Hótel Aska — Hotel in Reykjavik

Not at all the experience I was hoping for. The key code situation is a nightmare. We were let in by other guests as we were trying to gain access with the code emailed to us. It was not working at all!! Once we got to our room we tried the code and got an Operation Failed message multiple times in spite of checking the code repeatedly. Then it sounded an alarm and said System locked as we are standing in the hall with our luggage. Great start! My husband called the service number. It’s a call center! No staff on site to assist! He called repeatedly and got no where. Finally found a housekeeper to see if she could let us in. She said “ I have to message my company.” So she had no more ability to help us than we had ourselves!! She was able to get someone to help via an email and finally we were in our room. The room is fine. Basic and small without any space to put clothing except a small rod with a couple hangers. It was fine because we were only staying two night. Bathroom is small but again, had the basics so no issue. No view to speak of but again, not necessary. Left for dinner and returned and our code did not work! A couple of attempts and still nothing. Even after we tried it on our room door just to be sure it worked! Appeared that the exterior doors were not on the same connection to the interior? No idea. Husband called and while waiting another guest let us in. Left later and couldn’t get in again! Called and spoke to someone at the call center / help desk who said Oh your code was just activated. Umm ok?? And why wouldn’t it have been previously since we were guests and already staying there and our room code worked?? How could that be?? No one knows. It’s a call center! They aren’t there to trouble shoot the whys, just make the fixes in a moment because there is no onsite staff. No front desk. No personal help.

Bed was comfortable and slept fine. Showered the next day and discovered that the shower is powerful. A plus! Until you realize the drain can’t keep up with the water flow and the water spills over the small rubber lip around the shower. Water practically to the door. And the floor mat cannot keep up with that much water. So we had to use other towels . Which won’t be replenished unless we expressly ask them to be. It was fine, we were leaving the next day and wouldn’t be using them but it was a slight moment of panic that there was water moving almost to the bedroom space. Seems to be a poor design.

Left and enjoyed the sights. Went back to the hotel and surprise, couldn’t get in! Had to call AGAIN. Just an unbelievable hassle. A key code process is fine if it worked but hearing the robotic Operation Failed while trying to gain entry to a “hotel” on your vacation is very unsettling!

The room was adequate and minimalist. That is not my complaint. The anonymous process of trying to get support. Calling this a hotel is a stretch. A hotel implies human support, people engaged in making your stay comfortable. This was like making a call to your bank asking them to waive a fee. Painful and faceless. You feel like a number. You’re paying for a room with no service. Expecting a call center to help while you are staying somewhere on a vacation is kind of ridiculous. Don’t call it Hotel anything: that gives a different impression. The website doesn’t give much information at all so hard to know what you are getting. We are not snobs or people with high expectations or standards of anything. Again the room was fine aside from the shower issue and we managed that with the resources we had. It’s just the feeling of being expected to deal with the inconveniences while trying to enjoy our first vacation since our children have grown is a bitter pill to swallow. Having a call center to provide resolution to some very basic things like entry into the “hotel” you are paying for is ludicrous.

Maybe update the title. This is...

What began as a simple layover — two nights in Iceland between England and New York — has become the stuff of myth. Or rather, warning. I booked Hotel Aska through Priceline. It was recommended. It looked respectable. The price was steep — $433.66 — but for a hotel in Reykjavik? Worth it, I thought. Fool that I was.

What I walked into — or tried to — was not a hotel. It was a lie given form. A husk. A dwelling with no soul. No staff. No lobby. No presence of life. Just a cold, blinking keypad and silence echoing through concrete.

The gods were angry that day.

I had received no entry code. None. I had to beg for it hours before arrival. And when we arrived — myself and my wife, luggage in hand, weary from travel — the code failed. It failed for the front door. For the elevator. For the room. We were locked out of the building entirely, stranded beneath a sky that refused to darken — Iceland’s summer sun blazed down like an indifferent eye, casting everything in unending daylight and surreal stillness.

No one answered the emergency line. Five calls. Most went nowhere. The few that connected, dropped after mere seconds, as though the line itself recoiled from responsibility.

Only through the mercy of a wandering housekeeper — a lone mortal in this godless shell — were we granted entry. She had seen this before. Of course she had. She called for help. We followed strangers through the door, piggybacking like thieves, like ghosts desperate to return to flesh.

That night, we ventured out, unsure whether the building would even allow our return. And it didn’t. Not willingly. Again the code failed. Again, we stood outside, helpless, humiliated, under the ever-watchful sun. A sixth call — answered at last — informed me, dully, that the code had “now been activated for the doors.”

As if some indifferent demigod had just remembered we existed.

This was not a hotel. This was an illusion of safety. A structure built on the bones of deception, wearing the mask of hospitality. I paid for service, for guidance, for presence. I received none. No human touch. No help. Just a building that locked and unlocked on its own inscrutable whims, like some cursed relic of forgotten gods who now toy with travelers.

I’ve stayed in Airbnbs before. I know what they are. This was not billed as one. It was sold as a hotel. And it was anything but.

To Priceline: this was a betrayal. Of money, of trust, of peace. I will be disputing the charge. I will be spreading this tale. I will not be quiet. Because I stood beneath a midnight sun, exiled by a false hotel, with the fury of Odin in my chest and no key to the...

After the hotel we booked, Reykjavík Downtown Hotel, was closed due to human trafficking, we had to quickly rebook a hotel, just two weeks before our trip. We booked Hotel Aska as the price was reasonable, and it looked like a very nice hotel (yes, the photos are accurate!).||||There were many great things about the hotel:||||1) The staff were fantastic and very helpful when we had various issues, such as our room flooding (more about that later) and panicking when our bus to the hotel didn't show up. Also, to our surprise, when we arrived at 8am, the employee working that morning was able to find an available room so we could check in immediately -- I was not expecting to be checked in until that afternoon. We really appreciated that. Five stars for the staff!||||2) The rooms were clean and a reasonable size.||||3) There was a fridge and a kettle in the room (but no microwave).||||4) Very comfortable bed with excellent pillows, and I loved how there were two single duvets for the double bed (at home, my husband and I each sleep with our own duvet).||||5) A quiet location, and an easy 20 minute walk to downtown. There's also a grocery store a block away.||||6) Good WiFi||||Now the cons:||||The shower stall (at least in room 304) didn't have a shower door, and the glass wall did not extend far enough, so water would get all over the bathroom floor. Extremely poor design. On our first morning (second day) at the hotel, I took a 15 minute shower, and when I got out, the bathroom floor was flooded and there was no drain, so I was kicking as much water as I could back into the shower stall. I then opened the bathroom door and saw that our hotel room had also flooded! It was a huge hassle having to move rooms but thankfully the staff were helpful and able to move us immediately. We were moved to room 401 and the shower had a proper door that fully closed and there was no further flooding.||||Despite the flooding, I would give the hotel four stars, but the reason for the two stars (and it's only two stars because of the staff, or I would give it one star) is that I was not able to get a good night's sleep the entire duration of my trip (three nights).||||The room was too hot, and despite turning off the heat and having the windows open the entire time, it was sweltering. And in room 401, the WiFi router or something was behind the flatscreen TV, and the entire wall lit up with flashing lights from all the electronics. I had to stuff towels over the lights to try and dim them.||||Aska is a lovely hotel, but if you can't sleep in hot rooms with flashing lights, I would...