The Blue Lagoon — A Contrarian Relents

 

As sometimes happens in this life, a thing at which you’ve turned up your nose sneaks its way into your hardened, judgmental heart and suddenly you’re turning up the radio every time “Raise Your Glass,” by someone with an exclamation point in her name comes on. (That song is really good, you guys.  Give it a chance.)  I have entire Flo Rida-heavy playlists built around this phenomenon. You can change your mind about a thing, is what I’m saying. A milky-blue pool of runoff water from a geothermal plant that you’d written off as an overpriced tourist trap can become an object of your obsessions. It happened to me.

Do a Google search for “Must-See Iceland,” and The Blue Lagoon, a luxury spa destination not far from Reykjavik, will dominate the search results. Its popularity (and price tag) had convinced me to leave it off our itinerary. But, on our last day in Iceland, FOMO took over, and I bought last-minute tickets, telling James, “Look. I know it’s expensive and we will probably hate it. It will be overrun with tourists, and I fully expect we’ll be disappointed we spent the money on it. But at least we will know that we hate it, and we won’t leave Iceland forever having not done the ONE thing that people say you HAVE TO DO.” (I suspect I’m a real joy to travel with; though I do find that setting my bar of expectations last-limbo-level low means that I’m often walking around the world in a Charlie Bucket with a golden ticket state of wonder.)

As we searched for a space in the parking lot, I firmed up my resolve to be disappointed. The parking lot was filled with tour buses. Lots of them. I prepped myself for crowded locker rooms and the general feeling of disgust I experience when I have to spend an extended period at a municipal swimming pool in the summer. Wet grimy floors, the slapping of flip-flops, and that thick net of chlorine that catches the back of your throat; I knew how this was going to go.

At the entrance, we posed for a quick “Hey, We’re at the Blue Lagoon” selfie (see above), after which James leaned down and whispered conspiratorially, “Look what’s happening.” I followed his gaze. They were leaving. Streams of damp-haired, extraordinarily relaxed-looking tourists were climbing back on their tour buses and leaving the lagoon. This whole Blue Lagoon thing had started to look up.

After getting our wristbands, we headed to the locker rooms and showers. Now, a word about these showers. Internet message boards about the Blue Lagoon reveal discussion topics like “Shy About Showering/Blue Lagoon,” and “Naked Showering at the Blue Lagoon.” I’m not terribly modest, but the number of posts related to this topic and the number of people who seemed genuinely concerned about this requirement had me imagining some sort of highly unpleasant shower police/inspection system situation concocted by Margaret Atwood. I need to set the record straight.

Yes, you have to shower prior to entering the Blue Lagoon. Yes, you have to shower naked (sans bathing suit). Yes, there are frosted glass doors on the shower stalls so even if you did not perfect the art of changing shirts on a band bus in high school without ever revealing a slip of skin (as I did), you can still make this work. Yes, you will probably see someone else’s bits and pieces in the locker room, but if you made it through gym in middle school, you got this, Boo. And with over 700,000 people bathing in the Blue Lagoon annually, I say, “Three Cheers for Naked Shower Requirements!”

The Blue Lagoon is enormous, so no matter what fraction of those 700,000 people happen to be visiting on the evening that you do, you’ll be able to find and claim your own little slice of magical moonscape. Once I showered (naked) and made my way into the lagoon, I wandered around in the dusk, testing the temperature of different parts of the lagoon until I found an underwater rock ledge to settle on. (The Blue Lagoon maintains a temperature of 102 degrees year round, but some sections of the lagoon are definitely warmer than others.)

One silica mask treatment (included in the price of your ticket) + one beverage from the swim up bar (I recommend Prosecco) + 30ish minutes of floating in the Blue Lagoon = well, you know that scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy enters the poppy fields? This contrarian relented.

That night, while gazing out across the lava fields sipping my Prosecco, I made a rule. No more than a year and a half of my life should elapse between visits to the Blue Lagoon. Never one to break a rule, I’ve visited the Blue Lagoon twice now, and (spoiler alert) the second visit was just as luxurious and relaxing as the first. The Blue Lagoon lives up to the hype, and with an Iceland Air stopover (do you know about this??), Iceland and its are-you-sure-I’m-not-bathing-in-Valium lagoon are suddenly a logical stop on the way to practically anywhere else you might want to go. Your plane’s probably flying over it anyway; why not stop there?

My Tips for the Blue Lagoon:

1. Buy your tickets in advance. Tickets are sold out days (and sometimes weeks) in advance.
2. Go in the evening. There’s nothing like watching the sun set from The Blue Lagoon, and it seems to be less crowded then.
3. Don’t worry about the showers. Seriously. You can do this. Plus, what are you worried about? No one is looking at you, and even if they were, you look amazing!
4. GO TO THE BLUE LAGOON.