Iceland Guided Tours & Trips

On September 19, 2026, two lady friends and I started Snaelland Travel’s 8-Day Small Group Journey Around Iceland with Premium Hotels. I paid almost US$4000 for my tour (plus the optional extras), and amy two ladyfrieds paid for their own tours. Some experiences were excellent and some were terrible. 1. Guides/drivers: Excellent! The second day of the tour we had , who was excellent, very informative and very professional. Days 2 to 7 of the tour we had Arnie Odinsson, who was equally excellent, informative, professional, and most entertaining. 2. Tour sights/visits and small buses: Excellent! 3. Transportation from airport to hotel: Terrible. After changing from one bus to another, the 3 of us were dropped in a totally unknown place to us, with no more instructions than “go here and then there” (hands pointing straight and to the left). Thus, we had to drag our suitcases over uneven terrain; we got lost and, on top, it was cold and windy. We kept on asking people for directions to get to the Marina Hotel (that was the name given to us, but it turned out that the real name of the hotel was Berjaya Reykjavik Marina) and people people we asked did not recognize the name. It was a terrible experience, and we were never told in advance that this was going to be the modus operandi. My friends and I have traveled in many countries in different continents and we have NEVER been treated in such awful manner. We heard that this poor transportation practice was because large buses have difficulties in driving on narrow streets. In my opinion, this is a lame excuse, as this could easily be solved by using smaller buses. If that increases the costs, just charge more for the transportation. But the absolutely least that could be done was to WARN the unsuspecting tourist AHEAD OF TIME of the terrible modus operandi of the bus transportation. 4. Transportation from hotel to airport: Totally unresponsive. As we didn’t want to be dragging our suitcases in cold, windy (and perhaps rainy) weather, we asked if we could exchange the return bus trip ticket for a taxi to drive us to the airport (we knew there would be an additional cost, which we would pay). Surprisingly, the answer was negative. This was totally unresponsive and irresponsible! So, we simply forgot about the return bus ticket we had paid, and got a taxi on our own to take us to the airport. We consider this procedure not only a very poor business practice, but also a health hazard, as, if it were raining when we were dragging our suitcases to the bus stop, someone could slip and break a leg, or worse, catch a cold or pneumonia. 5. Transportation to the meeting point on the 2nd day of the tour (the 1st day was the arrival to Iceland): Terrible. Again, we had to drag our suitcase, but to a different bus stop. Poor logistics. Same comments as in Points 3 and 4, above. 6. Notifications from the tour company: Irregular and unresponsive. Not a single one of the 3 of us were informed regarding the place or time we were going to be picked up on the 3rd day of our tour airport (even thou the tour company had our emails and WhatsApps). We tried to contact the tour company by email (never answered), and by phone, but the emergency number was the SAME as the regular number (I have NEVER seen this, and this is highly irregular plus a very poor business practice) and all we got was a recorded message stating the hours they worked the next day. On the same day we were supposed to be picked up, the hotel staff was finally able to contact the tour company to find out this information. It is certainly not a good business practice to cause anxiety to the travel company clients. In summary, the guides/drivers and the tour sights/visits and small buses were excellent; but the the transportation in Reyjkiavik itself was deficient, as well as the irregular and unresponsive notifications from the tour company. If you decide to publish my comments, please publish the entire note (good and bad comments), not only the good ones. I will keep TourRadar contacts for future travels, but please do your best to see if the tour company corrects what I consider business flaws, you would be doing them a favor. Iceland is a beautiful country, inhabited by very nice people, and the whole tourist experience should be great, not just just some parts of the experience. Best regards!

We were led by excellent, knowledgeable and personable people : guide, Ellert, and driver, Christian. Our accommodation excellent, breakfast too. Iceland took our breath away. We came to see this - and what a treat to be taken around by a guide who is knowledgeable. We also enjoyed Ellert’s laconic sense of humour!

TL;DR: Great tour, not the greatest guide. I like how intense was the tour, the diversity of things we saw. And people on the tour were amazing. But the guide... It wasn't horrible but I don't want to have another tour with him. While being knowledgable Thomas was easily irritated by questions (so on the third day I started preferring asking chatgpt instead of him). Also his English is not so great, a lot of information was hard to decipher. And instead of assuming that he misunderstood what you're saying he jumps into thinking that you're dumb.