"Ring Road Confusion"

Ring Road Confusion - The service prior to arriving in Iceland was good and the information was clear. Accommodation and food were good. It would have been helpful to receive more detail on the route prior to arriving so you could get a better idea of what you would be doing and "get your head around " the icelandic names.
The tablet you receive is poorly put together and does not provide directions to either attractions or to hotels. Neither of our tablets would charge 50% of the time and the tour on the tablet just quit half way through the second last day. The tablet was not properly connected to the internet when we received it, and since it its on wifi, it is impossible to use it properly while driving. We had to have a hotel clerk call Iceland travel to provide us with the password, and then Iceland travel would not give it to us, only to the clerk (for security reasons???) The GPS provided by the partner car provider (Hertz) was terribly out of date and at times it appeared we were traveling cross-country. The keyboard was in English, but the GPS was programmed to Icelandic alphabet so often it would not recognize what we were putting in, and it quit on us twice.

"They planned everything!"

Iceland travel made my trip to Iceland so simple. They connected me with every part of the journey required to have a smooth trip! Communication before the trip was excellent, and they sent a really comprehensive itinerary with car rentals, hotel stays, tours, and other pertinent information all in one online easy to read link. Trust they have excellent customer service!

"The service was excellent and…"

The service was excellent and effortless.

"The trip went well till day 6"

The trip went well till day 6 - the I Pad stopped working with Googles map and we had to rely on physical maps and Garmin. Also the last two days were not listed = out trip ended on Day 7.

"Geysers, Glaciers and Waterfalls - self-driving tour"

I wavered for quite some time between selecting 3 or 4 stars please see why below:

Firstly, the dreaded tablet and GPS.
I was surprised when we picked up the vehicle that we were also given a GPS. We were told the tablet would have 4G data, so were confused why a GPS was necessary, but figured it was for safety purposes (easier to use while driving).

We quickly realized that wasn't the case. The tablet is essentially locked down in such a way that you can only use the IcelandTravel app, which we figured would be the case. Within the UI of the app, there were links to View in Google Maps which we were originally ecstatic about, but quickly learned that was just a tease, because google maps did not work. Even if we connected the tablet to wifi in a hotel, we could not use any part of the tablet other than the given app. So we were left to use the GPS.

The deduction in my star rating is entirely attributed to this GPS and tablet synchronicity(lack thereof). The maps were not updated recently in any way, the GPS was extremely difficult to use, the touch screen did not work well, many of the places on our itinerary could not be found on the GPS search, or they could but they brought us to the wrong place. Multiple times the GPS told us to go down roads what were not roads, or even in Reykjavik down one way streets or streets blocked off for pedestrians. The tablet was clearly not configured for concurrent GPS use because firm addresses were not provided. We wasted so much time driving to the wrong places or literally just sitting in the car trying to get the GPS to work.

There were also times where there was a suggested point to travel to that was wayyyy out of the way but the description seemed alluring so we wanted to check it out. The GPS would then give us the run around after hours of traveling there, and we would be out of the way, confused, and couldn't find the attraction because the GPS's given point and the tablet's given point for the attraction were both different, and neither of which could we find said attraction. Again, a lot of wasted time.

Additionally a lot of the attractions required "a short hike" to get to them, which we were all for. However, I only recall one time where the tablet actually told us how long the hike would take. This made planning pretty impossible. Sometimes a short hike meant 5 minutes, other times it meant an hour or more each way. And when you're on the second attraction of the day with 5 more to come, all with a "short hike" the pressure is really on.

Another frustrating aspect of the tablet was a section where you could book a tour or attraction/activity. There was no search function within that so you literally had to just scroll through them, and NONE of them had a location on them. It was literally impossible to plan ahead to book anything within the tablet UI because it never gave enough information. Some would appear as "near your location" but still not give the exact location of the tour. For example there was a horse riding tour that sounded great and said it was nearby, and the name of the tour was something generic like "See Iceland on a Horse!". So there was no way to google the tour and get more info on it. Just confusing and useless. There were also tours in there that we saw and tried to do and got excited for, that are only offered during certain months, excluding while we were traveling. So again, another tablet tease!

Accommodations:
We picked the second tier accommodation level (economy something - which guaranteed us no shared bathroom/kitchen). What we ended up getting seemed to be super bare-bones, standard tiny hotel room with bathroom and no kitchen, often no refrigerator, so I would hate to see what the true base economy would get us. It was totally fine since we didn't spend much time in the hotels, but worth mentioning.

Of all the hotels our first one was by far the best, very kind staff and very accommodating. This was in Hvergerdi. They even had their own pool/waterslide and hot tubs! We kind of wish our trip ended here, because it was by far the best hotel we stayed in, and set the bar way too high for what was to come. On top of that, after spending 5 days away from civilization, we really wished we had done Reykjavik first. We weren't really prepared for the transition from the ring road to big city with people everywhere and no guaranteed parking near what we wanted to see.

Other than that we absolutely loved the tour and all the places we got to see. We did feel a bit pressured because there was so much to see and A LOT of driving to be able to see it all. We didn't wanna miss out so we literally did everything suggested, but it was EXHAUSTING!

Overall I recommend this tour, just prepare yourself ahead of time when you have internet. Be prepared to need to charge the tablet overnight every night (the battery was awful) and then spend your breakfast using your hotel wifi to get exact locations for things and googling information that the tablet leaves out (like length of time spent at places/to get to places.)

Overall I have to give 4 stars here because the company was responsive and helpful to us, the tour was great and relieved a lot of planning stress, and ultimately the issues that we encountered are easily remedied and I am confident IcelandTravel will do their due diligence on it. I would totally recommend this tour to a friend, as long as they have this knowledge ahead of time about the wacky GPS/tablet, and to not rely so heavily on the proposed tour points and to do some more of their own research in preparation.

"Travel to Greenland-Kulusuk"

Overall the travel to Greenland-Kulusuk from Iceland-Reykjavik was good -- everything went smoothly as planned without any issue.

"The GPS provided could have been much better."

We had a problem finding only one lodging. It was on a loop road that looped to 1. We did not know it was a loop and turned down the first entrance to the road and went further than the distance specified and could not find the lodge. The GPS took us down that road. We asked directions from locals who go on their cell phones and explained to us what we had done wrong. The GPS we were provided did not or we could not figure out how to enter the latitude and longitude, only the town and street address. We also had a problem with the GPS finding the town where one of our hotels was. It said the town was not found. We also had a map though which showed the town.

Some of the lodges were sort of off the beaten path. I did not mind that if that one had been easier to find. The GPS was a Garmin. Somewhat of a piece of crap.

"Fantastic trip"

Fantastic trip! The itinerary was thoughtful. Hotels and other services were amazing. While planning, Hildur was beyond amazing-- so responsive and friendly. They'll definitely be my first call when we go back!

"We had a fabulous trip to the Faroe…"

We had a fabulous trip to the Faroe Islands. Everything was well planned. When I had any questions, they were very quick to respond. I recommend using Iceland Travel

"Iceland complete"

Ulfar was a very hard working and conscientious guide and group leader. The weather was against us which cannot be helped. I was disappointed not to have got closer to the glaciers. The admin prior to the trip was very good, but not perfect