Iceland - July 28, 2021

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Comments

  • Sam, this is fantastic! Thank you for being so generous with your time. p.s. Whole Foods stocks Icelandic chocolate; I'm partial to French lol.

  • Great photos Sam and another Baths that was not offered on our tour!
    You are in for a big disappointment with the Blue Eye, if you see anything at all, I’ll eat my hat!

  • Great pictures Sam. The Bath looks absolutely amazing. Jealous! Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to post your experience. Looks like a great trip.

  • Wow beautiful pic. Hmm don't think that weather pattern will hold for us. We leave tomorrow so a couple questions. Well actually a million but I will control. So what is the scoop on how dressy dinners are on the ship. Are people dressed like summer or more fall on the east coast? This is for Mrs. Sam - what shoes did she think absolutely necessary. I have a waterproof keen low hiking shoe, dress flats, ON waterproof sneakers and a casual tie shoe. I know too much!
    Thanks for the information - just wonderful.

  • Anyone wearing cozy UGGs on board? Thanks.

  • edited July 2021

    Dressy dinners: captains dinner and farewell dinner.

    Mrs Sam/ niece input: People dress more formal as the crowd is international. I would say cocktail length dresses or nice slacks and blouses. For shoes I would say kitten heels, black higher heeled sandals or backless shoes (mules). Not too overboard on shoes. During the day lightweight hiking shoes and comfortable tennis shoes. What you have listed will be just fine. Short sleeve dresses, pantsuits, black pants with a nice blouse. Maybe add one more pair of shoes for dinner. A stocking cap, rain jacket and layered sweatshirts or sweaters. I didn’t see anyone with ugg shoes or boots for that matter.

    Sam input for men: I wore / will wear coat and tie to the two ‘dressy’ dinners. Business casual for the rest.

    Weather is supposed to return to high forties / low fifties tomorrow. Some people used the onship swimming pool today because the weather was so nice.

    British - You nailed the Blue Eye, although we didn’t see anything it was still a neat atmosphere for a glass of champagne. As for the baths, the local guide said they are opening more and more of them.

    I’ve talked with several members of the Ponant staff about their stories when the pandemic first hit and everything got shut down. They were stranded all around the world. One person told me he was stuck on the boat for a month anchored off Martinique. No one would let them dock.

    For Day 5 we’ve selected the Vigur Island excursion. I think tomorrow is a short day because we have a long sail to get to Heimaey Island for Day 6.

    More tomorrow...

  • I wonder if people are dressing up a bit more because it feels so special actually being able to travel. I know the river cruises had gotten more and more casual since our first in 2014. Even the crews dress more casual. But after a year of lock down we no longer take travel and the opportunity to dress up for granted.

    Sam, I'm going to forever associate your name with "kitty heels".

  • Thank you very much. Again, a wealth of information. Sounds like you’re having a really wonderful time. Another question that I totally forgot to ask. Did you need adapters for the outlets at the hotel and on the ship. Thank you again. My picture is from Incline Village, NV. Judy

  • Sam you are the man. Thanks so much. To those on upcoming trips I promise to provide a trip update when I get home. it is extremely helpful to have this information so we can plan and pack accordingly. My trip is all Tauck people so probably more casual.

  • Thank you Smiling Sam for taking time to send us updates. Fascinating.

  • I would also like to thank you Sam for the postings during your adventure. I have learned much about Iceland and its ecosystems this week. Deciding to reschedule my Tauck travels until 2022, I have also been as Nancy Cohen said "enjoying my vicarious vacation".
    Continued safe travels to you and your family.

  • edited July 2021

    Day 6 - It’s 8am and we’re still at sea ( we left Isafjordur early afternoon yesterday. ). Our excursion today starts at 1:00pm on Heimaey Island. We decided to try room service today. This will be our first attempt at this with Tauck. My wife and I tend to be up and at them and eat in the restaurant but our niece wanted to try it so we agreed. The weather looks similar to yesterday morning, a bit foggy, but no rain, with the temperature in the low fifties. Hopefully it burns off to a nice sunny day by midday like it did yesterday. Will try to post more later, room service is due shortly.

  • I found my review of our Iceland tour in 2018. Some may find it useful

    ICELAND, OUR FIRST SMALL SHIP ADVENTURE, FACTS
    we are veteran Tauck land customers. We have taken the Galapagos trip twice, but that is an expedition boat. We have not taken a river cruise yet.
    We just returned from the Iceland Small ship tour on the brand new Le Laperouse, it was the second tour and in fact the ship had it’s official naming ceremony the day we boarded the ship.
    We arrived a day early on Iceland Air, it landed about 7am, but we were able to check into our room on arrival at the hotel. The airport is about an hour drive from downtown Reykjavik. We stayed at the Tauck booked Hilton Nordica hotel, apparently half the group stayed at the Grand hotel nearby, but both hotels were not near the town. We walk very fast but it still took us a good 25 to 30 minutes to walk into the center and that’s a long time when you have flown overnight and are walking in cold windy weather. So our main criteria for a good Tauck hotel is location, location, so not so good. For those who care, the bathroom was smaller than the one on the ship.
    We were in cabin 507, just opposite an elevator, it was fine, no elevator noise and quite handy to be near when the ship was on rough waters and the stairs tricky. The ship is very nice. We were a little disappointed in how small the bathroom was, but it did have a huge drawer under the sink, the shower was good and plenty of instant hot water, we could just not be in the bathroom together. There was a good hairdryer. The room had plenty of electrical outlets and USB outlets. Plenty of storage there. Coffee and tea facilities in the room. We were told laundry service would take 48 to 72 hours to be returned, we did not try it. I tried washing a piece of underwear and a pair of socks the first night and it took forever to dry.
    The French style food cuisine was wonderful. I never want to see food again for a few days. There was a signature cocktail every night to try. Breakfast and lunch were buffet style, dinner was full service. There were some interesting vegetarian dishes and i saw gluten free bread too.
    All the crew were wonderful and friendly but Mr B would want me to mention that more than a couple of the crew had pretty bad body odor problems, he meant to put it on our survey but he forgot.
    There were somewhere between 165 and 180 guests on board, I heard both numbers from the tour directors, but all were Tauck guests.
    This tour had the new Tauck ‘Choices’ for some of the tour days, we knew about the choices and had made them ahead of time as directed from the Tauck emails we were sent. But there was major confusion that we have never encountered with Tauck before, first, they canceled our booking in error when our friends canceled a couple of months ago. We all booked the tour as soon as we were notified about it opening up about 18 months ago. Tauck joined our booking which Mr B and I did not want, as our friends often cancel things, but. Tauck insisted our bookings were still separate, but clearly they were not and the first thing we knew was an email from Tauck saying so sorry we had canceled. If we had not gotten straight on the phone, I guess our booking would have been lost as the tour was sold out by that time. It was reinstated.
    We knew we had choices on our tours and had researched and were ready to pick them, but when we got the green booklet on final payment it looked as if all the tours were included as in the past. Then a couple of weeks before we went, we received a letter from Tauck to say they had sent everyone last year’s tour book in error. By this time I had dismissed all our research and we had to start all over. So when we got on the ship, some people had not had the ‘Choice’ email,
    Some people had no idea there were choices. We had an explanation and those who had not chosen anything were urged to make the choices so the correct buses and so on could be in place ASAP, but still people did not do that and there was confusion for the first couple of days.
    We had four Tauck tour directors and one Cruise director, they were all excellent and friendly and we had taken a tour with one of them at least twelve or so years ago.
    Whenever the tour days included everyone doing the same tour, we had four buses that were staggered maybe leaving every ten minutes or so. There was no seat assignment as we are used to on land tours and like. On the choices days I must admit that would be difficult. The tour directors said if the same people kept grabbing the front seats, others would notice. That was not the case, every time we got on the bus with one group of four, they were always in the front seats, we found that so annoying, but who would dare to rock the boat and say something. I don’t want to be at the front of the bus, but i would have liked my turn at least once on the tour, it never happened.
    There was entertainment on the ship that began at 9-15pm every night, four excellent dancers, one who was the singer, she was very good. The shows varied in length from around maybe twenty minutes to an hour with lots of costume changes done very well. One night we had a fabulous classical
    Pianist who played on the brand new Steinway. I think three of the nights there was dancing in the bar area, we danced until maybe 11pm on two of those, we generally went to bed much later than we anticipated we would. There was a singer and guitar player/pianist in the bar each night too.
    The weather this year in Iceland is apparently the worst summer in 100 years as far as the amount of rain goes. We had two rain days but fortunately the days you would want to have sunshine, we did, but as always in Iceland at this time, it was cold and windy, I think I wore more layers than I do in a NE USA winter, usually when Tauck says layers, I need one less than most people, so you get the picture. My tip here would be to wear layers that have either zippers or buttons at the front rather than things that you need to pull over your head since you will have hat, listening device, camera etc to negotiate and you are constantly removing or adding layers as you move in and out of wind, sun or buildings or the bus.
    There were lectures and the Tauck BBC movies. We enjoyed the latter, partly because on other tours the directors have had difficulties with equipment not working to show the movie or when there has been photo equipment etc they did not know how to use it properly. We enjoyed a tap dancing lesson too.
    The itinerary got switched around on several days because of weather. The best day was when we had to go to Grimsey in the afternoon instead of the morning, but as a consequence we found ourselves in the middle of a pod of about fifty Killer Whales and watched them for a long time.
    On the first night, we were thrilled to be invited to the Captain’s table for the Gala dinner. There was the Captain and his wife who was visiting, a French couple, the husband worked for Ponant, Us, anther couple and a single lady. We had the advantage of enjoying superior wines but of course wonderful conversation with the Captain. We Tauckers pretty soon realized we had done many trips with Tauck which I guess is why we were chosen, thanks Tauck!
    A Small ship tour was a very different Tauck experience for us. I would say you need about half the stamina you require to do a land tour, mainly because the day starts so much later. At this point we still feel fit enough to do land tours and prefer them. While the Iceland tour is not a good example, on a river tour say, you definitely cannot get to see as much as a land tour equivalent and you can’t get to know other people as well or have the same close relationships with the tour director, that big group is just too big to form a Tauck tribe that one usually belongs to by the end of a tour

  • Thank you very much. This is very appreciated.

  • Smiling Sam - Thank you so much for the updates on your trip. It sounds like you are all having a wonderful time. We live in the foothills in Tucson and over the last four days we had over two inches of rain. As you know Tucson badly needs it!

    British - Thank you for sharing your experiences. We are counting the days until we can leave for Iceland.

  • Day 6 tour of Heimaey Island - today was very much about the impact of volcanic eruptions within the last 50 years and what the island inhabitants had to do to survive and adapt. The weather was wonderful again.

    Tonight is the Captain’s Gala, so another dressy dinner.

    Tomorrow is the last day of activities with the Golden Circle and the Blue Lagoon. It’s 11 hours of excursions, so we will be ending our Iceland tour in style.

    More to come,

  • Day 7 - We get our PCR test (~$80 per person) shortly for our return to the states and then we head out on our excursion. I thought people might be interested in the Blue Lagoon process provided to us so I snapped a picture.

    More later.

  • Thanks, Sam, for the great and useful reporting. I'll be on the tour July 21 and am hoping for a helicopter tour of the volcano the day prior to that, so if you have a thumbs-up or -down on the company you chose, I'd love to hear about it. I've been emailing one, but they're too busy to respond.

  • Your posts have simply been marvelous. Where are you going next because you seem to have a bit of the wanderlust bug just like everyone else on this post. My Tauck tours have included: Egypt and Jordan in 2008, Chile, Argentina and Brazil in 2012, Cuba 2016, Switzerland 2017, Japan 2018, Rhine Moselle River Cruise 2018, Winter in Yellowstone 2019, Canadian Capitals 2019, upcoming Iceland 22021, National Parks in Utah 2021, and Budapest to Bucharest River Cruise 2022 and more to explore.

  • Smiling Sam - what’s our next trip?? Loved Iceland!!

  • Sam, while you're sitting on the deck sipping Daquiris and frolicking in the waterfalls (upside down), I had the most physically exhausting day of my life a few days ago - Hiked a 14er. Took bout 5 1/2 hours. Never again :)

    Thanks for the reports and have a good trip home.

  • Smiling Sam - Thank you so much for the wonderful photos and updates. How was the Saga Lounge in Reykjavík? We will have over four hours wait until our flight back to the US much longer than we would have liked.

  • Thanks for the excellent commentary, Sam. Safe travels home.

  • Yes, Sam, many kudos, you are quite a detailed reporter and have whetted our appetites for sure. Noreen, Saga Lounge, once I found entrance, I remember was small but had a lovely spread, esp. the sweets! It was b/f Security way back when.

  • Judy - Helicopter tour got cancelled at the last moment due to low clouds in the area - BUMMER! First thing all week to go south. I think my wife was relieved because she was a bit frightened by the thought of the helicopter flight. Hence have some time for an additional post.

    AlanS - thanks for the photo flip. Sure wish they had a preview mode.

    FYI - Any people staying an extra night at the Grand Nordica be aware that you won’t be able to get a room until 3:00pm - they are very strict about this. You leave the ship at 9:00 am so pack appropriately. The hotel will store your bags, but you should plan not having access to them until you get your room.

    FYI - The bags have to be outside your ship ,room, on the last night, by 5:00am of departure day. We put ours out the night before. You need to think about how this impacts the FYI above if you’re staying the extra night ( I wish we had known these two FYIs in advance ). You have to totally vacate your room on the ship by 8:00am. Everyone sits in the lounge waiting for their departure.

    FYI - For people with late flights on departure day, Tauck arranged an additional tour on the way to the airport to reduce their airport wait time by 3 hours. Any in this case should speak with the TDS.

    Next tours: Russian Glories Baltic Treasures in June 2022, Egypt, Jewel of the Nile in October 2022.

    It was nice speaking with fellow forumites during the Iceland tour.

    Here’s a Blue Lagoon photo of a group of us. If upside down, hopefully AlanS can provide another assist.

  • edited July 2021

    Smiling Sam
    12:00PM
    AlanS - thanks for the photo flip. Sure wish they had a preview mode.

    There is a preview mode in the forums (but I believe only for original and first edit), just not in msgs. :)

    To hopefully avoid this: :D:D

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