Scott S.
Yelp
First of all, this is a very new and extremely well designed five-star hotel. Everything about this hotel screams elegance and greatness. If there are any flaws in that designation they mostly come from their staff. I will get to that in a moment.
The rooms here are very nice. Not super spacious, but very well designed and functional. The bathrooms are probably the high-point of each of these rooms. They are very nicely designed and offer a deep bathtub, a great shower, and a very nice sink and towel hanging set up.
My personal recommendation for staying at this hotel is to stay on one of the higher floors, with a very nice view of the sea off in the distance. This just gives you an overall great feeling when looking outside and a deeper understanding about the landscape of Oslo.
In terms of location, this hotel is located central to the inner city. From this, not only do you have easy access to trains and other forms of mass transit, but walking from place to place is also very easy, which is the way I prefer to transverse the city. Meaning, you can easily walk to most of the main attractions with little effort.
Those are the pros, here are the cons. Whomever designed the bathtub/shower faucet system was obviously going for some high-tech apparatus. The problem is, it is one of those things that looks very visually appealing but in terms of functionality, it becomes very-very complicated. Normally, you would just turn the hot water or the cold water on and you'd be all set. In the situation, however, it's really a mess. You really have to figure it out. Something so simple, becomes so complicated. So much so, that at one point, apparently one of the housekeeping staff turned my cold water so far off that it had to be turned twenty times just to be able to bring down the hot water to an acceptable level. So, do I love high-tech design? Sure. But, in terms of functionalit, it just really doesn't work.
The other problem I have, and this is one of my big pet-peeves whenever I stay at five-star establishments. This pet-peeve involves the time they get a guest's room cleaned. For example, on one of the days I stayed here I came back to the hotel from a long outing and my room was still not cleaned by 4:00 PM. I left the hotel at 8:00 AM. Meaning, they had a lot of time to do the room, but I came back, and as it was not done, I had to go back out for a time after calling the desk and reporting the situation.
As we all understand, when you're traveling you like to come back to your room and relax in the afternoon before your evening outings. But, I was not allowed to do this. I really think they need to take a look at their housekeeping staff, the way they function, and the way they organize the room cleaning schedule, because this is just not an ideal way to treat their guests. Especially, when you're a Radisson Premier Member like myself.
The other problem I had with this hotel is that I always plan for a car to take me to the airport the day before I am to fly away. I went to the front desk and spoke to one of their people and she told me there was absolutely no reason to plan for a car as there's always taxis out in front. Okay, I believed her. The next morning I go down to check out and the very nice receptionist, named Kimberly, clearly explained to me that it would cost us three times the amount of money to just grab a taxi out in front as opposed to having booked a car. I told her I tried to do just that and one of her associates told me there was no need. She just shook her head. Thankfully, she was very kind and called us a taxi from the car service, which arrived in about five minutes. So, we got the establish price to take us to the airport.
Overall, I don't believe there's a better hotel to stay out in Oslo. You just have to be prepared for some of the the less than ideal situations presented at this hotel, which I've explained.
Overall, great hotel.