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Hotell Geiranger–great views but room is not impressive Aug 09

We stayed at Hotell Geiranger for a night in August 2016 and we booked the hotel using hotels.com. We arrived in the afternoon and check in was quite fast. We got room 818 which was a room with a fjord view. I was told that I could park for free outside the hotel but there were no available spaces there so I had to go down to the waterfront and even there it was tricky to find a place to park. But it is easy to walk back to the hotel.

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Once we walked into the hotel room the first thing we noticed was the beautiful fjord view – the hotel has a prime location for that. But the second impression was that this was an old school room. The room had wooden floor, light yellow walls and had the standard furniture that you would expect in a room. We had booked a kingsize bed but this was not the case – it was just two single beds pushed together. The comfort was good and the duvet was good. Apart from that we had a small sofa and chair around a table and a tiny flat screen TV on the wall. I know you are not in Geiranger to watch TV but it would have been good with a larger TV and a better selection of channels. Outside the room we had a small balcony with two chairs and a table. There was a desk and chair but the small fridge under the desk was both empty and unplugged. There were not that many points in the room for charging our various devices. The wardrobe contained an ironing board and iron but there was no safe.

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The bathroom was small with light tiles, a small basin and a bathtub with a shower option. The shower curtain was the type I dislike – the kind that sticks to you once you get close to it. The only amenities were two small bottles of shampoo, a small bar of soap and two glasses. I think the bathroom is in need for an upgrade as it had a stale smell to it.

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When we walked out of the room we passed by the lounge and at night it seemed like there was coffee and tea that was served here. It would have been great if we had gotten information about this when we were checking in. There was a free wifi at the hotel but I didn’t use it much as I have a Norwegian 4G cellphone. But we got little printouts with wifi username and password and there were different nets to use in the room and in public areas. The internet was not very good I’m afraid and having different nets with different password is confusing.

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I was not totally impressed by breakfast. This is one of the regions of Norway with long traditions and usually you will have very good breakfast buffet at Norwegian hotels. On this trip we stayed at hotels in Molde, Ålesund and Kristiansund and Geiranger hotel offered the least impressive breakfast. There was a very limited selection of fruit, no oats, the brown goat cheese was the pre-sliced version from Tine, there was no bacon to go with the scrambled eggs etc. If you want to put together a take-away lunch you will have to pay 100 Norwegian kroner.

As many of the other reviewers I have mixed feelings about this hotel. Yes, the view from the hotel room is amazing and you can easily reach some epic scenic places. If this review seems harsh it is because I think the price should be linked to the hotel standard. The room we had at Hotel Geiranger was 1900 Norwegian Kroner (or about 225 USD). This made it the most expensive hotel on our trip and the most outdated hotel on our trip. Geiranger is a small community with a limited number of hotel rooms and in my mind I get a feeling that they charge this much just because they can. We expected an old and charming hotel but after staying there for a night the conclusion was that it is just old. The next time I go to Geiranger I will probably see if there are other hotel alternatives.

Regards
Gard
gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

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