Summer Hotel Vuorilinna

The best parts of the room were its own kitchen and the balcony with a beautiful lake view. But it faced directly south, got very hot, had no ventilation, and we didn't sleep well. The rooms need to be cleaned properly too: when we arrived, there was a poop stain on the bidet shower and the trash bin still held blood-stained papers. My roommates refused to shower because the bathroom was so dirty. We also got charged a parking fee even though we'd registered the car's license number at reception. We managed to cancel it later, but it was another sign of poor management. Breakfast was plentiful in theory, but almost everything, including coffee cups, had run out. We had to push the waiters to bring more. The food was very poor: weak coffee, awful juice, and everything served straight from packages with no care in how it looked. There are many interesting local producers, and fresh vegetables and berries were in season, but none of that was used. The “spa” is a basic pool and plastic jacuzzi, and the Casino building needs renovation. The wooden ceilings were a plus. The gym seemed neglected too, with machines making noises because they needed oiling, a fix that would take only a few minutes. The old building has lots of potential if the owners cared for it. It needs a skilled architect, like the fantastic Hanasaari hotel in Helsinki from the same era. I hope the awful plan to build a high-rise extension never happens. The beautiful old casino building has been renovated without love and needs an architect who specializes in building conservation. It could become wonderful. I know accommodation is in very short supply in the city, but charging five-star hotel prices for student housing isn't okay. I grew up in Eastern Finland and feel sad that our culture is a bit like that of our Eastern neighbor. Our attitude is the opposite of western Finland, where people work hard and do their best. This hotel could be wonderful if somebody cared, even enough to go into the bathroom once an hour and pick up trash from the floor. Since nobody seemed interested, I cleaned it up myself. You just can't run a hotel this way.

The apartments are good value and inexpensive, with kitchens, though they don't come with utensils. They host Opera residents every summer, and Olavinlinna castle is less than 20 minutes away.

The staff were really friendly, but the room was very dirty. The toilet was filthy too, and the refrigerator wasn't working at all.

For a two-star hotel, I wasn't expecting much, but I never imagined it would be this bad. Our room hadn't been cleaned properly: the floor was sticky and hadn't been vacuumed, the shower curtain had some kind of mold on it, and the bed sheets and towels were stained.