Descubra sua estadia em Svingvoll

When travelling with the family by road between Oslo and Trondheim I always include one hotel night somewhere on the road. The hotels near E6 are generally quite pricey, and they were especially so the summer 2021. Therefore I decided to look for hotels slightly off the main road, and then Skeikampen popped up in Google. The price was less than half of Peer Gynt Hotel at Vinstra, and also considerably less than Toftemo Turiststasjon, both hotels we have stayed in at previous occasions. For this we had to drive about 20 minutes up on the mountain side. What can I say about the hotel? The beds were some of the best hotel beds I have slept in. In particular, this is one of very few hotels that have good firm pillows (only Scandic Nidelven with their pillow menu can be compared). The standard of service from the staff was nothing sort of exceptional. The only downside I can think of is that much of what we saved on the booking, the hotel took back in restaurant. But well, it was a dinner buffet where deer steak was among the options, so I can live with that. Needless to say, at this location, the hotel is quiet.

Such a shame. Our stay had started so well. We were allocated a room facing the E6 so asked Reception for a change as we like to have a window open and the room was noisy. No problem – our room was swiftly changed with a smile. But then next morning we made a mistake. We went out without putting the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on our door. This apparently gives Housekeeping free reign to enter the room despite not putting up the ‘Make Up My Room’ sign. They removed and disposed of a bag of ours from our room, the contents of which they presumably decided was rubbish but it was actually a folding, re-usable supermarket bag, something we were keeping as a travel memento from Sweden. Somewhat ironically, the bag was beneath the Scandic poster where they congratulate themselves on being industry leaders by not having housekeeping change towels unless they’re on the bathroom floor – yep, they changed our towels as well despite them being hung on the towel rail. The bag removed was not near the bins at all, just in spare floorspace over by the door, out of the way. It didn’t seem important to anyone else, but it was special to us and essentially, irreplaceable. Reception staff made a search for our bag long after we brought it to their attention but of course it was not found. There was no offer from Scandic of recompense to replace the bag, compensation or offer of goodwill, like a free drink at the bar. We have been travelling for over 30 years using all types of accommodation and have never had anything like this happen before. Housekeeping removing anything that isn’t in a bin, next to the bin or in a bin bag should be unthinkable. The bad housekeeping and lack of any management intervention or even acknowledgement of our loss will certainly stop us being Scandic Friends in the future. We did love staying at a Scandic, but they’ve just fallen off their pedestal with a crash!