Hotel berhampiran Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Reykjavik

We stayed at the City Center Hotel for two nights. There is an eclectic interior, comfortable lobby and on one of the lobby tables there is a large jar of candy which has some delicious licorice toffee for the taking. Check-in and out was easy, smooth and both the receptionists were extremely friendly and talkative. Baktus, who has his own Instagram account lives there… just another adorable resident Reykjavik cat! Our room was on the fifth floor and there was a small lift or you could take the stairs. Our room had a king sized, comfortable bed. The balcony was small and lovely and there were dark curtains to block out the sun in the morning. There was also a small refrigerator kind of funky-cool as it looked like a wine cooler. Plenty of towels, soap, shampoo and a hairdryer. There is no closet but a clothes rack to hang coats or clothes. Centrally located there are a multitude of restaurants around; we ate at the Laundromat Cafe one night. There is also a small grocery store across the tiny park at the end of the street which had vegan sandwiches and other goodies. Also, the hotel is within walking distance of Bus Stop #1 ( City Hall) and Bus Stop #3 ( outside of Hard Rock Cafe) which made it super simple to catch excursion busses or the bus back to BSI bus station and on to the Keflavik airport. Would stay here again-

Kex… Ugh such a frustrating review to write. I really wanted to like the Kex hostel it has its good points, but overall was the worst hostel stay I have had in Iceland. I’ll give you my very detailed opinion. The Bad… -Lacking in the toilet paper department!!! We were on floor 4 there were several private bathrooms with showers and also separate locker room style bathrooms. At 7:30 AM I ran to the bathroom after finishing my business realized there was no TP! Ugh. Anyway afterwards I looked through the different open stalls with toilets. Only 3 toilets on the whole 4th floor had TP! To me having adequate TP is an essential thing. The bathrooms weren’t restocked until 10AM ish. And we aren’t even in peak tourist season. We mentioned the issue to the staff and they said “just call next time you need something” kinda hard to “just call” when you have already done your business in the bathroom and you need something to wipe with! They need to have staff check the bathrooms more frequently. -The kitchen is sad in the “equipment” department. One of the reasons we stay at hostels is to cook our own food. Maybe they are trying to push buying food from their restaurant. I get that they get a lot of traffic. But the cooking pan selection is -Terrible- nasty old pans that the thrift shop would discard. Janky handles, and interior coating mega gouged out. Don’t come here expecting to cook at least on level 4. -No way to make coffee!!! Again they probably want you to pay for their breakfast. But there is no option to make coffee. No coffee pot, machine, or way to make a filter pour over etc. Don’t bring coffee grounds expecting to make your morning brew. There was an electric kettle, but again no way to make coffee unless you brought instant. -The showers need a good bleach and scrub. The walls had black mold growing on them. Considering the fact that Kex was our most expensive hostel in Iceland (we paid 20,906 for a private double, with linens, and shared bathrooms…or $153 US) compare Kex to the Svjarborg in Stykkisholmer $90 US or Halfdan HI Hostel $63 US ( in both we had a private double & shared bath) but both were awesome and had a fully equipped kitchen with decent quality pots, options to make coffee, and plenty of toilet paper. I understand that being in the city we can expect to pay more. BUT I expect that price to include: -enough toilet paper -a means to make coffee -decent cookware. The good… -The location is great. Easy walking distance to the main shops/streets. And the ocean right across the highway. -Awesome “vibe” cool decor, lots of couches/lounge areas. -Entertaining/Social. In the evening there was group song trivia in the main area, and in another a live band. -Our room a private double with shared bathroom was large, and we slept well. (Note: I have never stayed in a “quiet” hostel so I always travel with a sleep soundtrack on my phone and a melatonin) -The staff was all polite In conclusion, I have traveled on 4 contine

This one is somewhat tough to review. Service was 1-star. We received no instructions to enter and had to spend a fair amount of time on the phone (at costly international rates) to receive instructions. The instructions we received were not detailed enough. They did not mention entering through the restaurant to get to the first-floor rooms. Rooms on the second floor do not have to do this. The room itself was okay to decent. The kitchenette was nice, but the dishes were in the dishwasher when we arrived. The room lacked commonplace security features like an interior deadbolt, security chain, or a peephole. Combined with the strange way to enter the ”hotel” this made us feel uneasy. The fact that this hotel is not staffed and entry is through code would have been fine if detailed instructions were provided. Plenty of AirBnBs do this well. For the price, this would be much better value if they had better customer service and detailed instructions along with some additional security features. As it is I wouldn't recommend.

The hostel was clean and warm, the rooms were well laid out, with a safe for each person. It's such an odd looking building, but that's definitely part of the charm! The large kitchen/common area looks cool both from within and from the street looking up at it: the huge windows, and the warm coloured, up-lit walls make it so cosy! The hostel is spitting distance from Hallgrimskirkja, you can see it from the common room windows. This means you're in the heart of the city - great if you have no transport! It does mean you're in the heart of the tourist traps too... so any shop nearby (with the exception of Kronan stores) will be more expensive than those further afield. The staff leave you to do your own thing, the cleaners are all super friendly, the showers are always hot, and in decent condition. It really exceeded my expectations. I might have wished for an onsite bar or cafe for socializing, but everything is so expensive in Iceland that I was glad of the lack of temptation! And if you do need that sort of diversion, the B47 Hostel, which occupies the lower floors of the same building, has something like that. I'm sure it would have been okay to use it.

The guesthouse itself was nice enough. Note that if you stay in one of the economy rooms, you will only have access to one bathroom per 5 rooms (unless you are willing to walk back to the main house and use one of the bathrooms there). This was not an issue during my stay, but I woke up super early to avoid it becoming an issue. The real issue for me was the lack of communication. I ended up needing to spend an extra 50 dollars on long distance calls because this business failed to check their email or Facebook messages. On top of that, I had to call twice because I was given incorrect information the first time. Note that booking this property is a risk if you book through a third party (Expedia etc) because you may not receive the email with instructions on how to check in (this is why I had to call repeatedly after they failed to answer my emails).

If possible avoid the rooms at the front as the buses come and go all night so was regularly woken. Bed was clean and comfortable, everywhere except the twin rooms appeared to be bunks. There are far too many rooms and people for the size of the kitchen, which by the way was pretty revolting and very hot. No room in the fridge to store stuff, bring your own knives, forks, spoons, glasses and mugs. However there were plenty of saucepans and frying pans, plates and bowls (people were reduced to drinking tea from the cereal bowls) Reported this to reception but no one appeared to care and nothing improved during our stay accept for a bottle of washing up liquid appearing. Number of bathrooms was just about adequate, they were cleaned but depending on the users did get pretty disgusting at times. Locks on them were hit or miss. Bar area was nice enough, but not cosy or welcoming, no food available just crisps and vending machine. Walk to town was about 20 minutes and seemed safe. I have nothing in the area to compare this to as didn't stay anywhere else, but wouldn't really recommend.

The hotel is okay. It’s a big hotel just next to the bay. There was a lot of school groups staying here so it was pretty crowded and noisy in the mornings and evenings. Breakfast was fine, not a huge amount of options just bread, small selection of fruit and a couple of cereals. The room was very small and the bed was too small (I’m 180cm). I got a room with a window but the window was just to the hallway and even with the blind down light was coming in all the time which made it difficult to sleep.

Quite a distance by foot from the center… they do provide a one way shuttle to the city Center, pity it’s only 2 trips per day at 1000 and 1700. The courtyard facing rooms really do open to the lobby view, I got a ground floor unit which was quite noisy at times.

This hotel has a lot going for it, but it's held back by the fit and finish of many of the hotel's spaces. Overall, the hotel just feels dated. The red carpet in all of the halls is faded and stained, the wood floor in the room had a lot of damage, and the spa is way past its prime. On a positive note, the furniture in the room has been updated recently and the pieces were nice plus I found the bed to be very comfortable. Also, breakfast was really good! The service at the hotel was also great. But that spa, ugh. It's a perk of being a gold/diamond member, but the spa is just not in good condition. Most urgently, something needs to be done about the steam room, it smelled awful while we were there and even made other parts of the spa smell. But overall, the spa was just not in good shape with damage everywhere. Also, the location of this hotel isn't great if you're looking to explore Reykjavik but, if like us, you want somewhere with free parking for you to explore the rest of Iceland, then this is a great location for you.

When we return to Iceland, we will most likely look first at staying here. It was very clean and comfortable, the people at the front desk were super helpful, the lobby was beautiful, and we enjoyed the free garage parking very much. We stayed here our last night before flying back home, and we had to leave at 6am so we were unable to enjoy the complimentary breakfast, but they did have coffee and pastries waiting for us in the lobby before we departed. The location was just a short 5 minute drive to the center of town, and the person at the check-in desk gave us very good directions for parking and even made a great dinner reservation for us at the Seafood Grill. We had a wonderful time.