The biggest question is: what exactly are guests paying for?
Almost everything costs extra after arrival. The beds, in our experience, smelled of urine and felt decades old, with a mattress topper barely one centimetre thick. There was visible water damage in the bathroom ceiling, the smell of cigarette smoke lingered throughout parts of the hotel, and the spa was run down and largely unmanned.
This property is, in my opinion, so neglected that it is difficult to understand how it is still marketed as a spa and resort. Charging premium prices creates premium expectations, and those expectations were nowhere near met.
The location is absolutely beautiful and the potential is enormous. With proper investment, care and competent management, this could become a fantastic destination. Instead, it feels like a property that has been allowed to deteriorate for years while still being marketed as an exclusive experience.
Hotels.com offered us NOK 330 in compensation for a stay costing around NOK 3,000. That alone says something about how poor the experience was. A substantial refund would have been a far more reasonable outcome.
What surprised me most was that Classic Norway Hotels has chosen to associate its brand with this property.When a hotel chain promotes a hotel under its name,it also shares responsibility for the expectations it creates. In our case, those expectations were simply not met.
1500 letters is not anywhere close to describe this catastrophicly run down place!