Can Icelandair be any LESS helpful ?

So you want to visit Iceland. Great idea. Just don't fly Icelandair!!! We left for 8 days in Iceland before heading to Greece for friends 25th anniversary. Paid for Economy Comfort just to have the pleasure of not having our bags arrive with us. Now the story gets really interesting. After waiting an hour along with probably 30 other passengers we hear a faint message that all baggage from our flight has been offloaded and to go another location to complete some paperwork. The bags were 1) removed from the plane because it was TOO HOT or 2) there was an equipment malfunction at YVR and one container never reached the plane in time? I have to ask if either situation occurred why did the plane depart early? Icelandair disavows any responsibility because they have nothing to do with handling the baggage ergo they refuse to provide even a minimum of compensation. Oh, that's if I don't include rhe wonderful emergency bag of necessities handed to all of us. When will the bags arrive? Maybe in 2 days on the next flight from YVR, no they cannot get the bags here any quicker by rerouting them through another hub. Did I mention that Icelandair want you to wait 6 days before making any contact with them and then only by the Internet. Ok our bags arrive at KEF (Reykjavik) airport at 06:00 hrs but will not be delivered to first location until sometime between 15:00 & 19:00 hr because they cannot be picked up until 13:00 hr. There have been two working days to set the deliveries up and they cannot coordinate an earlier pick up and delivery process. We left Reykavik at 10:00 hr for our next location and informed them of our new location about 08:30, they replied about an hour later indicating an update of our info was proceessed and they will deliver the luggage to the new location. But wait during our 6 hr+ drive (without Internet service) they sent another message that our bags will arrive and be delivered the following day by 15:30 hr. This is now 4 days, half of our time in Iceland without any of the items we had packed for the cooler climate here. Now we get back to our hotel at 16:00 hrs and what do we find? NO BAGGAGE!! We were expected to drive to the airport and retrieve the bags ourselves. Our heartfelt thanks go ou to the hotel staff that tracked down our bags and then shot out the door to go and get them for us and delivered them to our room without us asking. O Now VISA on the other hand (Because we purchased our tickets with our card) opened a claim with the smallest amount of time, if the entire process took 10 minutes it would be on the extreme end of the timeframe, and we at least we're able to buy some fresh clothing so we did not feel so slovenly. Enough of my diatribe for now and time to enjoy the wonderful hospitality of the generous people here.

Iceland itself

We have left Iceland and have arrived in Greece. Iceland itself and the people are fantastic. While driving you only have a few speeds to contend with, 90km on just about any highway, 80 km on the gravel roads and 50 km in cities or towns. But actually no one seems to observe them. Maybe it is because you can literally and physically see forever. Want to pass just look the 3 or 4 klicks ahead and decide if you want to make you move now or later on a curve. They have speed cameras, 3 were what we saw in our ~2500 km trip, but they let you know well in advance where they are and I think they allow a 20 kn/h elbow room judging on how many people actually slowed down when approaching them. We had a VW Golf that was quite exceptional in the power department. I often discovered we were passing the car was moving at 120 km+ with more to power to spare. Pavé set up a fantastic B'day for me (us) at the Blue Lagoon with an in water massage and then dinner at the Lava restaurant next door. I will say this once (I hope) if you have to think about the prices you will either starve, freeze or both. Travelling inexpensively not cheaply is a young persons bailiwick. All of outdoors Iceland is one giant campground with hot pots (thermal pools) everywhere. I think we spent an easy months food budget back home in the 8 days we were there. Suffice to say $50 was not overly expensive to pay for lunch, you can extrapolate what dinner could cost. Oh and we are not talking about fancy meals here either. Everyone we that we had contact with were so helpful, for example on our last night we got so lost trying to find our hotel that when I asked for directions in a gas station a young fellow right away said foole me I will show you the way. Did you know they have an incredible number of golf courses, mostly 9 holes and windy but if you wait the weather usually gets better later on an you could probably play until midnight. I don't know how many waterfalls we saw but they were spectacular. Many times driving we felt we we were in Middle Earth and didn't know if we should expect to see a hobbit disappearing in the grass, a battalion of Orks swarming over a mountain top or Gollum splashing through a creek with freshly caught fish. Will try to insert a few photos now.

O Those were photos from around Reykavik. Our first sojourn was up to Höfn and along the way we stumbled upon the Iceberg Lagoon where 2 James Bond movies were filmed in part, " A View to Kill" & " Die Another Day".

Finishing off Icelsnd

I forgot that I need to insert photos first and add the comments later so this post will be the remainder of the photos from Iceland with a few comments.  The photos are by Pavé and the text is by me, AJ.

A view from the highway

Dinner but not stuffed whale or smoked Puffin

That is one of the many golf courses behind the artwork

Many of the farms looked like this, nestled up to the mountain 

Never got tired of the scenery 

The Icing on the land

A bit of artwork on the Snæfellness peninsula 

We had one half of this cabin

We took a walk down to the water and were attacked by nesting birds once we entered the grassy area.  One kept dive bombing us on the way down but I didn't realize what was happening until we got a bit apart from each other.  At that point it called on others to join the harassment and our walk back was slightly more tense.  Nesting birds were also a hazard on the golf course close by.  So much that the 7th, 8th & 9th holes were closed.

These phOtos are on our way from the Snæfellness peninsula to the Western Fjords

The next set of photos are from Hydalur true jem at the end of the road.  Best prices for a meal and accommodations. A covered swimming pool combined with a hothouse orchard for their fresh fruits and veggies.  They even had an Artic fox pup.  Some photos on our way back to Reykjavik before we diverted to do a part of the Golden circle.

This sunset was at midnight 

Gullfoss falls, the highest in Iceland

Just letting off a bit of steam

 The hot pools at Heydelar and this is the end of the road.