ICELANDIC MOUNTAIN GUIDES

Awesome experience

Great experience with our guide Soffia on the 5 hours walk. We enjoyed it a lot, this tour was amazing ! Soffia was nice, thoughtful, and you can see that she really appreciates her job.

Muy buen tour. Contratamos el de 3,5 horas y aunque se nos hizo corto ya que hay que andar mucho hasta llegar al glaciar, realmente solo estuvimos encima del glaciar algo más de una hora. La guía (Gabi) muy simpática y explicaba todo muy bien.

A great day on the glacier. Excellent and strict guide, Fie, who told us all she knew about the ice. We learned the proper walking with crampons, went into the ice cave underneath the glacier tongue and did both climbing and abseiling on ropes. It is a whole day tour, starting at nice to collect the gear and back at the skaftafel camp at 1530. The hike is not terribly long, but intense due to the crampons and uneven terrain. Always look where you out your feet!
Our children enjoyed it tremendously, but if you go, make sure you are fit and have strong legs and ankles. You must have high shoes with you and use the prescribed equipment provided by your guide. Bring enough water or tea with you plus a lunchpack. There is one break at the ice cave, no further breaks.

We booked and prepaid the glacier express walk 2 months ago. We were at Skaftafel parking 20min before and tried to find the meeting point but there was no sign and the reservation documents referred vaguely to go to the Skaftafell base with no GPS or link. 9 minutes before I call them but I am on hold and when I finally talk to someone he's in Rekyavik and we tries to help from a distance, time passes by and when we finally are on our way to the meeting point he said he would let the guide know we are on our way. We arrive at the meeting point just a couple of minutes late, the Skaftafell base is locked and nobody there. We call back and they say they are sorry we just missed it.

They offered us the next morning trip but it was more expensive and we would have to pay the difference. Unfortunately we did not have the money or the time to do that,as we had already plans to leave the area the next morning.

I am unhappy for the whole experience because I had this planned a long time ago, and had promised this to my two boys who were devastated. I think they could have organized it better with more clear instructions. Since it is a small group experience they could even try to communicate with us when they see time passes by and there's no show, we are travellers and a lot of things could happen when you're on the road.

Secondly, there's poor communication, the guy from Rekyavik headquarters should immediately call the guide in his mobile and ask him to wait for a couple of minutes. Instead he texted the guide 1 minute before our arrival and that's how we missed our glacier experience.Maybe there should be another person in the base not just a guide who tries to do everything.

Finally, since no equipment was used and there was a smaller group they should offer even a partial refund, since the option they offered us wouldn't suit us.
I am really sorry.