FlyOver Iceland is one of Reykjavik’s newest attractions, opened about two years ago by the same company behind the Sky Lagoon, and one of at least five indoor attractions in the Grandi district on the far side of the Old Harbor. I considered going in here last April and chickened out on the grounds of both plague and motion sickness in fellow travellers and now I wish I’d done it sooner because it was amazing.
The whole experience lasts about 35 minutes. You check in for your “flight” using either a paper ticket or the QR code on your phone if you booked online, and then you go up the stairs and get arranged into four lines. While you’re waiting to go in, they take photos of you in front of a greenscreen; a nice picture and a picture with your arms out as if you’re flying and then you can buy your picture in front of your choice of backdrops. They don’t let you take photos inside the experience so I guess this is your only chance to have a photo here.
There are actually three parts to this experience, each taking about ten minutes, including the main attraction, the flying thing. First, the big door opens and you file in nicely in your four lines, one leading on after the last. You stand in four lines in front of a big screen where an old man comes into a nice cottage from a snowstorm, sits in front of the fire and talks in a deep gravelly voice about Iceland.
When that’s finished, lines three and four go through the right-hand door and lines one and two go through the left-hand door. There’s a double-sided screen and projection floor in the next room and so the two groups meet in two sides of a circle and watch another display. This is a tear-shaped screen which repeatedly turns sideways to make a more landscape-shaped screen and then back in again and the show continues on the floor. This is all nature – rain, obviously, flowers, lights, volcanoes and so on.
And then it’s finally time for the main event! The two new groups go in through two separate doors and you sit in a seat that’s somewhere between a plane seat and a rollercoaster seat. There’s an elastic-sided bag underneath the seat for anything you’re not wearing, you strap in and then they turn the lights off, hoist the rows of seats up into the air, maybe six feet up, and right in front of a huge concave screen. If you look directly to right or left you can see the other seats and the wall at the end of the row but otherwise, this entire screen is designed to your world. It’s under your feet, it’s above your head, it’s in most of your peripheral vision and it’s amazing.
Not only does it fill your vision, the seats tilt and swing to make you feel like you’re moving with the camera (they claim helicopter but only a drone could get into some of these places) and they spray you with mist and fans, like when you pass through a wisp of cloud or too near a waterfall.
It’s a bit nerve-wracking at first. I did a lot more clinging to the armrests in the first couple of minutes, I whimpered a couple of times and I gasped. The drone/helicopter doesn’t take into account that while it’s at eye level, it needs to leave room for your dangling legs, so at one point I shrieked “I’m going to hit my toes on that!” and at one point we dived into the river – not into the river but down to river height – and I did a ridiculous giggle-squeal that I was immediately ashamed of. But it’s so overwhelming and so incredible! It really does feel like you’re flying through there – through incredible scenery. Mountains, waterfalls, canyons, rivers, even kicking the top of a coastguard ship at one point, and finishing with zooming up Skólavörðustígur and up Hallgrímskirkja’s spire on New Year’s Eve as fireworks go off (I swear the drone gets hit – not only does the picture jolt just a tiny bit but so do the seats).
Not to be obnoxious but when it finished, the riders applauded and I kind of agree. It’s so real and so magical and so magnificent and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Someone filmed it for YouTube, which you’re not supposed to do – not supposed to film because copyright and definitely not put it on YouTube but the YouTube version simply doesn’t compare to the real thing. I never got the feeling I was flying, your office chair doesn’t tilt, you’re not being sprayed and misted and fanned and it has none of the magic of the real thing. If you’re planning to ever go, don’t seek out those videos. Enjoy it in its full glory with no expectations and no idea of what’s going to appear, other than incredible landscapes and an utterly immersive experience.
10/10 would do again. But be aware that at least 20 minutes of the entire experience is padding where you’ll have to stand up, and the actual FlyOver show only lasts eight or so minutes. To get the best of Reykjavik, combine a trip out to Grandi to see FlyOver with a Lava Show and then go to the Sky Lagoon.