Help with Iceland trip in January

loubie1

Hi All,

I am thinking of taking dh to Iceland for 3 nights in January 3rd-6th as a Christmas gift, we have very willing grandparents who will babysit gladly after coming back from Australia recently after 7 years.

I have found some good offers ( I think ! ) coming in at appox £500-£700, depending if I diy or book as a package with Icelandair. It's more expensive with Icelandair but a trip to hunt for the Northern lights is included.

As I am aware we would be very lucky to see the northern lights I would probably book 2 trips, maybe 3 to look for them . Recommendations of good companies would be great !

I would also like to go on a whale watching trip, I have found a company who offer trips in January but don't say if Whales are spotted alot during the month. Has anyone been to Iceland at the begining of January ? I did a quick search but couldn't find much.

I was also thinking of a trip to the Blue Lagoon, I would like to make the most of the short time we have.

Help !!!!!!

Louise

loubie1

bump..........

Shimrod

The packages on icelandair are the same as can be found on most booking sites such as Expedia or Thomas Cook. Using one of these latter companies gives you more options in choosing hotels (Icelandair tend to offer only 2 or 3 hotels) and class of room. The reason I suggest Thomas Cook is they often seem to have a money off code, and the packages tend to be priced the same across all agencies.

The northern lights trips are not very expensive and more or less a standard price at around £26 each. There are some companies that will take you out in a group of 3-6 in a 'super-jeep', but they cost £125 upwards per person. A good compromise is gateway to iceland, who will take you out in a small minibus. The advantage of this is there is much less time spent dropping off and picking up people! We also went out with Reykjvik Excursions, which is the same company that runs the flybus (airport to reykjavik transport). They use bigger coaches, but are more likely to run the excursion when some of the smaller companies won't.

I think only Elding run whale watching tours all year round, so that is who you will have to go with. They have a whale watching diary that you can check for past sightings http://www.whalewatching.is/news/whale-diary.aspx but be prepared for cancellations and rough seas! We were there in March for a week, and they only sailed twice (we didn't see anything).

useless

The "whale watching capital" of iceland is said to be the northern town of husavik - whale watching boat tours are taken on traditional restored fishing boats and are taken out more frequent in the summer months. I'm not sure if they would even run a tour at Husavik in January. I think more types of whales start to appear in the bay over the summer months but they ran a few boat tours in spring and we spotted some on our tour then.

If you are lucky enough to see some - they only come up to the surface of the water about every 8 minutes for a minute or two, and you can't really predict where they will come up next! this could be some distance from the boat and then there's a bit of a race to get the boat over to the whale before it bops down under the surface again.

lots of fun and we were lucky to have a calm day out at sea. However - reports about whale watching in husavik can be very hit and miss on trip advisor. I've no idea what whale watching would be like from a tour near reykavik - I would recommend looking at tripadvisor.

I personally decided against going to Iceland in December/January time because there is so much more to see and do in Iceland during the spring or summer months, and there is absolutely no guarantee that you will actually see the northern lights in winter. In winter you only get something like 4 hours of light a day and the weather is not so good for getting out and about to see volcanoes, glaciers, burbling mud pots, and the like!

Each to their own, but my personal mse recommendations for iceland are:
1) go just outside high season of july/aug - less tourists, accommodation and hire costs are lower
2) if you're going to the sites outside reykjavik, hire a car and don't bother with the pile em high coach tours
3) spend a good amount of time researching car hire - it's not cheap but there ARE deals to be had if you look for them, likewise for internal flights
4) Absolutely recommend staying a night at the Blue Lagoon Clinic - included with your room is free access to the blue lagoon on your day of arrival and on your day of departure, as well as access to the private clinic lagoon in the morning and evening; rooms look out on to lava fields. Again, the accommodation has much lower costs out of season and when you add up the cost of entrance fees, it makes it worth the expense in my mind if you are looking for something different.
5) Kex hostel was also quite fun and has some private double rooms

Whatever you do, you'll have a fab time, Iceland was one of my fave holidays, and very relaxing! :j

celyn90

Easy jet currently have some really reasonable flights - we have just booked our 3rd trip and the flights came in at 160 total for both of us. Hiring a car is the easiest way to do it.

Hope you enjoy your trip - it's an amazing place, if I could get a job there I would move.

Husavik is a very very long way from reykjavik and it's tiny (as most places outside the capital are). If you are just there for a week/few days at that time of year, I'd stay in the south.

Shimrod

useless wrote: »

I personally decided against going to Iceland in December/January time because there is so much more to see and do in Iceland during the spring or summer months, and there is absolutely no guarantee that you will actually see the northern lights in winter. In winter you only get something like 4 hours of light a day and the weather is not so good for getting out and about to see volcanoes, glaciers, burbling mud pots, and the like!

Of course if you are going on a trip to try and see the Northen Lights, then lots of darkness is ideal! Going in the summer months reducing that chance to nothing and hotels are twice the price.

For the OP here's a link to sunrise/sunset times in Rekjavik next January. If you can go a little later in the month, you are approacing seven hours of daylight per day which would probably be a good compromise.
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=211&month=1&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-12&day=1
And for completeness, here's a link to the phases of the moon for the same month http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/moonphases.html?year=2013&n=0

Don't get too hung up on whether it is a full moon or not - we had a full moon in March and I still got some good photographs - the moonlight illuminates the landscape. We are going back again in October (this winter should be peak for solar storm activity that gives rise the northern lights), and I've timed this one for a new moon.

Racheldevon

We visited Iceland in December just prior to Christmas. Yes it didn't get light until about 10.30/11am, and it's dark by 3.30/4, but this is ideal for seeing the lights potentially.

We stayed here: http://www.bluelagoon.com/ in the clinic, which gives you free entry to the lagoon at the clinic, but also free entry to the geothermal blue lagoon next door. There's a good restaurant (lava) there. If you stay here you will need to hire a car as it's pretty remote, but this is good in terms of no light pollution at night.

No whale watching available at this time of year as someone else said, and limitations in terms of trips - it's not worth doing some of the bigger 10/12 hour trips when most of it will be in darkness!

MrSmartprice

We were in Iceland a couple of weeks ago on a cruise, and went to Akureyri and Reykjavik. As we didn't have much time we decided to take a tour, using a local company rather than book through the ship.

We did the 'Golden Circle' from Reykjavik which takes in the waterfalls, geysers and Thingvellir National Park. It was on a minibus with an excellent guide and cost £40 per person - worth every penny.

This is the company we used: http://www.iceland4you.is/eng/

Shimrod

Racheldevon wrote: »

No whale watching available at this time of year as someone else said, and limitations in terms of trips - it's not worth doing some of the bigger 10/12 hour trips when most of it will be in darkness!

Whale watching is available all year round in Reykjavik with Elding
http://elding.is/our_tours/?ew_news_onlyarea=content1&ew_news_onlyposition=0&cat_id=76217&ew_0_a_id=360145

Be prepared for the trip to be cancelled though due to rough seas.

loubie1

Thank you for all your help !

I have finally managed to pin dh down to find out when he is working over the Christmas period.

I am going to have to change our dates to 28th Dec-1st Jan which is going to cost a bit more, but also offer us more in terms of things to do ( NYE ! ) and we are having a extra night. I know the summer would be nice, but even though it's a small chance I would love to see the Northern lights

Will take a look at all the options and hopefully book something today :D

Louise