More about Hotel Leifur Eiriksson
Good location, reasonable price
by Scandic about Hotel Leifur Eiriksson
I lived right next to this place and one of my friend worked in this place. I really liked the atmosphere of the hotel, they were really helpful and took care of the customers. Unfortunately I didn't stay there a single night, so I cannot have totally object point of view, but what I saw I liked. It is not a five star hotel, but offers a good price quality ratio in this expensive town. It has also an excellent location on the peaceful hill, next to Hallgrims church, right in the downtown.
Hotel on the Hill
by Vic5 about Hotel Leifur Eiriksson
This is a really nice hotel. We stayed in the new annexe which was very clean, although fairly basic. All the staff were helpful and friendly.
Small and Friendly
by TripAdvisor Member gecko77
Leifur Eiriksson was a great place to stay, just opposite the Hallgrimskirkje, which makes an excellent landmark to find the hotel on first arriving in Reykjavik - just look for the spire! The breakfast was basic, but filling, consisting of bread you could toast yourself if you wanted, cereals, jam and drinks.
The staff were very helpful. On asking about restaurants in Reykjavik I was directed to a small fish restaurant with an excellent menu and not overpriced.
The room was excellent and the hotel, like all buildings in Iceland, was warm.
Closest thing to a hostel
by TripAdvisor Member tink01
A group of us stayed here just before Christmas. It's in a good location but the hotel itself doesn't have much else going for it. Check in was quick but there was no one to help us with our bags and no lift so we had to drag our cases upstairs ourselves.
We had four rooms there. One girl had a room on her own and although it was as big as the rooms with two people sharing even she had trouble finding space to put her things. One of the rooms had a largish bathroom but the door kept jamming and the handle fell off so they had to keep it ajar when ever they used it and have the other person make themselves scarce.
Ours was a family room for just two of us but it was tiny. A set of bunk beds against the wall as you walk in barely left enough room for the door to open. We had to use these to put our things as there was no storage space at all in the room just a bedside drawer. I can't imagine how a family would fit in there!
The bathroom had no space at all, to shut the door behind you meant nearly sitting in the toilet. It was quite grotty and the sulphur smell was really over powering. I know this is the case in a lot of hotels there but we stayed in three hotels in the area and this was the only one that made me feel ill from the smell. I gave up on having a shower on the third night as i felt dirtier than when i went in.
The room itself was basic and run down. There was damp and mould on the walls and ceiling in two of the rooms. Some new furniture and a bit of paint would make it a little less depressing but we just wanted to get out of there it was so claustrophobic.
Beds were comfortable but again really small and the bed sheets were well worn.
Most in our group had breakfast every morning but the selection was limited. Cereal, cheese and bread that you could toast on a grotty grill thing that looked older than me. Not appetising so some of us skipped it and went out to eat.
The staff were very friendly and recommended the best places to go for meals and evenings out but there only ever seemed to be two of them about and the hotel was busy.
I'm normally happy with basic hotels on city breaks, i'm hardly going to be in the room but i was very dissapointed with this place and although less than the other hotels we stayed in it certainly wasn't cheap.
Dire hotel!
by TripAdvisor Member Snoops30
Having stayed in several hotels in Iceland we thought we would try Hotel Leifur due to its fabulous location, never again!
The only saving grace for this hotel is its staff, the people we encountered were very friendly and helpful, but the hotel itself let them down.
Havin read the reviews below, it seems that some rooms must have been better then others, ours was awful!
The corridor to the room smelt awful - we did not discover what this was, but didn't want to look too hard!
The room itself was just terrible. Supposedly all the rooms were renovated in 2002, but I do not believe this could be true for our room. The carpet was threadbare, the furniture was from the dark ages and the "double bed" was so small that my partner had to sleep in one of the bunk beds that were in the room!!.
The bathroom was adequate but could have done with a good clean and a new shower curtain.
The breakfast was okay. The free tea and coffee was a nice touch but did not make up for the negatives.
Essentially this hotel felt more like a room in the hostel, but at 5 times the cost! We have stayed in hotels around Iceland and are used to the inflated prices, but this one was nowhere near worth the money.
Cheap and Almost Cheerless
by A TripAdvisor Member
I have recently stayed at this hotel, which I must admit is rather substandard quality. I paid £125 single room supplement for 7 nights accommodation, and all I got for the privilege was a 11 x 9ft room with one bed. This space included the bathroom, which included a shower with the capacity to flood the floor!
The breakfast choice is minimal, with three cereals, bread, and yoghurt. The dining room is basic, with uncomfortable seating.
Staff aren't too friendly, but their knowledge of English is excellent.
The location is rather good, being opposite the magnificent and strange Hallgrimskirkja, and is only 5 minutes walk to the centre of Reykjavik.
The only really good thing about the hotel is the fact you can have access to BBC1 and Sky on the TV in the dining room: I could enjoy the football!!!
Nowhere near as bad as the previous reviews suggest
by A TripAdvisor Member
I read the reviews on this site which quite honestly concerned me. But I am pleased to report upon arrival I was pleasantly surprised. The hotel was small but comfortable, our room was fine and perfectly clean, the breakfast options were ample, there wasn’t a huge amount of choice but all the food was really fresh. The staff were all fabulously helpful, they recommended tours and booked them for us, as well as restaurants and how to make the most of our stay and their English was flawless. I have to say, I read the guestbook before leaving and no one had a bad word to say about this hotel.
Basic, but friendly, clean and great location
by TripAdvisor Member Vicki31
I've just returned from a great weeks stay at Hotel Leifur Ericsson. I was really worried having read previous reviews, but I was very pleasantly surprised on arrival. The room was small, but very clean and relatively modern. Maybe I was just lucky! I requested, and got, a room with a balcony, but in hindsight this was pretty useless as it was always too cold to use it!
The breakfast was good - cereals, toast, cheese, ham and fruit. The staff spoke perfact English and were very helpful in my requests for an adaptor, a corkscrew and some paracetamol!
If you want somewhere clean and friendly, but aren't too worried about luxuries, then I would definitely recommend this hotel. I would stay here again.
Tiny room
by TripAdvisor Member lavagargoyle
Well, the location is great, just across the road from the Hallsgrimkirkja and a museum and just uphill from the main shopping street and the harbour. The chaps behind the reception desk were very polite and spoke good english and the breakfast buffet was fine.
That said, my single room was absolutely tiny. There were only 4 hangers in the small wardrobe and nowhere to hang anything wet. If i had been any taller than 5'6'' I would have not fit in the bed. There were no facilites to make a drink in my room and the TV was so badly tuned that any programs a i could get had to be viewed through a blizzard until the tuning dropped off again.
The shower nearly always took a while to warm up and as the shower pan was only a shallow recess in the floor, always flooded the bathroom unless you put towels down to stem the tide. The shower curtain had mould along the bottom and gave you hardly any space to wash, as it clung to you as soon as you stepped into it.
As an encouragement to spend more time going round the city, the room worked, but I have to say, it was probably my only bad memory of my whole trip to Iceland.
