First City Hotel

For a short stay, the apartment did the job, and it’s quite nice and roomy for three. There’s an eat-in kitchen and a living room, along with two tiny bedrooms, one of which you have to walk through to get to the other. It doesn’t get comfortably warm in winter. There are also a lot of broken things that you can work around, but the kitchen faucet is loose and needs urgent repair. The dishwasher is nearly falling apart, so be careful opening it. There’s a clock in the kitchen with no hands, a shower partition panel coming away, and the living room light switch doesn’t work.

The room was very hot, but I couldn’t open the bedroom window for a bit of air because it was on the first floor and faced the backyard. A large spider had made a web outside the window frame, which would have made opening it unpleasant even if it had been more accessible. I booked a room that said it included a washing machine, since I was on a long road trip and planned to do laundry there. I arrived late and left early, but there was no machine, so I had to carry dirty clothes to a proper place we stayed at later. I also expected the sofa bed to be ready for the three of us, including the driver, but it wasn’t. There were no sheets or extra towels for the third person either. When I finally got them and had to get up myself, the person was in a lot of pain. I was also never told there’d be a NOK 2000 deposit at check-in, on top of the room price. The description and what’s actually included don’t have to match, apparently, but you still pay full price for the shortfalls. An offer of 10% off a future stay doesn’t help when you’d have to pay to stay there again to use it. I live on the other side of the country, so another visit is unlikely anyway. They seemed quite happy to save on providing service or compensation. If you pay for a described package, you should get it. Poor service and quality, steer clear if you can.

We booked three apartments for March 18-24, 2020, but couldn’t make the trip because of COVID-19. Our flights were canceled, we had to quarantine in Norway, and Spain was under lockdown. Booking.com offered free cancellation, but we were still waiting for a refund from Enter Tromsø apartment 17 days later. We were disappointed by the lack of interest and poor management, and said we’d choose somewhere else when we could travel. We received the refund on June 11, 2020.