Vesterålen Kysthotell

The staff are really friendly and helpful. Breakfast is served in the hotel’s main building and is fairly basic, with lukewarm sausage and eggs. The cabins facing the water are modern, bright, comfortable, and very clean. They’re a perfect size for two, though a bit cramped with more people.

The bed and duvet were so comfortable, and I didn’t hear noise from other rooms. It was a calm stay, and breakfast was tasty, with gluten free bread available. But on Saturday breakfast started half an hour later, with no apology. The bathroom had mold between the tiles and in the corners. That could be cleaned with Jif and chlorine, by the way, I know it. There were long black hairs on the bathroom chair and some small bits of garbage in a corner of the room when I arrived. I’m not coming back.

I’ve stayed here several times over the last two years. It’s decent during tourist season, but much worse outside it. The Wi-Fi range and speed in some rooms are so poor that I had to use 4G to watch anything. Facilities like the sauna are closed out of season. Breakfast quality is decent, but the dried condiments and yoghurt past its expiry date are concerning, especially since this has happened repeatedly. Cleaning between guests has also been lacking. I even found a forgotten tube of toothpaste in the bedsheets, which made it seem like they’d only tidied the bed. I’m writing this because of the coronavirus pandemic in August 2020. At breakfast, hand sanitizer seemed to be the only precaution. A busload of tourists came too. There was no precut bread, so everyone used the same bread knife, and everyone shared the utensils for the condiments. There wasn’t even crispbread to take instead. I’ve heard the cabins are nice and that the restaurant on the boat is really good when it’s open in season, but I can’t confirm that myself and just wanted to include it. This may be the lowest hotel rating I’ve given. Three stars is already a lot for this, and I nearly gave two.

The views are beautiful, and there’s a sauna, a nice breakfast, and a large parking area right by the doors. The town is a little far away, and the rooms are too cold. The air conditioning doesn’t help.