, so will have to hang fire.

@BonnieGlasses Did you enjoy it? Where did you stay?

Look at Icelandair they do tours and hotel/flight combinations

You don't need a package. Loads of companies offer day tours. We did the (overrated) blue lagoon with one that picks up from hotels in the city, drops you there, looks after bags while you swim, then takes you to the airport, is a standard thing because of its location and a nice way to use time on the last day with someone else organising transfer and looking after luggage. We hired a car and did the golden circle ourselves and then drove along the south coast. If you've inly got a few days I wouldn't try to go too far though but do take advantage of the amazing swimming - we went in the hot river near the greenhouse town.
https://www.icelandroadtrip.com/iceland/places/what-to-see/south-west/hveragerdi-town

Packages are often cheaper than doing it all yourself with Easyjet and Jet2holidays so worth comparing prices.

We did 3 nights with TUI. Included a Northern Lights trip and a tour of the glaciers.

The hotel had a happy hour in the evening and free cold meats which saved us a bit of money.

We arranged Blue Lagoon ourselves as you can book a coach to take you from your hotel to the lagoon and then on to the airport.

We did Iceland January - saw northern lights - we flew Icelandair - really nice plane .

we paid for a ticket on the plane that took us straight to hotel.

we also booked tours through hotel . If doing it by coach they pick up from all hotels to a bus Satalite station.

we booked one with great breakfast reviews kept us going till tea

I don't know whether it was just promoting flights to America via Iceland, but I saw an Icelandair Facebook ad this morning.

Many years ago we did a package trip to Iceland (organised by a rather savvy Blackpool travel agent who noticed that a group chartered a plane every Easter to fly to Blackpool to perform for a week, so he booked the plane to take us in the opposite direction). We had a fabulous tour guide for the optional excursions.

If you were ever horseriders (and not huge), give horseriding a go.

We grew to love low alcohol beer (as it was relatively cheap from the supermarket) and tried to eat our main meals at lunchtime and burger/pizza in the evening.

I’ve been looking at a similar trip and Icelandair seem to be decent value. Like a PP said, you can click the drop-down and select Vacations and it gives you options to include Golden Circle, Northern Lights etc

I booked through co-op and did it all separately so could do what I wanted. Paid more for a monster truck golden circle tour but was worth it as got to places a coach can't and got us up a mountain to do snow mobiles. All went smooth though and everyone us really friendly x

I would time your visit to avoid the full moon, as that does impact the visibility of the aurora to a noticeable degree.

I book flights and hot with EasyJet.

If you look on viatour that gives a really good idea of the trips you can book. They are pricey and do vary by time of year. Prices vary according to if you do big coach tours or smaller minibuses etc. we had about 14 I think on our golden circle trip.

We did our trip with Iceland Air, included flights, hotel transfers, excursions etc. Very good value.

Very helpful, thank you all so much!

Great tip about the full moon

I loved the Blue Lagoon. It was a few years ago when I went so not sure if it's changed/why people think it's overrated. I went straight from the airport on arrival before then travelling onwards to the hotel. It was after dark and an amazing way to start the trip.

We booked easyJet flights and hotel near bus stop 12 from Booking.com .

we also booked tours (golden circle and northern lights) through different tour guides. And we got a bus from the airport on our first day to the blue lagoon, we booked both directly.

As a pp said avoid going when there’s a full moon as when we went we saw a few faint smudges in the sky but it would’ve ibeen better another time of the month.

Also, I went towards the end of October and loved the fact it was cold and snowy. I'm not sure you'd get the same experience in the summer. I went on a whale watching boat too which was good.

If you do the blue lagoon directly from the airport they have a cloakroom to store your cases / big bags and then lockers for your clothes just before you get in.

There's no guarantee that you'll see the Northern lights. I know someone else that went in the winter and hated it - it was so grey, cold and the days were short. I went in July and loved it - had brilliant weather, booked flights with Easy Jet and booked hotel independently.

We're going for a week this summer. Booked with Hays Travel Agents who got us a TUI trip and had lots of great advice on the day trips. Having not set foot in a travel agent for about half a century I was really impressed. It's far less stressful and no more expensive than doing it online. I'm looking forward to Iceland and probably going to do this travel agent thing again

Went in march and didn't see the northern light (which were seen in the UK whilst we were in Iceland). How old is your child? Rejkyvik wasn't very cold in march and I would happily take my 4 year old, however, it was horrendously cold and exposed further north (and I certainly would not take my 4 year old)

I did a brilliant small group tour with Explore. Not cheap, but nothing in Iceland is. The guide was a local and got us to all the attractions at the right times to avoid the worst of the crowds, plus took us to the restaurants she went to with her family, which TBH weren't priced that differently to touristy places in UK.

I know you don't "need" a package, but I do think you get to see and learn a lot more with a guide, especially if time is tight.