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Guesthouse review: Stay Inn Gardur Iceland – at the Secret Lagoon

The Gardur Stay Inn at the Secret Lagoon was one of my favorite places to stay on our 14-day Iceland Ring Road trip and I 100% recommend it if you’re looking for hotels along the Golden Circle area of Iceland. We stayed here for 2 nights while visiting the Golden Circle area of Iceland. The Gardur Stay Inn is a small guesthouse with only 4 rooms and if you can score a reservation here, it’s a great place to stay that’s very convenient for exploring the Golden Circle or even as a location for day tripping to the Highlands. Let’s get into this review, shall we?

Need our complete itinerary to see how we planned our Iceland road trip? Here you go! My Ring Road – 14 Day Itinerary

Stay Inn Gardur Iceland - Fluidr Guesthouse
Stay Inn Gardur Iceland – Fluidr Guesthouse

Stay Inn Gardur Location:

The Stay Inn Gardur is located AT the Secret Lagoon. It’s right on the premises of the hot springs facility. This is near the village of Fludir, which is only a short drive away, and additionally, is along the famous “Golden Circle” route that many tourists in Iceland visit. This guesthouse is located a 30 minute drive to the famous Gullfoss waterfall and only 23 minutes away from Geysir.

Check In at the Stay Inn Gardur

The guesthouse is located in a separate building in the same main parking lot as the Secret Lagoon. The guesthouse is accessed by keypad, so to check in, you’ll need to visit the main Secret Lagoon information desk. They’ll get you all checked in, and explain the process for using the Secret Lagoon as on-site guests.

Stay Inn Gardur Iceland - Fluidr Guesthouse
Access the guesthouse is via keypad

Check in time is from 3pm – 7pm. If you are arriving later, you might need to make arrangements with the staff as you’ll need to check in before the Secret Lagoon closes for the evening.

As a guesthouse patron, you have full, unlimited access to use the Secret Lagoon — as long as it’s during business hours. So no, you can’t go for a soak at midnight. But if the pool is open, you’re free to use it. Guests of the Stay Inn have bathrobes provided and you can shower in your bathroom before headed into the pool.

I liked this because I don’t want to shower nekkid in front of others. I probably wouldn’t have visited the Secret Lagoon if we had not stayed here.

Robes are provided for you in your room

Stay Inn Secret Lagoon Guesthouse – Amenities

The biggest amenity here is the free access to the Secret Lagoon during your stay. We loved it and fully took advantage of it during our stay here. Otherwise, this is included with your stay:

  • Full kitchen – includes oven, microwave, huge refrigerator, toaster (common area)
  • Washer and dryer (common area)
  • Wifi
  • Free parking
Stay Inn Gardur Iceland - Fluidr Guesthouse
Stay Inn Gardur Iceland – Fluidr Guesthouse
Stay Inn Gardur Iceland - Fluidr Guesthouse
Kitchen table in the common area
Stay Inn Gardur Iceland - Fluidr Guesthouse
Free use of the washer and dryer

Stay Inn Secret Lagoon – Common Area:

When you walk into the guesthouse, you’re requested to take off your shoes and leave them in the hallway. You enter directly into the common area. This has a full kitchen, large kitchen table, and access to the free washing machine and dryer. All four rooms in the guesthouse are located off of this common area — there are no private entrances. All rooms have an en suite bathroom, so there are no shared bathrooms here (thank goodness because this one did!)

Because this is a shared space, you might be wondering if we ran into any issues with wait times for the kitchen or laundry…or noise.

And the answer is no. We were here in mid-July and the guesthouse was fully booked. We never heard any noise, we didn’t have to wait to use the kitchen or washer/dryer. It was a very pleasant experience!

Rooms at the Stay Inn Gardur in Iceland

We had a queen bedroom room with a “garden view” (I always laugh when a hotel says this. It usually means it has NO view). The room was lovely — it was spotless and modern, and the bed was comfy. Bathroom had plenty of linens and had a hair dryer and toiletries. It was immaculate!

Stay Inn Gardur Iceland - Fluidr Guesthouse
This is the Queen Garden View room. I think it was room #4

There is no air conditioning here (as with most Iceland hotels), and we happened to stay here when high temps reached 80 degrees for the two days! We were happy we had packed a USB fan. All the windows open up and there was a bit of a breeze, so it did cool off at night.

Stay Inn Gardur Iceland - Fluidr Guesthouse
Stay Inn Gardur Iceland – Fluidr Guesthouse

Other information

The Stay Inn Gardur and Secret Lagoon are located kinda of in the middle of nowhere. There aren’t any restaurants or shops around, so if you need something, you can either hit up the nearby gas station in Fludir (which we did), or you’ll find yourself driving to Selfoss for an actual grocery store.

There is a Fish and Chips food stall in the parking lot, which we had planned on eating at during our first night here. Despite Google Maps saying this place was open, it was clearly closed and abandoned.

Fish and Chips stall in Iceland
Permanently closed

Final Thoughts on the Stay Inn Gardur in Iceland

This is a wonderful guesthouse and I absolutely recommend it if you are looking for lodging in this area. We booked two nights here as my original itinerary had us going to the Highlands (Landmanlagger) for one full day, but I changed my mind and didn’t want to risk getting a flat tire on the F-Roads. But you could definitely do that from this hotel. We did a full day on the Golden Circle instead, which was wonderful. Definitely check out this hotel if you’re in the area!

Secret Lagoon - Iceland
Secret Lagoon – Iceland
Iceland Hotel Reviews - Stay Inn Gardur at the Secret Lagoon. Guesthouses in Iceland along the Golden Circle
Iceland Hotel Reviews - Stay Inn Gardur at the Secret Lagoon. Guesthouses in Iceland along the Golden Circle
Iceland Hotel Reviews - Stay Inn Gardur at the Secret Lagoon. Guesthouses in Iceland along the Golden Circle

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