![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/fransiskus-hotel.jpg?resize=372%2C277&ssl=1\")
Fransiskus hotel, Stykkisholmur, Iceland<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n Loas nest hotel, Iceland<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n The worst<\/p>\n *note that this article does not refer to either of the above establishments, which are very good<\/strong>, and here only to illustrate the article, which we do not want to illustrate with the bad establishment<\/em><\/p>\n We had successfully completed the first leg of our delightful autumn Iceland Tour<\/strong> and most of the group had departed from Keflavik airport<\/strong> to head back home to the USA or to the UK. Now it was just Florinda and I, and our favourite clients, M and C. This couple were going to continue with us for another 4 nights, to catch up with the first part of the tour that they had missed by arriving for the tour on a later date.<\/p>\n M and C had been on at least half a dozen private tours with us around Spain and so we were pretty relaxed in each other\u2019s company. This short article is about the place we stayed on the outskirts of Reykjavik for the first \u201cchangeover\u201d night, which would have been quite a test for any lesser relationship.<\/p>\n For that one night I had perused the listings on Booking.com and ended up booking us private rooms in a building located on the outskirts of Reykjavik. When we got there the neighbourhood had the look and feel of a depressing crossover between a drive-through suburb and a half-hearted industrial estate.<\/p>\n That was just the outside. On the inside the plumbing and the central heating may well have dated from the Victorian era, after the era had passed, and the pipes and other stuff had been ripped out of houses in the UK to be shipped to Iceland and reinstalled as the cheapest available alternative of the time. That judging by the appearance, the noise and its effectiveness.<\/p>\n The toilet was leaking, as in one of those little runnels of water that you hope you\u2019ve stepped over as it makes its way across the tiled floor to try and escape from the \u201cbathroom\u201d. And worse still, this room was \u201cthe\u201d bathroom, because in Iceland en-suite bathrooms were and are, even to this day, far from being a universal concept in guest houses and hotels.<\/p>\n \u201cBreakfast included\u201d they said. It\u2019s just your bad luck if you don\u2019t like cornflakes. Grab yourself some sliced bread and pop it in the toaster, if that group of four hungry youths who came before you have left any. And if there is a toaster.<\/p>\n God it\u2019s getting cold in here and what’s more I knew I shouldn\u2019t have eaten all of that kebab, even if it was the only food we could get our hands on. Now it\u2019s just the thought of that toilet \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cWell it looks like there\u2019s a good thick blanket on the bed,\u201d said Florinda, cheeringly, as we were preparing to say good night to M and C. \u201cWhat rating would you give your accommodation in Reykjav\u00edk?\u201d I was later asked by an email from Booking. So I wrote the review; the only negative one I have ever written for Booking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Booking.com, Part 2 The worst *note that this article does not refer to either of the above establishments, which are very good, and here only to illustrate the article, which we do not want to illustrate with the bad establishment We had successfully completed the first leg of our delightful autumn Iceland Tour and most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[319,22,321,41,100,322,320,130],"class_list":["post-2491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-in-spain","tag-accommodation","tag-birding","tag-booking","tag-iceland","tag-iceland-tour","tag-keflavik","tag-reykjavik","tag-tour"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7I752-Eb","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2491"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2504,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491\/revisions\/2504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/loas-nest-hotel.jpg?resize=370%2C275&ssl=1\")
\n\u201cAnd we can get an early start, and find some good breakfast spot somewhere along the route,\u201d I added.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cPlease don\u2019t insist,\u201d I thought to myself at first, \u201cI really don\u2019t want to have to write such a negative review\u201d. But then … \u201cShame on you Booking,\u201d I thought, \u201cfor offering such a dive; and shame on me for booking this for M and C.\u201d<\/p>\n