Oslo is very expensive so finding a hotel within a reasonable price might be tricky. Having been to Oslo (and other cities in Scandinavia) now gives me a good perspective—if I only would have known this before! What I would do if I were to go back is look, research, and look some more for deals, offers or any type of special that a hotel or BB may have. Unfortunately we were not flexible with our date so that also limited us tremendously. Also this hotel markets itself as a 3 star hotel—WRONG! More like one star, and they put up pictures that look nothing like the real thing! This is what bothered me the most, this hotel is misleading online. Stay here only if you have no other choice. I’ll go into detail about our experience, and why you should avoid this place. Keep in mind that we paid $195.00 USD for one night.
1. The hotel is extremely old. Our room was so tattered that it was hard to know if it was dirty or just worn out. The walls were yellowish there were holes in the walls and doors! I took pictures which I will try to upload. The furniture was very old, we had no bedding on the bed—just a sheet. The bathroom was full of grime.
2. The room was abnormally hot. I don’t remember the hotel number but we were in a top floor (5 or 6) heat rises. All of Scandinavia is either behind on the news or in denial about global warming. We visited 3 Scandinavian countries last week and were hit with temperatures that reached the 90’s. However, each and every time I asked if there was a fan or A/C I was told “It’s hardly ever warm here, we don’t need a fan or A/C”. This caught my curiosity so much that I went out of my way to ask a friend who has been living in Copenhagen for the past 7 years. He confirmed that it has been getting progressively warmer each summer since he’s lived there. Looks like sooner or later you’ll need to invest in A/C or at least more fans Scandinavia.
3. You may not sleep. We got a room facing the main street (if you have to stay in this hotel avoid rooms that face the main street—maybe if you’re away from the main street you will have a chance to sleep. If you get a main street room I guarantee you, you will NOT sleep). Given that it was warm, when we were told that we were getting a room with a balcony I was happy because at least we would have fresh air (since there is no A/C). By the way the view was depressing and the balcony itself was falling apart, we were worried to even go out there. I asked the manager of the hotel what time the train stopped running, I don’t know if she played dumb, didn’t know or just plain lied, she said that the trains stopped running at 12:30am. NOT CORRECT! The trains run almost all night and there is constant noise, people, cars, etc. If you get a room close to the main street your options are to keep the balcony door or window closed and suffocate or leave it open and listen to the noise outside all night. Either way you won’t sleep.
4. The staff is rude they don’t care about the customers, avoid a problem and don’t ask them for anything because they won’t help you. We were tired and really wanted to sleep so I made the mistake of going downstairs at 3:00am to ask for suggestions on what to do, the noise and heat were keeping us up, maybe they had a fan so we could close the window. It was a big mistake because the person working the night shift practically laughed, brushed me off and said: “sorry you should have known what you were getting when you booked online, you should have seen the pictures.” I was so in shock I asked for his name to which he replied “No, I will not give you my name, if you have a problem talk to the manager tomorrow.” So I went back to the room and tried uselessly to get some rest. The next day I did ask for the manager and explained to her what had happened the night before. She was very nice, apologetic and mentioned that they have plenty of fans for guest and that the night shift person should have just given us one. Again, I will never know if this is correct or not. But if you stay here and it’s warm just ask for a fan up front.
5. The food is pathetic. It’s insulting! The sandwich options are gross and the coffee machines downstairs don’t work. If you’re really hungry or want a snack go next door to Lucca.
Good luck.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC