Tauck Tours uses both the Grand Hotel Reykjavik and Hilton Reykjavik Nordica for their pre- and post-cruise stays but Marine Steve and I stayed at the 4th Floor Hotel, half the price, and closer to the action on Laugavegur Street. All tour members were scheduled to meet on embarkation day at 12:30p, at the hotel designated in final trip documents.
Both hotels are exactly 1.4 kilometers/.8 miles (a 15-18 minute walk) from the 4th Floor Hotel (discovered on an early walk over to the Grand Hotel to look it over), are across the street from each other and have rates around $400 USD per night.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Grand Hotel Havamal window detail, Reykjavik
Havamal window, Grand Hotel in Reykjavik
After breakfast one morning, we walked through the main entrance into the Grand hotel and were stunned by the incredibly vivid and huge stained glass art that dominates the area. Personable Gunnar at the Front Desk took time to give us a brochure about this work of art, “Havamal” by Leifus Breiofjoro and tell us about it.
The several floors high windows are based on Miogarour, one of the nine worlds in Norse cosmology that is the home of humans and protected by Thor, God of Thunder and his Hammer, and refers to a poem called Voluspa from the Edda. In this poem, Odin raises a far-sighted giantess from the dead to find out the Gods’ fate and her prophecy is a history of the world from its beginning to the destruction of the gods and beyond.
This combination of different poems presents advice for living, proper conduct and wisdom. Succinctly, it tells how Viking’s should treat their guests as told by the gods in the year 600. Different poems are in the stained glass over Reception and Bar area. The three poems I liked best:
– Vikings should always sit with backs to wall so no one can stab them in the back;
– A greedy man, if he be not moderate, eats to his mortal sorrow. Oftentimes his belly draws laughter on the silly man, who among the prudent come; and
– I counsel three, Loddfafnir, to take advise; though wilt profit it though tamest it. With insult or derision treat thou never a guest or wayfarer, they often little know who sit within, or what race they are who come.
Well, if the rest of the Grand Hotel is as outstanding as Reception (which I’m sure it is), it’s worth $400 USD a night. The Grand Hotel has 311 rooms equipped with first class amenities, excellent service and facilities.
at the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik
A short taxi ride back to the Grand Hotel on embarkation day where efficient Tauck Tour representative Dale was sitting behind a large check-in desk. She took our luggage with cabin tags, gave an envelope with details for passengers to confirm, and that was it until 12:10p. Tauck Tours divides passengers into four groups. Each has a designated tour leader (Lisa for us) and throughout trip excursions and briefing, passengers remain in that group. (The Viking River Cruise to Ukraine did the same thing.)
Let’s sail away…