Grand Hotel Oslo

I booked on the hotel website and spent two nights at Grand Hotel, Oslo at the end of May. On arrival I found enpty bottles and a used coffee cup in my room. A pleasant lady from Housekeeping replaced the items and explained that the hotel had not had enough staff to check the rooms due to a national strike, which had now ended. Not a great start to a stay in a 5 star hotel, but fair enough. What ruined my stay was that the hotel had put me in a room which was unacceptably close to the banquet facilities ,where a huge celebration was obviously in progress on the Saturday evening. Loud, thumping music which never stopped. At midnight I called Reception and was told the festivities would continue until 1 am, but that they would «turn down the base». Notably, I was not offered an alternative room, away from the noise. It was a total nightmare- the music continued as before, until I called Reception again at 1:25 am. I did not get much sleep that night. On returning home I sent a formal complaint to Grand Hotel. Now, 2 weeks later I have still to receive a reply…

Lovely hotel with a really interesting history and helpful staff. Breakfast is a bit chaotic and requires queuing for a table which isn’t what you expect from this class of hotel, if they sorted that out it would be five stars

Just back from a 3 night stay that we shortened from 4 nights due to such a poor experience. Such a great disappointment ! Initially we were given a room stinking of sewage which in fairness the Hotel swapped right away. The Hotel staff, especially on Reception, were generally really rude and unhelpful and we couldn't even get a drink of any kind at the Hotel when we got back one night at 11.15 pm. There are clearly some staff relations issues following the recent strikes. The central location is great but, be in no doubt this is at best a 3 star hotel and in no way 5 star. This is a tired old hotel with staff that look disinterested and don't care. ( Very different to the locals that we met who are fantastic people )The breakfast is OK but, nothing more. We would never stay here again.

We chose the Grand Hotel Oslo expecting the level of service and attention to detail associated with one of Norway’s leading luxury hotels. Unfortunately, our experience fell far short of those expectations. Late in the evening, we discovered that the air conditioning in our room was malfunctioning. Despite outdoor temperatures of around 15°C, the system was running at full power, blowing cold air into the room and generating significant noise. The thermostat was ineffective and the room became increasingly uncomfortable. After contacting reception, we were initially told that a technician would come. After multiple phone calls, waiting nearly an hour, and inconsistent information, we were finally informed that the system could not be switched off because the remote-control functionality was defective. The only solution was a room change. What followed was equally disappointing. At around 11 p.m. we were moved to another room, presented as an upgrade that we had never requested. Our only request had been a quiet room in which we could sleep and work. Unfortunately, the replacement room faced the railway area and was affected by clearly audible train noise and noticeable vibrations throughout the night. It was difficult to understand why such a room was offered as a solution to a guest whose original complaint concerned noise and the inability to sleep. Although hotel management later offered another room, there was no proactive follow-up after the room change to check whether the issue had been resolved. A bottle of champagne was left in the room as an apology, despite the fact that one of us does not drink alcohol and we were in Oslo for business rather than leisure. The gesture felt impersonal and failed to address the actual inconvenience experienced. Most disappointing was the overall impression that there was little genuine ownership of the problem. The hotel acknowledged the failures in writing, but there was no meaningful compensation and no indication that the disruption to our stay was taken as seriously as one would expect from a property of this category. Luxury hotels are ultimately judged not by how they perform when everything goes right, but by how they respond when things go wrong. In this case, the response did not meet the standard that the Grand Hotel Oslo’s reputation and pricing would lead guests to expect. A disappointing experience and not one we would expect from a hotel positioning itself at the very top end of the market.

We booked this hotel as a special treat at the end of a cruise along the fjords with Hurtigruten. We would recommend this