We stayed at Thingholt by Center from 22 March - 25 March 2024.
The location is absolutely perfect - it was a 3 minute walk to bus stop 3 which was used by the airport transfer service. It was also a 15 minute walk to Hlemmur Square where the local buses left from (we were going to use this to get the bus to Sky Lagoon). It was also a 3 minute walk to Bus Stop #6 - Safnahúsið The Culture House which was used by two different tours we went on.
There are lots of restaurants and bars within a short walk.
The staff were very attentive throughout our stay. The only negative was that the hot items at breakfast (hash browns / sausages / bacon) were cold on all 3 mornings that we ate. We are at a variety of times depending on our tour time so this seemed to be a constant throughout our stay.
The room we stayed in was quite snug but it didn’t particularly matter as you’re out of the hotel for most of the day anyway.
As extra information:
We did the small group tour to the Golden Circle and Secret Lagoon - I would highly recommend this. Our guide, Tron, was incredible.
We also did the small group tour to the South Coast - while the sights we saw were incredible, I do think you could definitely do it cheaper by hiring a car as almost all of the locations we went to were free and didn’t require a ticket - also our guide provided very limited information.
We walked down to the sea front and managed to see the Northern Lights one night as a waiter said they were already showing during our meal. This was incredible and saved a lot of money. We were able to visibly see them with our eye, as well as through our phone. I do think a tour would be worth it, however, as they take you away from the city and therefore away from the light pollution.
It was approximately 3 degrees during our stay which for Iceland, isn’t that cold. However, I was very glad I’d packed a lot of warm items as on the last day when I wasn’t wearing thermals as we were leaving for the airport, I was cold. For the rest of the stay, I wore thermal base layers, fleece leggings, merino wool socks, a north face thermotec fleece, a mountain warehouse ski jacket, and thick snow gloves. I wore walking boots too which were better than snow boots that I saw some people walking in, as they didn’t seem to have much dexterity when climbing stairs etc.
Also, prepare for how expensive food and drink is. While I had read this before our travel, I was shocked at the reality. It was approximately £25 pp for a lunch time fish and chips and a can of Fanta, £9 for a pint, a glass of wine was usually around £13, and a aglio El olio pasta dish one night was £24 and £16 for a glass of house red.
