Kimkim Trip Reviews for Iceland

This was my first experience using kimkim and I'm now a huge fan. I had a last-minute trip to plan and little time to do so and kimkim connected me with a wonderful travel agent. I felt completely confident sending funds to someone in another country I had never met because of the structure of kimkim and other's reviews. I would never have found this travel agent without kimkim but I'm so very glad I did. And I appreciated the ability to look at potential itineraries before making a choice --those examples made it easier to explain what I wanted to do and what we didn't mind missing.

Preeti was amazing. She really close attention to my requests and created a trip that was so much more than I could have on my own. Her knowledge of the area made such a difference--she gave me tips about "not-to-be-missed" sites off the beaten track that made our experience so much richer. I was (very) late in asking her to put the trip together and yet she took it in stride, working quickly and efficiently and staying in touch. She kept the fact I was traveling with a child in mind and created days that were great for both of us. This was a trip we will always remember, and I'm so grateful to Preeti for putting it together. We'll be back!

We had a difficult time sticking to the timeline as it seemed there was too much stuff for us to do in a day if we wanted to sleep in until about 8 and be at our hotel by 6 or 7 pm or so. Would be nice to have discussed how much we wanted to squeeze in one day. Otherwise, fantastic recommendations. All the restaurants, hotels, hikes, etc. were fantastic. Iceland is amazing.

Chris was prompt in responding to any questions and did a great job of booking all of our hotels and flights and relaying the information to me. The only improvement that could be made here is to add a feature for saving all of your booking numbers, confirmation numbers, etc. for each flight, hotel, car reservation, lagoon reservations in one place. It was kind of confusing trying to go back and forth between our itinerary and my emails. Because I had to book the massages at the lagoon, I screwed up and only booked one, but that was totally my fault! Little things like that got confusing - like what I had to do vs. what Chris did for us.

This was such a great experience!! All we had to do was follow the itinerary. It was so detailed and so easy to follow. Thank you so much kimkim!!

Chris was great!

Of course we had a wonderful time. The difficulties we had were 1. connecting with Ben after we arrived in Iceland. He didn't answer his phone, so we had to use the emergency phone number. 2. Enterprise Car Rental gave us a car which had two very worn rear wheels. We had a flat tire on the rear right side. We had to take the car to a mechanic, who said that the rear tires were illegal in Iceland and unsafe to drive on which is why we had the flat tire. This took time out of our trip, which was a disappointment. 3. We were promised that Heimir (sp?) would pick us up from Enterprise Rental when we returned our rental car and would drive us to our hotel. He had to back up of this agreement due to a delayed plane flight at the airport, so we were stuck. I asked him how I was supposed to return the GPS and he told us to leave our GPS with Grayline counter at the bus terminal when we were heading to the airport, but Grayline was not happy about this.

Without the help of Chris McCarty at Kim Kim, I would have been lost attempting to coordinate hotels and find sights around the coastline of Iceland. The timing from one location to another was perfect. This made a once in a lifetime trip as efficient as possible. Thank you

Very nice trip overall

Halldor did a great job at answering all our questions. He was prompt and always gave us options. The advice was well received and everything worked out great. He delivered on every request we had. Great job!

Halldor did a great job and gave us an itinerary that was very well balanced. We visited some of the most popular spots, but there were also special places that had very few people and just as beautiful.

Chris was great to work with. He provided good recommendations for lodging and took care of making the arrangements. When one of the locations cancelled our reservation at the last minute because of a double booking he quickly helped us find another place. The sightseeing recommendations were very good.

Our first time with KimKim. We learned more about how to communicate with our tour planner. Some our fault, some his. We had a very difficult and unsatisfactory say at Centri Lodge. The other two locations were satisfactory. Yes, we dis comment back to the travel sites on all stays.

Communication of what we expected in lodgings vs. what we had. Other tour comments were in line in terms of what to do and see.

However, one detail that would've been nice to have is the suggested resturants closing times so I could have planned dinner better, as I was usually arriving just in time.

Preeti was AMAZING, available everyday until my last day of trip. It made things really flexible as I altered my trip when learning new sites to see as I met fellow travelers.

Really was a great trip. Day 2 needed a bit more instructions on sequence of stops. Food recommendations give were excellent, we could have used more recommended restaurants near we're we were booked to stay each night. Everything was really great and we had an awesome time.

Minor amounts of additional info would have help. Example is one of the guest houses did not serve breakfast. We did not bring food. Minor

Our trip involved the Ring Road and our advisor, Chris timed each day perfectly with the amount of driving and sight-seeing. The majority of the accommodation was wonderful with only two exceptions. The car rental was better than expected and all of the tours we requested were as described.

We had requested the Silfra snorkeling tour in January and received our vouchers from KimKim in March. After being in Iceland for over a week, we received an email from the snorkeling company requesting a medical questionnaire be completed prior to our tour three days hence. 24 hours later, after submitting it back, they "red flagged" me (the mother) because I was 'over 60' which then required a doctor's clearance. We wasted the next full day driving to another town to see a doctor and/or fax our doctor back in Canada (as email was not possible to our doctor's office). We finally solved the problem with many arrangements and long distance telephone calls but it was with great stress as it was our featured tour. This could have been easily solved had Chris and the tour company communicated that age would be an issue so that back in January, we could have seen our doctor *in Canada* to receive clearance prior. My age was known from the beginning of our trip planning. Vouchers should not be issued if a medical clearance has not been signed!

Well, it was between really good and perfect. We had a great time. The itinerary allowed us to see everything without feeling too overwhelmed. We only missed one thing on the super rainy and windy day. We are already planning our return trip! Turns out that where we spent our first night (and also our last) is a great place for seeing the northern lights, we are thinking of coming back for that, hopefully this winter. Thank you for your help in everything, you made our trip trouble free and memorable.

Chris from Kimkim was a tremendous help, from beginning to end. He helped with all kinds of planning, even calling hotels I had booked separately to make sure they had the right kind of beds ready. Kimkim literally made the difference between a high anxiety trip and a relaxed one. Very highly recommended!

Chris went above and beyond what I would have expected. As a result, the trip was both better and easier than it would have been without his help.

Kimkim and Halldor provided a great service for us.

I have planned fairly long international travel before and found it exhausting. It was great to just say what we wanted to do and have it taken care of. Everything worked out great in terms of having the vouchers we needed to do all the excursions we wanted.

Iceland is an incredibly beautiful country. Laugevegur deserves its position as one of the top hikes in the world! It is also totally doable in 2 days (but painful). This was by far the highlight of our trip.

Would definitely use this service again.

We had a great trip to Iceland! Loved the country and expansive and beautiful landscapes. Kimkim (Chris) provided us with the inside knowledge we needed to plan this trip. The accommodations were good. Two weeks was about the right amount of time for this trip, as we covered a lot of miles.

Chris was great to work with and was very patient in answering my numerous questions. Glad that he recommended that we visit the westfjords, as this was one of our favorite parts of the trip. For some of the things that we did it would have been nice to have some more detailed information in our itinerary so that we knew what to expect. For example, the road out to the Latrabjarg bird cliffs was a long, windy dirt road with not much room for vehicles to pass each other - and this whole excursion took us much longer than we expected. But, overall, the trip was a fantastic one and went smoothly!

The team was able to work in my added side trips to the schedule in a very efficient way.

Halldor and the team were great, answering all my "silly" questions about how things work in Iceland.
The communication initiated by the team did stop abruptly once my balance was paid though. It would have been better to at least drop me a line a week or so before my departure to verify everything was arranged.

Probably open by saying that nothing is ever perfect so that's my standard. Overall was very good! Was a little concerned about getting the confirmation that things were booked, etc. until ~60 hours before leaving. That said, the arrangements were 99% there (first night accommodation apparently sent email with instructions - Golden Circle Apartments (a code to access key box for identified apartment) - that I didn't have). Apart from that, the bookings were on the money. The google maps and itineraries were extremely helpful - the pacing seemed right on the money - and the things we discussed were all good additions. A couple of places the roads were unexpectedly bad (from Dettifoss to Horseshoe Canyon on north coast - which threw off our timings - but all other dirt roads were fine. The details for restaurant reservations were good. No, overall is was a good "A" - and I tend to think that nothing is "perfect".

Again, good - trip was good; see earlier page for comments about being a little late with getting confirmations. I would have been happy even if i got just more of an update and a bit of dialogue to provide reassurance. I would suggest a little more proactive communication. BUT, the trip was very good; the pacing was right; the content was right; the accomodations all worked; and the day to day itineraries were very good to follow. Evidenced by "when we tried to add things - that's when we started to push timings, etc. I think some general remarks could help at the beginning - e.g. "you might be tempted to try and drive around some of the early fjords for a view but given them a pass - we've got some great ones to see later" - the itinerary was very good and covered all of the bases. It is easy to try and add - and we tried - and usually we saw something better later that was on the itinerary already..