Migle helped us plan a perfect trip!
Iceland
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Jun 5 - Jun 29, 2024
Migle helped us plan a perfect month-long trip to Scandinavia. She was easily reachable while we were traveling, which made us feel well taken care of. She came up with great activities and hotels and had all of the transportation worked out perfectly for a smooth trip.
There were things that she recommended that I would have never thought of or planned that we all enjoyed-- like the zip line/biking in Flam, Norway. That was a really fun day. Our overnight kayaking trip out of Bergen was great as well. Our guide Michael was great and we stayed at a beautiful historic farmhouse on a remote island which really made the trip easy (and my wife much happier that she wasn't going to be on the ground in a tent!)
Our 4-day trek in Iceland was perfect as well and was the highlight of our trip. Iceland has many beautiful places to see but you really get a feel for the geology and scenery when you get to the interior (away from the tourists) and hike between the remote huts.
The recommendations for things to see and do gave us a great starting point for our explorations of all the cities and natural sites we visited (Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, the fjords, and Iceland). The restaurant recommendations also helped a lot.
Migle arranged for all the transfers by train, which was fun since we don't use them much at home. The recommendations for the Copenhagen Card (free museums and transit) and the app for Stockholm's system made travel easy and enabled us to see more than we would have had we needed to pay each time. Super convenient and helpful.
It was a really memorable trip for our family and we're really appreciative of Migle and KimKim for making it easy.
Hotel Reviews
Loved the location for this hotel-- on the water and near the palace. We had a family room and crammed 4 of us in it. It was very tight for 4. The service was great and the breakfast was perfect. My complaints are the size of that room was small and the windows in the historic building are small. The dining area where breakfast is served doesn't look out at the water (not sure if it was because of construction or if that's permanent). Otherwise a great place to stay.
I was angry when we arrived and got to our room (but calmed down...) I thought it looked a lot better online but our room, according to my son, looked like his dorm room. It was pretty sterile, faced an interior courtyard, and was cut into two pieces so our bedroom had no window. It was decent sized, though, and in a good location. The breakfast was good but you had to get there early or you would have trouble finding a table.
We had a room in the restaurant building and it was tight but worked well for our family of 4. We had views of the fjords and were next to their restaurant, bar, and all the local attractions. The staff was great and they had a great place to store our luggage on our last day. It worked out well. I will say that, if there's a cruise ship in town (which there was our first day) it's parked right in front so the view of the fjord becomes a city view of a 20 story building... But we only had a ship there 1 day during our stay.
This hotel worked great for our family of 4. We had a top-floor room with views out over the cityscape. The location is good-- close to the water and the main activities of Bergen but a little outside of the tourist rush. The breakfasts were great but you had to get there earlier or you might have trouble finding a table. The staff was very helpful.
I love this hotel (but I'm a sucker for historic hotels!) It's a huge wooden building on the water near the ferry terminal. There are tons of public lounge spaces and a great outdoor deck for having lunch, tea, etc. There's a fancy restaurant and a cafe which also serves on the deck. The food was great-- lunch and breakfasts. Our room was large and had a large deck looking out over the fjord. The bathrooms are a little funky because of the old building but worked fine. Our kids had a corner room with views in every direction and two decks. It was a little tight with two beds but the funky shape and ceilings made it really cool for them. I was sad we were only staying one night here. I would have loved to stay longer, with the hotel as one of the main attractions (although Balestrand is beautiful and there's lots of hiking, biking, water-related activities to do from here).
I warned my family before we arrived-- this is going to be "something"... And it was! The viking village is a crazy restaurant/shop and hotel all decked out in faux viking motif. The lodging is really like a motel. We had two rooms in the main building and they were fine. Our kid's room was pretty tight but ours was a little bigger. The baths felt like those in an RV but were fine. I think that the little cabins would have been really fun to stay in. We peeked in while they were being cleaned and they had a large bed downstairs and smaller beds in the loft area. Our kids would have enjoyed that. We got in late and left early so didn't get to eat at the restaurant but got to go inside while they were doing some work on it. It's huge and really decked out with historic pictures and artifacts. It reminded me of a viking Trader Vic's or tiki bar. The buffet at the hotel was okay and the dining room was pretty crazy as well-- indoor pond and waterfall and faux stone ceilings and walls. It's definitely a thing and we were happy we stayed there for the experience.
We had two adjoining rooms in one of the cottages on the hill. Each room had its own bath (small but nice) and the room was decently sized and had a view over the town. They seemed like they'd been redone pretty recently. The cottages are part of a larger hotel which has a big, modern building (where breakfast is and the restaurant is). We ate dinner there and breakfast and had two great meals. The new building is beautiful and has some lounge spaces and amenities for guests that we didn't use while there.
The hotel is owned by an Icelandic woman with a lot of charm and character-- she's a character! The rooms were large and looked out over open space behind. You can park right in front which was nice since we had so much stuff. The baths were large and the rooms were pretty big too. The restaurant was great and the breakfast buffet was pretty good too. The dining room had great views of the mountains and glaciers off in the distance. There was a large patio that we couldn't use because it was raining but that would have been a nice place for a drink or casual lunch/dinner.
This is a large hotel in a very small town. It's where buses seem to pickup and drop-off for trips away from Reykjavik. I was surprised by the size when we got there. It looks a little like a self-storage center from the outside because it's all correlated metal but our room was really nice and very large. We had our own hot tub (although it wasn't really private and we had to go out the front door and around to get to it). Very nice, though!! The hot tub was super clean and warm. The room was really clean and bright too. The hotel also has two large public hot tubs and saunas and other facilities. The dining room is bright with lots of windows and the food was very good. The staff was super helpful. They also do laundry overnight for you (I think it was about $20/load). That really helped us and we didn't have to waste a few hours doing it ourselves (which almost cost as much when we did it in Bergen). My only complaint is the design just seemed a little sterile inside and out.
This might have been our favorite hotel of the trip. It's in a great location-- right next to parliament in the downtown core. The rooms have large patios and ours had a great view. We ended up getting upgraded to the penthouse room our last night and it was huge with two giant decks. The rooms are well decorated and very clean. The staff was really helpful and friendly. The breakfast was great. There is a restaurant in the hotel that we didn't try but it looked good. The location was amazing-- we joked that everything we needed was 1 block away (bank, 24-hour store, grocery, restaurants, food hall, city hall, parliament, the pond, pedestrian zone, etc.) It was a great spot from which to see the town.
Good location pretty close to train station, pedestrian area. Staff was helpful and friendly. Breakfast was good. Room was clean and a good size. It's a modern building (although from the bad period of modern buildings...) so there are some quirks but it was a great place to stay for us.
Activity Reviews
Nice way to spend some time in Copenhagen, causing the canals.
We had already walked many of the locations that this tour went to. It had a lot of history and information about the places we visited but didn't cover that much of the city. We tend to be more visual and active and want to walk around and see a ton with a little less information. It was still great, though.
Nice cruise around Oslo's bay. It's great to go by the remote islands with their smaller weekend cottages and boathouses/bathhouses. The boat is a large, sailboat (but it's always under power with no sails raised). The information is good and there is some food and drinks available on the boat (although it's more snack food, hot dogs, etc.)
We loved this experience. You take the historic train from Flam to the station just before the top, zip line down to where you pick up your bike, and ride back into town. The zip line was really fun. It's paired so you can race your wife/brother/friend. That's fun. The bike ride was great and mostly downhill. We stopped at the river and had a lunch picnic in the island. I would bring food along because we didn't find much along the way (we missed the cheese place that was mentioned in the info). The bike return was near downtown so really convenient. I love this day-- so much I wanted to do it again...
This was a nice few hours touring around the area. The drive itself was great and the stops were cool. It was the last thing we did in Flam so I wasn't as excited about it, thinking we'd already seen everything, but we all enjoyed it. At the end we did the optional hike to the waterfall and that was very nice (about 500ft of altitude gain.)
We had a great ride on the speedboat around the fjords. The gear kept us warm and dry, the boat was comfortable even at high speeds, the guide was great and the scenery was really beautiful.
We had a great experience! We kayaked around the fjords (not the big, tall ones, but the coastal fjords right on the North Sea). We stopped to fish (and caught a few small guys). Then we pulled into a small harbor and walked to our historic farmhouse where we stayed the night. The farmhouse was great-- we all had nice beds, a warm wonderful meal. There was a great fireplace that helped warm us up after a little rain got us right as we were pulling up. We had a great breakfast and then headed out again. Our second day, we had a problem with high winds so we hiked the island, which was fantastic, and then got a boat ride back. Michael, our guide, was fantastic and made us some great Norwegian fish soup for dinner (sadly not with fish we caught...) The kayaks were great and the house was amazing. I would highly recommend this trip to anyone who wants a little adventure. The kayaking wasn't tough or long so it was a great family event.
I thought I would hate this must-see activity but ended up really liking it. I thought it would be crammed and crowded and Disney-like. We got there in the early evening and it wasn't crowded. It was a nice experience which I wasn't expecting. The facilities are beautifully designed. The water is warm (and you can find hotter or cooler areas). We had some drinks prepaid. The wine wasn't great but the beer was decent. The mixed drinks were fun and there were good non-alcoholic versions for the kids. There are activities while in the water-- the facial scrubs (4 parts), a waterfall to be under, different areas to hang out, places to find hot spots, and the bar. The locker and shower facilities were good and clean. It took me a while to figure out my locker but got it working.
This was an awesome experience. You get driven in a nice van to the edge of a glacier, hike up into it (short hike), explore the ice cave a bit, walk around on the glacier, and head back. The size of the glacier and the beauty of the caves and ice formations were incredible. The ice inside the caves was clear and blue-- super beautiful. The features outside were immense and awesome. It's not physically challenging so anyone who can hike can do it.
This was the highlight of our trip-- for the whole family. We got picked up in Reykjavik and taken 3-4 hours to the starting point. We hiked and then stayed in our first hut (after a visit to sit in the nearby hot spring!) The scenery on the trip was amazing. You really get a different sense of Iceland than you do by chasing the attractions around the ring. Instead of looking up at the mountains and glaciers, you're in them. At the end of our 2nd day, I think the scenery was the most beautiful I'd ever seen. The valley we looked down into (and ended up staying in that night) had pointy volcanoes, rivers, glaciers, lakes all in a vivid green setting. It was really beautiful. That hut, right on the lake, had incredible views as well. The huts were perfect. They're rustic and you share large rooms with your fellow guests. I was worried about that for my family but it was perfect. Fortunately no loud snorers... You work together to help cook and clean the dishes. The food was great and they accommodated everyone's diet issues. You make a bag lunch for the hike before heading out. Vans move your luggage from hut to hut so you only need a small daypack. That makes it really nice for hiking. The first day was pretty short. The second day was long-- about 18miles. The third and fourth days were medium. The days are long and there's no rush so it's not too hard. We were all tired after 18 miles but a nice, hot shower, and some good warm food revived everyone. There are showers-- you have to pay for hot water (definitely worth it!) and you can buy the tickets on-site with cash/card/phone. So that's easy. Some huts have snacks and drinks to sell as well. A beer at the 3 hut was really welcome...