Our third and final night in Iceland was at the Silica Hotel directly adjacent to the Blue Lagoon. The plan was to head out early the next morning, and I felt this would be the perfect stop prior to heading to the airport. We heard from multiple people prior to arriving that you should plan your Blue Lagoon visit upon landing or departing from Iceland. I would agree with this due to the Blue Lagoon’s proximity to the airport. My personal preference was having the relaxation at the end of the trip prior to getting on the plane. After our time at the Retreat Spa, we made the one minute drive over to the next parking lot and checked into the Silica hotel.
There are currently two hotels on the property of the Blue Lagoon. They are:
1. Silica Hotel
2. Retreat Hotel
In researching online, I found the price of the Retreat Hotel to be about $1200/night during our stay in October. For the same dates, the Silica Hotel was just shy of $600/night. This price included a free breakfast, access to the hotel’s lagoon, and two premium entry tickets to the Blue Lagoon. We bought our tickets to the Retreat Lagoon separately online. I mentioned we had already been to the Blue Lagoon upon check in, and I was not offered the two premium entry tickets as expected. At the time, I did not think much of it. It was not until we were leaving and arrived home that I looked into this more and emailed the hotel explaining that we were not offered the tickets. They apologized and refunded me $222. So, this put our stay at about $380 for the evening. I was very happy with the way they handled the situation and also getting this amount of money back! Keep in mind that the Retreat Hotel does include two Retreat Lagoon Spa tickets. This cost would be over $600. The $1200 a night seems exorbitant, but when you figure this in it makes things a little more palatable. These details were not abundantly clear to me on booking or check in, but it certainly makes a difference in terms of price. I am sure that to some extent the prices are seasonal and there can be variety. Keep in mind that due to the limited number of rooms, these properties will book quickly. I made our Silica Hotel reservation a little over three months in advance. When I was booking, the days surrounding the evening I wanted were already booked.
Our room was great and the view was certainly one of a kind to stare out at the rock formations. The room was spacious and the furniture minimalist. The hallways are rather stark. When we arrived, it was already time for dinner. LAVA restaurant is located within the Blue Lagoon. As an alternative, you can make a short drive to Grindavík for a meal. We opted to do this for a more local experience. The restaurant we chose was Fish House. It was recommended along with one other restaurant by the Silica Hotel. This meal was “okay”. I cannot say that I would recommend it. If I had it to do over, I think I would have stayed on the property of the Blue Lagoon and tried LAVA restaurant.
For the remainder of the evening, we opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed some comfortable chairs in the lobby facing out to the hotel’s lagoon. Their lagoon closes at 11pm. We decided to go in at the very end of the evening just before 10pm. I couldn’t tell from looking outside, but this lagoon is huge! The hotel is very small and, except for about the last 15 minutes, we had the lagoon entirely to ourselves. It was incredible. We walked out around the corner to the end of the lagoon and got a spectacular purple/pink glow of Northern Lights off in the distance. Unfortunately, since we were in the lagoon, I didn’t have my phone with me to capture this. That being said, it was nice to sit back and be present in the moment. Having the lagoon available was fantastic and so private. It is one of a handful of experiences that I still think about and am just in awe of. What a fantastic instance in time.
Unfortunately, we had to leave the hotel bright and early the next morning. As I mentioned, a buffet breakfast is included as part of your stay. Breakfast started at 7:30am, and we were ready to enjoy this prior to leaving. The spread was extensive, and I wanted to try absolutely everything. There was a large selection of cold items, which you can see, and along the back wall additional hot dishes. This was the perfect end to the stay, and we made the short drive over to the airport in our rental car.
Goodbye Iceland!
