Every good Icelandic vacation includes a trip to Ikea. Okay, not really. But if you find you need to buy something– fabric to cover your windows to block the 24 hour sun?– Ikea is the way to go. It’s also the way to go if you want a really cheap meal for the kids.
In the United States, you can get a kids meal for $2.49 (or free on weekdays in the summer.) In Iceland, kid’s meals cost 345 krona, or about $2.80. That seems like a better deal than $2.49 in the US, given the higher cost of food in Iceland.
I’ve been told that one of the chicken nuggets in the picture above was consumed before I was able to take a picture!
Here’s an adult chicken leg meal, with 3 large legs, which will only cost you 995 krona, or just over $8.
[Updated August 2017: A new Costco that opened up right next to Ikea in May of 2017. See our forum post about Iceland’s first Costco. Your Costco membership will work there!]
Next we headed to the Perlan. The Perlan is one of the most recognizable structures in Reykjavik. Here’s the skyline from miles away; notice Hallgrímskirkja (Hallgrim’s church) on the far left, and the Perlan up on the hill on the far right.
You may have heard bits and pieces of what you can find inside Perlan. Hot water? A geysir? A museum? A revolving restaurant? Let’s take these one at a time:
[EDIT July 2018: Perlan continues to have so many changes that it’s hard to keep up. I’ll leave our old text in place below, but here’s the latest:
– The artificial geiser is gone.
– The restaurant has reopened under a new name: Út í bláinn. It only revolves for happy hour between 9 and 11. It looks expensive.
– The coffee shop has reopened under new management: Kaffitár
– There is a new exhibit, which is the first part of what will soon be the Icelandic Museum of Natural History. The first exhibit includes a man made ice cave you can walk through.
– Coming soon is a second exhibit, as well as a planetarium. Those are both scheduled to open by the end of 2018.
– The observation deck is no longer free. Anyone 16+ will pay 490 krona; kids are free
– There’s a family package that includes the observation deck and the exhibit for 3800 krona. That gets you admission for 2 adults and 2 kids 6-15
– There’s a free shuttle from Harpa that gets you to Perlan. It leaves every half hour on the half hour.
Back to our 2016 coverage. But check out perlan.is for the latest. This could be turning into a premier attraction in Reykjavik.]
- The Perlan sits up on a hill, and stores hot water. The outside cylinders are the water storage tanks:
- There is an artificial geysir inside. It erupts every … 5 minutes or so?
It’s more impressive than that picture implies; note that it rises a couple of stories in the air.
- Until recently, the Saga Museum was in the Perlan. But they moved to the harbor area in the last year or two.
- There is a revolving restaurant on the top level– the only revolving restaurant in all of Iceland! It makes a complete revolution once every 2 hours. They are only open for dinner, and you can only get up to the revolving part if you have a reservation. [UPDATE August 2017: The restaurant is now closed!]
But access doesn’t come cheap. Entrees are all about $40 or more, and the restaurant told me that kids meals (chicken or pizza, with french fries and ice cream) costs 3380 krona, about $27.50.
So there’s no longer a museum, and the restaurant is pretty exclusive [and now closed!] So what is there? The main draw is the free observation deck, which allows for some lovely views around Reykjavik:
There were some buttons you could push on the observation deck to get an audio tour, but they didn’t seem to be working.
There is also a cafeteria, which is one level below the revolving restaurant, which is open for lunch and dinner. We didn’t eat here, since Ikea is much cheaper; it looked fine, but probably not worth going out of your way for. You also have a nice gift shop, as well as the aforementioned geysir.
If they geysir and the observation deck sound interesting to you, the Perlan can be a nice attraction– and totally free!
Thanks for looking at our live updates. For help with planning your Iceland vacation, check out our main page: www.icelandwithkids.com. Or see other live updates here. Thanks for reading!
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