Iceland Tour Co. Question
 

Has anyone used - icelandtours. is ?
We are looking into Sept. self drive tour. Prices go way down then, shoulder season and all. I simply don't have the time for research for all accommodations.

mashy - I have no experience with Iceland Tour Company, however, out of curiosity, I looked at the rates for their 9 day Ring Road self drive trip (eight nights) and compared it with what we spent for the 11 day self-drive Ring Road trip (10 nights) we put together for ourselves last May.

The difference in price is pretty astounding - they want 474810 ISK ($4,740) for their Category 1 double rooms in guest houses with shared bathrooms and 625864 ($6,197) for their Category 2 rooms. Both of these were priced with their least expensive manual transmission car, a Kia.

Just to give you a comparison, we paid $1,881 for 10 nights accommodation - that included one hotel, one hostel with shared bath, one guesthouse with shared bath, five guesthouses with private bath, three breakfasts. I'd classify all but one of these as Category 2.

Our car rental for 10 days, including petrol and tolls came to USD $826.

So, a total of $2767.

The tour company does provide transport via Flybus from Reykjavik to the airport upon departure, a fuel discount card and breakfast daily, but at a cost of about $1,973 (the potential difference between booking yourself and using their service).

You could eat really well, pay for gas and tolls, and partake in a few guided activities for that 1,973 difference.

Food for thought.

PS - we used booking.com for most of our accommodation. And if you tell me which areas you plan to overnight in, I might have a few accommodation suggestions.

Thank you for the reply. We thought about doing that and we simply don't have the time to book on our end we will be traveling owth an 11 yaer old as well so they seem to be able to handle that for us too. I have a high stress job and want simplification. I am getting a quote for $2510 for that tour with comfort accommodations and a Scoda wagon. We are vegetarian so we have enough research on that wherever we travel.

Ok, fair enough. You'll get more traffic and responses over on Trip Adviser if you haven't posted there already.

You'll have no trouble finding vegetarian food in Iceland. I'm not totally vegetarian, but not a meat or fish eater and I had no issues, although the food was bit hit and miss.