Our Epic Iceland Adventure-July 14-21, 2-18-

hygienist999

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jun 21, 2010
Our Epic Iceland Adventure - with Adventures By Disney
Saga of the Midnight Sun

First let me just say, Wow, what a trip! This Adventure was fabulous in every way. We absolutely loved this trip. There was a total of 37 fabulous people on our tour. We enjoyed getting to know each and every person on this trip.

Traveling to Iceland for our Adventure was myself and my DH. We have taken just one other ABD, and that was back in 2008 with two of our children. So, we were very excited about this trip.

We have made it a tradition to take a photo of us with our pups before we leave on vacations. So, this is us with our two little mini long-haired dachshunds, Cami and Bode. We dropped them off at "The Grovebark Inn", on our way to the airport in Atlanta. They only stayed 1 night. Our son kept them the rest of the time we were gone.


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On our way to Atlanta. The airport is only a little over an hour away from our home, so not a bad drive at all.

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Made it to the Airport.

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Made it to New York.

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Finally in the air. Next stop Reykjavik.

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I was unable to sleep during our flight, so I enjoyed the views out of the window.

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We arrived in Reykjavik a day early. We wanted to be well rested and maybe explore a bit before our ABD began.

When we collected our luggage, there was an ABD representative waiting for us, along with 4 others that would be on our trip with us. There was Brian, who was traveling with his daughters, Charli and Ashlyn, and Doreen, who was traveling solo.

We talked with one another while our driver drove us to the Blue Lagoon. It was rainy when we left the airport and arrived at the Blue Lagoon. It did stop raining while we were in the Lagoon, though.
 
First stop before the Hotel was The Blue Lagoon.

This is a view out of the window, very messy day.
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We enjoyed the Lagoon, once we were in it. It was a bit aggravating in the changing room. But that was really more about me, than anything. I just am not comfortable taking my clothes off in front of strangers. So, this is what I did. I took my clothes off under my robe. I put everything in the lockers provided and locked it. I then went to a shower stall that had a curtain, put on my swim suit and then I bathes and put conditioner in my hair. I wrapped my robe around me, which dried me, and put on my flip flops and out the Lagoon entrance I went.

My DH and I hung our robes together and tied them together with the robe belt and also stuck our flip flops under the belt. We then got into the Lagoon from the inside entrance.

I had bought a waterproof iPhone case, so I took it with me into the Lagoon.

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Thankfully the rain cleared when we entered the lagoon. I took a few photo’s with my iPhone, then got tired of holding it so I put it in the locker. We talked with Brian and his daughters some. DH and I got a slushie from the swim up bar. It was very tasty. The water was very warm and hot in the areas where the heat boxes were along the edges of the lagoon. We decided to get out once our skin started looking like a prune. It did not take me to long to change and it wasn’t too crowded. There are hair dryers for you to use. Thankfully I had a knit hat that I could stick on my head.

We sat and talked with our fellow traveler, Doreen. We could go into the restaurant at 11:30am, so that’s what we did. As you can see in the photo’s, the food not only looked amazing, it tasted amazing. The reviews on the Lava Restaurant are spot on.

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This was one of the most delicious meals we had the entire week. Loved, loved it.
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We had a great view of the lagoon from our table. I thought the restaurant was very pretty.TRIP REPORT-MONDAY-IPHONE 26.jpg
 

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The drive was about 30 minutes I think. It started to rain some more so the scenery out the window looked foggy. We had to walk a little bit to the hotel, but it wasn’t a big deal for any of us. I did learn that others that arrived after us was dropped off much closer to the Hotel. Again, no one complained and it didn’t take long to get to the hotel.

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Check-in was easy. Our room was on the 2nd floor. This Hotel is very quirky and we loved it. It had a homey feel to it. My favorite was the fire pit in the lobby. Such an inviting area to sit and relax.
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Our room was small, but very clean. My only complaint about the room was it was very hot. We opened the windows but the windows set back in the building and air didn’t flow in very well. The curtains were shear with no shades which was a pain when trying to sleep. Our room was next to the street and it was very busy all during the night, so with the windows open it was very noisy. I did wear the sleep mask and ear plugs. But, we did not sleep well at all most of this trip.

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After checking in we walked around a bit, but it started to rain hard so we decided to go back to the hotel. We skipped dinner and just went to bed.
 
Saturday - July 14, 2018 - Day 1 of our Adventures by Disney tour.

We had scheduled a Puffin tour the night before for this morning. We ate breakfast at the Slippbarinn, the hotel restaurant. In my opinion this Hotel had the best breakfast that was offered. That being said, we do not eat healthy and all the other options were super healthy. The eggs were cooked like an omelet quiche and they served bacon, which was very good.

We went out on a rib boat for our Puffin tour. There was only 3 other people on the tour with us. The tour lasted an hour. We saw hundreds of Puffins and my photo’s do not do justice. I wish I had taken my long lens for my camera. The weather was rainy and very foggy, but we really enjoyed the tour. The guide was very knowledgeable.
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We went back to the Hotel after our Puffin Tour. We were in the time frame of meeting Drew and Stefan for the first time. We knew right away we were going to have a great trip. They took a photo of us with the viking helmets.

This is the hotel we stayed at in Reykjavik.
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We went up to the room so I could grab my camera. We then set out to explore Reykjavik.

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We stopped for some amazing ice cream, even though it was quite chilly outside. I bought an lovely handmade woolen hat at the flea market that was downtown. You can see it in my photo’s. It is the hat with the puffins on it.

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We made our way back to the Hotel after the church. We passed a Hard Rock restaurant and there was a t-shirt in the window that my DH had to have. The back has a puffin rocking out with a guitar. So, I bought a puffin hat, he bought a puffin shirt. We should have eaten lunch there but didn’t think about it until we were almost back at the hotel. So, we ate lunch at a little hamburger place across the street from the restaurant. I didn’t like the hamburger, but the fries were good. My DH liked both the hamburger and fries. The prices were very reasonable for Iceland.

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The Welcome reception was held in the Hotel Lounge at 5:00. It is always awkward meeting new people at first, but we soon settled in with everyone. We met Heather, whom I had chatted with online before the trip, along with her DH Jeff and DS Reese. They were our go to people if we had questions because this was their 19th ABD. They were always super helpful and we really appreciated them for that.

Then others started to arrive. I believe we had 37 adventurers on this trip.
Disney provided a large spread of delicious food and drinks. We snacked and talked with the others for a while. Then we went around the room and introduced ourselves. There were several families that had been on over 10 ABD’s.

Stefan on the left and Drew on the right.
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This photo Drew took. I love how he laid out the lanyards.
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At 6pm we all walked over to the Bryggjan Brugghus Bistro for dinner.

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Elizabeth takes the lead.

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The restaurant was rustic with a modern flare. Very nice.

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The food was also very, very good. My DH and I both had the hamburger with fries. I wasn’t very fond of the fries, but I don’t like shoestring fries. My DH thought they were good. The dessert and bread was the star of the meal. So, make sure you save room for the dessert. Drew had a little stuffed Puffin that held the much anticipated ABD pins. He passed the little puffin around and we each took our 1st pin. The puffins name was James Van Der Beak. They also gave us a woolen eye mask that was made at the woolen factory we visited later on in the week.

We were all stuffed as we made our walk back to the hotel.

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Both were super delicious.
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I wish I had seen the puffin hats when I was there. I would love one of those for the Michigan winters.
 
Day 2 - See You Later Alli-Crater - Thingvellir National Park

We enjoyed Breakfast in the Hotel restaurant.

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We started our Adventure at 7:30am. We were very blessed with a group of people who were always on time. This made the trip go so smoothly. Although there was a couple times the last person on the bus had to do the dance of shame down the aisle of the bus, which was hilarious.

We met our bus driver, Joey, as we set off for our adventure in the Thingvellir National Park. Here are a few photo's I took out of the window of the bus.

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Our first stop was the area where two of the Earth’s tectonic Plates meet. There was also a beautiful waterfall at the end of the walk. It did rain on us for this stop.

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Drew and Stefan were so good about taking photo’s of everyone, not just this stop, but every stop.

Everyone took their turn posing over the Tectonic Plates that were pulling apart.

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This is the path we walked down to get to our bus. Joey let us out at the top, but picked us up at the bottom.
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We had a good bit of rain drizzle while we were here. The scenery is just amazing and the photo's just does not do it justice.
 
We stopped next at Efstidalur’II, a family restaurant and dairy farm. This also provided a bathroom break as well as a chance to pet some of the cows. We all enjoyed some of their homemade ice cream as a family member told us about her family and the history behind the farm. The ice cream was delicious.

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I loved seeing the cows.

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Drew trying to enjoy his ice cream.
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Drew and Stefan set out these metal water bottles for each of us to grab as we loaded on the bus. They came in handy. We filled them up in streams when we could.
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Wow, with your pictures ABD is a complete copy of the NatGeo trip we took a few years ago. Great pictures but how are the dogs surviving?
 
Wow, with your pictures ABD is a complete copy of the NatGeo trip we took a few years ago. Great pictures but how are the dogs surviving?
Thank you, we have never been on a NatGeo trip, but we loved, loved this one.

Thankfully Cami and Bode (our 2 long-haired mini dachshunds) only had to stay at the "GroveBark Inn" for one night. But, I did add on half day play time for both pups that Thursday and Friday. I also had the Inn give them bedtime cuddles along with a bedtime treat. I was trying to make it as anxious free as possible. We usually have someone come to our house and stay with them, but with this new luxury doggie daycare that just opened we thought we would give them a try. Our son picked them up and kept them the rest of the time. When we got home from our Disney B2B cruise of Norway and Baltic, Bode was at the vet because he had made himself sick with us gone. Saying all of that, they did great and we were so very thankful. We will use them again. Here is a photo of the little room, "The Bungalow", they stayed in. They had a clear glass door they could look thru, which was great as they are super nosy. I had access to their video of the bungalow they stayed in, the outside areas, and the play rooms. We enjoyed being able to check on them. They also emailed us these cute report cards.

They are the two black circles on the raised cot, lol.

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We boarded the bus again and our next stop was the Gullfoss or “Golden Falls”. This is a beautiful 2-tier waterfall that cascades into the deep canyon below. Very powerful waterfall.

I wish we could have spent a lot more time here. But we had a very full day ahead.

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Side note: Drew and Stefan passed boxes down the aisles with snacks, usually in the morning and the afternoon. Or you could get something any other time if you asked. There was a healthy box and a true snack box. I never touched anything in the healthy box. But they had apples, bananas, granola and such. I always grabbed oreos, twix, or kit kat bar. I needed the chocolate, lol.
 

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