The Ion Adventure Hotel is located in Þingvellir, Iceland. You get there by taking route 36, unless it is winter, in which case you have to go a different way because the road is closed. Winter remember, is October to May.
With the whole area to choose from, they decided to build the hotel next to the geothermal power station. You really can smell the sulphur, which smells like eggs, but it didn’t bother us.
“We have the whole of Iceland to choose from: where shall we build our hotel?” “Next to the power station!” “But won’t it smell of eggs the whole time?” “Yes, it will be a feature.”
The location is very convient for exploring Geysir, Gullfuss and Þingvellir. All of these are within an hour’s drive. When both the clouds clear and the wind blows the steam from the power station out of the way, you get a beautiful view.
They have a huge huge tub (it is an eight metre pool, half a metre deep). If anything it was too hot, especially for Elina and the bump. I loved it. I went in twice a day, once after breakfast and once before going to bed. It was only really that Elina insisted on doing things that caused me to get out.
Once end of the building is given over to their Northern Lights Bars. We didn’t see any of the Northern Lights, given it was light the whole time, but we did get a beautiful panoramic view of the surrounding countryside.
Click to see in full size.
They have a restaurant, and also offer a bar menu (which seems to be bigger than the restaurant menu) in the Northern Lights Bar.
The room itself was nice. There was desk and chair, the bed was comfortable, and it came with a floor to ceiling window looking out onto the snow-capped mountain. The curtains did an excellent job of blocking out the light.
Some of it felt a bit dated, and maybe in need of a little love. The above shows the handle on our window. However, the window did open fully, and much of the hotel was modern: every room had an iPad Mini and their communal areas were filled with Sonos Play:3s.
I would definitely stay here again. The staff were friendly, the room was nice and the view was excellent.
After months of hyping the Blue Lagoon up to myself, I was sure it would actually be a disappointment when we got there. But it wasn’t. It was amazing. We spent seven hours there, and only left after that because Elina was bored.
We booked the 9am-10am slot, which made for an early start. However, when we got there there was no queue, whereas when we left at 4pm, the queue was huge. The ticket is for the whole day, so being lazy is the only advantage of booking a later slot.
The water is heated to around body temperature and there are warmer and cooler bits. There is a special section at the far end that is extra hot. The in-water bar is brilliant, once you pushed your way past all the Finns. You just rock up and order a drink, including alcohol, slushies and smoothies. Everything is charged to your electronic bracelet that you pay for at the end of your trip.
Some of the stuff was a bit naff: such as the cave, but the real area for improvement would probably by the additional of some shade. We spent some time hanging out in one little corner to avoid too much direct sunlight.
We had lunch in the Lava restaurant.
The food was very good, and you could eat in your bathrobe. Our package included some sparking wine, which they had an alcohol-free version of.
After lunch we had an in-water massage. This was alright. You lay face up on a matt with a wet towel over you while the masseur does his stuff.
The water was almost completely opaque. This is something to do with the amount of minerals in it but was a big plus point. I thought I was going to have to get out every time I needed a wee…
It was an expensive day. We paid to get in, then we paid for our in-water massage, and our extras, and lunch was expensive. However, for me, this was the highlight of the trip. A very relaxing and and enjoyable day.
