We just got back from 3 nights in Iceland and I figured that I would give my impressions of the trip. Cindy has been wanting to see the Northern Lights as a bucket list item. I found a "tour" from a company called Travelodeal that was less than most of the flights alone cost. Although I consider myself as being very good at picking out our trips I really got suckered this time. The $599 trip included air, 3 night hotel and two tours. The first thing they did was to bait and switch me to a better hotel. Okay the hotel was in a great location but it was not worth $400 more. But it was our 50th wedding anniversary and I did not care that much. Then I find out the airline is called Fly Play and it only has two flights to the US per day. I picked Boston as the starting point. Of course that means that I had to book flights from Nashville to Boston and back. The problem was the "and back" part. The flight from Iceland got back so late that there were no more decent flights to Nashville that night and we had to stay overnight in a $125 room. The Mickey Mouse airline actually was okay even though they charged extra for everything, even $3 for water. Of course the luggage was $100 per bag including carry-ons so we managed with just one large suitcase. When we got to Reykjavik at 6 am we could not check in at the hotel until 2 pm so had to pay another $35 just to get an early check in so we could take a nap. One if the biggest complaints was that they had two tours but failed to mention that all tours started from a main bus terminal and you had to find your way there. Each cab ride was about $15 each way.

So how were the tours? I would say less than spectacular overall even though the tour companies did their job. The northern lights tour was a bust. The lights do not appear every night and we got skunked. Won't even mention the fact that we were standing outside in 15 degree weather with a 10 MPH wind. Finally just went into the bus to get warm. We could have gone back the next night for free but the weather forecast only gave it a 30% chance so we decided not to stay up until midnight just to be disappointed a second time. The whale watching was more successful as they found one and followed it around for an hour or more and also found a seal sitting on an ice flow. It just was not very exciting. Cindy ordered a Golden Circle tour for the last day. We saw a geyser, a waterfall and where two tectonic plates meet. The geyser was supposed to shoot up 30 meters but it was lucky if it went up 20 feet, the tectonic plates were kind of neat with all of the cracks in the earth and the largest waterfall in Iceland dropped about 20 feet. GEEZ! I forgot to mention that it was 10 degrees out with a 20 mph wind that day and at each place you had to walk up to 1/4 mile just to see each site. Then we had lunch at the building connected to the geyser and a chicken salad, hamburger and two glasses of wine was over $60. I know it is a tourist trap but that is still ridiculous especially since the salad was almost inedible.

What is the whole point of this? I just wanted to express my opinion that if you have a bucket list and Iceland is on it you may want to move it to the bottom of the list. There just is not enough really interesting things to see there to make it worthwhile. Go visit France or Italy instead.