Chris McNeil
Google
Quark Expeditions offers small-ship (maximum between 150 and 199 passengers) polar expeditions into the Northwest Passage during the arctic summer. My expedition was to begin in late August 2025 and started with a stay at Reykjavik Marina - Berjaya Iceland Hotels. From there our group would take a chartered flight from Reykjavik to Kangerlussuaq, a settlement in western Greenland in the Qeqqata municipality.
Berjaya Iceland Hotels’ Reykjavik Marina was a great choice for the expedition’s starting place. My flight from Dulles IAD arrived around 9 a.m. one day before the expedition’s scheduled departure. I used Flybus from KEF to the BSI bus terminal in Reykjavik’s town center; and then transferred to the bus that served the Reykjavik Marina. Within an hour after landing at KEF I was getting off the bus at a bus stop that was about two city blocks away from the hotel.
Once off the bus, I backtracked, staying on the sidewalk where the bus let us off; and then turned left and left again, right into the marina. The hotel – a grey façade looking directly into the marina and its ship rehabilitation facility – was conveniently located, had a comfortable library, and provided a perfect starting point for this expedition.
Reception was cordial and understandably not able to put me in my room just then – I arrived around 10 a.m. and would need to wait until 3 p.m. to check in. So, I put my backpack into the hotel’s storage area and explored the local attractions. First on my list was The Lava Show, which was less than a 15-minute walk from the hotel. Awesome entertainment!
Found lunch – fish and chips right across the street from the hotel, and had options for whale watching, ATV tours, and similar excursions.
Upon returning to the hotel my room was ready – one flight of stairs (or I could use the elevator) and I found a comfortable small room, perfect for my needs. (There’s even a sign acknowledging the small size of the room, encouraging guests to visit the bar downstairs, which is exactly what I did.) The room was quiet, clean, had zero single-use plastic, a working blackout curtain, a window that opened to the outside, and a great restaurant and bar below the first floor.
Our expedition was set to depart before breakfast was served, so Quark and the hotel offered carry-out sack meals that did the job. We left the hotel around 6 a.m., boarded charter buses at the same bus stop that Flybus used, and from there we made our way to KEF airport. Well done!