2 days in Iceland

[dr&momto2boys]

What kind of budget do I need for 2 days in Iceland with 2 adults and 7 kids? Already have rental house and rental van. Not opposed to spending money when it's worth it, but want to save where we can.
Trying to come up with an itinerary for our jet-lagged family. Want to experience what we can and get used to the time change before continuing on to Paris.
We arrive at 6am (2am Chicago time that we're used to.) Too early to go to Blue Lagoon on the way to our rental house. People say other public pools are better anyway. Advice?
Should we do free walking tour of Reykjavik the first day? Is it worth it to hire a private tour guide for the small city and part of the circle tour?
We want to drive to some of the natural wonders, see some museums, do some shopping, visit landmarks and museums. We've never been there. Please give advice on what to do and what we can skip. Ways to save on museums/attractions?
Would also like restaurant/food advice. We can go to a grocery store and pick up a few things to make breakfast and have snacks to save money. Also the kids aren't exactly adventurous eaters. But they are well traveled and well mannered, so don't dumb it down for them. We're all up for an adventure!

 

[calypso726]

What kind of budget do I need for 2 days in Iceland with 2 adults and 7 kids? Already have rental house and rental van. Not opposed to spending money when it's worth it, but want to save where we can.
Trying to come up with an itinerary for our jet-lagged family. Want to experience what we can and get used to the time change before continuing on to Paris.
We arrive at 6am (2am Chicago time that we're used to.) Too early to go to Blue Lagoon on the way to our rental house. People say other public pools are better anyway. Advice?
Should we do free walking tour of Reykjavik the first day? Is it worth it to hire a private tour guide for the small city and part of the circle tour?
We want to drive to some of the natural wonders, see some museums, do some shopping, visit landmarks and museums. We've never been there. Please give advice on what to do and what we can skip. Ways to save on museums/attractions?
Would also like restaurant/food advice. We can go to a grocery store and pick up a few things to make breakfast and have snacks to save money. Also the kids aren't exactly adventurous eaters. But they are well traveled and well mannered, so don't dumb it down for them. We're all up for an adventure!

We were able to get a taste of Iceland on the DCL Norway, Iceland, Scotland cruise last summer. We stayed in port overnight in Reyjavik and made the most of our time by hiring a private guide. I prefer to customize what I'd like to do and when I want to do it, so this works best for us. That said, it isn't always the least expensive option. We are now planning to go back to Iceland again for Thanksgiving 2017. We did the Blue Lagoon and will actually be doing it again the next time we go. If you are looking to spend time in a normal pool like any you can find in the USA then I would not advise Blue Lagoon. If you are looking for a unique experience by swimming in a geothermal spa, then yes. The restaurant at Blue Lagoon, Lava, was probably the best meal we had in Iceland. Generally speaking, food is expensive. We did the Golden Circle and South Coast tour. Personally, I'd stay out of the city as much as possible. The beauty and wonder of Iceland is not something you will find in the city. The landscape, glaciers, waterfalls, caves, lava formations etc. is what makes Iceland so amazing. I'd utilize TripAdvisor and other travel related forums to get some ideas of what would be best for your family in the time you have an be able to compares costs/services of different tour operators.

One of the ways we cut costs was by using credit card sign up bonuses that we could redeem for travel expenses. Granted, we had well over a year to plan this. DH and I each applied for and got a Barclay Arrival Plus card, Capital One Venture card, and Wells Fargo Propel card. Between the spending requirements and bonus points we were able to accumulate between the two us $3,000 worth of points that could be redeemed for travel purchases. We paid for all of our tours and travel expenses with the 3 cards and then were able to pay the credit card bills with the points, so zero dollars out of pocket for the tours and travel related expenses. Hope this helps!

 

[mster425]

We landed in Iceland at 6am. By the time we got our luggage, rental car, changed money- it was 8 am and BL was open. It was also not crowded at all because the tour buses didn't start arriving until 9-10 am. I would do a Golden Circle tour, with that many people you should be able to book a private tour for not too much money. What time of the year are you going? If it's in the summer you'll have daylight until very late which helps when you're short on touring time!

We also did our own "food tour" of Reykjavik. Milkshake at the Big Lebowski Bar, hot dog and lobster soup from the food truck, etc.

Food is REALLY expensive there. If eating at a restaurant I'd budget 50/pp/ meal for the adults. The touring itself is relatively inexpensive because it's all hiking and national park stuff.

What kind of budget do I need for 2 days in Iceland with 2 adults and 7 kids? Already have rental house and rental van. Not opposed to spending money when it's worth it, but want to save where we can.
Trying to come up with an itinerary for our jet-lagged family. Want to experience what we can and get used to the time change before continuing on to Paris.
We arrive at 6am (2am Chicago time that we're used to.) Too early to go to Blue Lagoon on the way to our rental house. People say other public pools are better anyway. Advice?
Should we do free walking tour of Reykjavik the first day? Is it worth it to hire a private tour guide for the small city and part of the circle tour?
We want to drive to some of the natural wonders, see some museums, do some shopping, visit landmarks and museums. We've never been there. Please give advice on what to do and what we can skip. Ways to save on museums/attractions?
Would also like restaurant/food advice. We can go to a grocery store and pick up a few things to make breakfast and have snacks to save money. Also the kids aren't exactly adventurous eaters. But they are well traveled and well mannered, so don't dumb it down for them. We're all up for an adventure!

 

[dr&momto2boys]

We'll be there in early September. My sources say the BL doesn't open until 10am, but I'll keep my eye on that.
Any strategies for overcoming the jet lag? I figure we just try to stay up as long as we can the day we get there. Probably go swimming at BL or whatever geothermal pool that ends up working out. Then check out the downtown and get some kind of tour. Was planning our driving excursions for day 2 since I figure the kids will just sleep if they're in the car on day 1. We take off very early the third day, so we have to plan these two days wisely!

 

[tvguy]

My son and his wife are on honeymoon in Iceland right now. I will let you know what they say when they get back.

 

[neatokimmo]

Did you take advantage of the free layover thing with WOW airlines? If so, can you report back on how it went? We were considering the Iceland layover/Paris route too.

 

[hollypoast]

Tagging along to see your responses. Our family will be visiting Iceland this summer also. So far we are planning to use TripAdvisor to pick destinations to visit which will roughly follow the circle island tour. We decided to book the Blue Lagoon on the day we fly out to return home. Our flights are scheduled for later in the day so we made 9 am reservations at BL to give us time to relax, have lunch, etc. before heading over to the airport.

 

[AlohaNow]

We will also have two days in Iceland this June. DH and I have been there before but our kids haven’t. We are doing the stopover on our way back from Copenhagen on Icelandair. Since paying for four people to do a grand circle tour is a lot, we opted to just rent a car and kind of do it ourselves. I remember going on the bus tour and it was about an 8 hour tour. My kids would not be into that! We also plan to do the Blue Lagoon and/or a geothermal pool in town. The city of Reykjavík itself is not very large and is very walkable. Truth be told, we leave in five weeks but really haven’t planned the Iceland part of the trip yet, with the exception of lodging. So I look forward to reading about what you all have planned!

 

[Earstou]

We did Iceland for 5 days a few years ago. The day we flew in ended up being a short day because we were all so exhausted. We were out of the airport and in our rental car pretty quickly (even after having to change cars due to a broken seat back), so early that we had to wait 1/2 an hour for a donut shop to open in a nearby town. Funny thing, we knew it was open when we saw two police cars pull up!
Since it was so early and things weren't open yet, we visited Reykjanesfólkvangur Reserve which has some volcanic features in it, on our way from Keflavik to Reykjavik. That day is somewhat of a blur to me, I think we just toured around the city. I know we ended the day at the Settlement Exhibition - Landnamssyningin, a museum on the site of an excavated Viking longhouse in downtown Reykjavik. We enjoyed both of those activites.
I highly recommend visiting The Pearl while you are in Reykjavik. They have an outside walkway all around the dome that gives you a spectacular view over Reykjavik and the surrounding area. It was a cold windy day when we were up there, but the view is so worth it! There is a museum, a revolving restaurant, and a cafe at the Pearl. We only tried the cafe, which had a nice assortment of food and a great view!
On other days, on our own, we did a whale watch cruise, the Hellisheidi power plant tour (might pair up nicely with Reykjanesfólkvangur Reserve), the Golden Circle drive and two other things which I would not recommend for a short visit, the Settlement Centre Museum in Borgarnes and the iceberg lagoon, Jökulsárlón. I do highly recommend Jökulsárlón, but it's about 4 1/2 hours to drive there. If anyone goes to Jökulsárlón, don't make the mistake we did and get there after they shut the boat rides down.
We had a jeep tour thru Icelandair that took us to Thingvellir National Park, a few waterfalls, a lava tube and up on a glacier. This was a very fun tour and we would love to do it again on our next trip. Wouldn't be a good first day thing, as it's about 9 hours long and we probably would have slept thru some of it!!
Food can be very expensive, with sit-down places easily being $40 to $50 an entree. I read that lunch can be less expensive and I think we paid about $25 to $30 an entree the day we ate at the harbor. We didn't do much fine dining, as we had a picky kid with us, and some of the entrees scared him off.
I also read: the most popular restaurant in Iceland is a hot dog stand; and to check out gas stations for fast food options! We found the hot dog stand by the harbor in downtown Reykjavik and the hot dogs were delicious, mostly lamb with some pork and beef. DS requested we go back a couple of times and we didn't object too much!! Conde Nast even says the one thing to eat in Iceland is hot dogs! You can also get hot dogs at the gas stations. Especially when touring outside Reykjavik, we used the gas stations, as we had trouble sometimes finding a place to eat. Our jeep driver/tour guide told us a traditional Iceland lunch will be soup and bread, which was the only option we found at a couple of places.


E.T.A. I should probably add this was in early May, before summer crowds and weather!