Adventures Reviews

The Pros - Iceland itself is beautiful No complaints - Reykjavik is a beautiful city - the tour doesn t allow you time here so make sure you schedule it it s worth it definitely be sure to schedule time at 1 or more lagoons - Our glacier hike guide Ola was absolutely amazing She made sure everyone felt comfortable was very patient with all of us She answered questions provided information readily She gave us plenty of time to enjoy the experience - We got to visit a working horse farm on the last day which was a very enjoyable experience The Cons - Our trip guide Thor S is absolutely not suited to a front-facing customer service role He was dour blunt He rarely spoke while we were on the road when we stopped kept to himself with his headphones in I understand that driving can be taxing especially on Icelandic roads but the job is to be a guide not to be a sour presence over the group - AA says the skill level of this tour is easy which might be true if you were allotted a reasonable amount of time at locations I am not an avid hiker but I looked up each hike on the itinerary before booking felt that I would be capable of them However Thor gave us what I others felt was an unreasonably short time at every location he was able to do so which was most of them This completely changed the skill level enjoyability of the trip - Thor gave out information ineloquently like it was rationed I would have assumed there was at least a basic script given to guides but either there isn t or Thor disregarded his On the rare occasions he shared information it was basic lacked detail I read a broad overview of Iceland before I came that is the only reason about 85 of what he said made any sense to me because he gave no context no detail Most of what he said can be paraphrased as This place site was important in year because person verbed here So yeah If someone dared to ask a question he would either simply repeat himself or answer in a tone that may not have been intended to be rude but absolutely came across that way I understand that when you are from a place or an expert in a place many questions may seem to have obvious answers However the very purpose of hiring a guide is to have an expert on hand to answer questions for you If the answer was obvious to everyone a guide wouldn t be necessary Thor seemed to have no concept of this absolutely no ability to answer questions in a way that didn t make the asker feel like their question was the stupidest thing he had ever heard - Thor rushed us at every stop refused 99 of the time to allow us more time when requested with no explanations didn t follow the itinerary Most frustrating was the fact that we often stopped for the day earlier than expected most of the hotels were so remote there wasn t anything to do but wander their grounds or stay in your room On the day we went to the lagoon which was an extra 80 we had to fight to be allowed to stay for 2 5 hours in spite of the fact that it was our last stop of the day we arrived before 4pm Keep in mind that it s summer it s not like we re losing daylight The horse farm experience while delightful was done in lieu of actual items on the itinerary with again no explanation as to why we were skipping it We then arrived back in Reykjavik 2 hours earlier than scheduled which Thor acted like he did as a favor to us even though it was obvious that he was just anxious to be rid of us - The tour leaves you on your own for lunch dinner but in reality this just meant Thor chose where we ate It was extremely disappointing to rarely be offered the opportunity to choose where to eat perhaps this was a misunderstanding on my part but going in I had assumed we would be offered opportunities to stop at grocery stores or that we would be stopping in towns with multiple options for meals Instead we usually stayed at remote hotels all with similar menus several of which were conveniently owned by AA Thor never offered us the opportunity to stop elsewhere even though we often arrived at hotels before 6pm Lunch was also usually at a remote location with one extremely expensive choice I m unsure if the timing itinerary food options issues are due to operator or guide but my impression was that Thor had a lot of leeway when it came to these decisions Overall this experience simply isn t worth the cost Given the glacier hike it s clear that AA can hire excellent guides I do realize that hiring is never perfect However I would absolutely recommend avoiding AA s multi-day tours as you risk being stuck for days with someone who should absolutely not be in the role they are A bad guide for 3 hours is tolerable 6 days is miserable leaves you feeling swindled

My recent experience with Arctic Adventures was quite disappointing and I would rate it a 2-star There were several issues that need addressing 1 The northern lights tour that was supposed to be included never happened We were only able to see the lights because another guide called his group to witness the spectacle Our guide didn t make any effort to help us with this 2 Our guide was exceptionally annoying which negatively affected the overall experience 3 The glacial hiking equipment they provided was subpar They gave us a useless pick and forced us to rent shoes even if we already had appropriate footwear 4 The glacier hiking experience was compromised due to the presence of a person with a medical condition preventing us from exploring the full amazing path Additionally a friend who booked the Vatnajokull Ice Cave tour not the multiday one got to visit a much better ice cave than we did we visit an ice hole 5 Dinner arrangements were frustrating as the hotel s remote location left us with no other options forcing us to dine at the expensive hotel restaurant which cost more than restaurants in Reykjavik 6 We choose not going on the Krauna visit and the guide failed to take us to the horse farm resulting in a 1 5-hour wait for nothing and no horse farm experience 7 The promise of breakfast in Vik was unfulfilled as we never made it to Vik 8 Some information provided by the guide turned out to be inaccurate prompting me to fact-check later 9 The trip was supposed to include a visit to the Elhraun lava field but the guide neglected to stop there 10 Lastly the customer service I encountered was terrible adding to the overall dissatisfaction with the tour 11 The website has a lack of clear information and a lot of gray areas Be aware I will be in Iceland until Nov 10th and hope them to fix this ARC-T50759458

1 We expected to have a total experience of 3 hours like the mentions But in reality is was only 1 5 hour half the time 2 as confirmed in the booking we were promised to receive snorkeling photo s but apparently the camera was not working and we received no snorkeling photo s of us

MAGICAL AURORAS - Northern Lights Mini bus tourThis was a VERY disappointing experience I completely understand that this is not a guaranteed sighting by any means However the driver was not really interested in looking for the best spot to find Northern Lights instead he was going for what was convenient which was about 10 mins away from the airport in an area full of HOUSES lit up with Christmas decorations Despite what the aurora forecast said he insisted that we stay in that spot It was very cold and windy so we stayed in the minibus for almost 2 hours waiting From the start there were other passengers that voiced out their concerns of the chosen area based on what they were seeing on the aurora tracker we were too far south we needed to go north in order to get clearer skies One of the passengers was very upset because this was his second time and we were going to the same spot he had unsuccessfully visited to a few days ago with another driver Our driver didn t want to hear what the other passengers were saying There were a few other minibuses that were but eventually left either to go home or look for a better spot As for that free re-booking if you don t get to see anything the first trip good luck Sure you can re-book if they have availability and if it still fits your schedule Even though I left time to do this in our schedule they did not have space for 2 other dates I tried to re-book and the day before our tour already got cancelled because of the snow They said we have up to a year to re-book and it s transferable but realistically we will never use it nor would we recommend this to anyone even if it s free We paid almost 300 for 2 adults 1 adults we definitely felt ripped off In the end since we also had a car we went on our own we caught a glimpse of it but still way better than going on a tour if you are able to