Enter St Elisabeth Suites & Spa

This is more like a serviced appartment than a hotel. A hotel - has more than 1 staff member - doesn’t charge you to use the facilities - if you do pay 270 NOK to use the sauna it’s not a sauna but a steam room - has a bar - has a mini bar - has a lamp next to the bed for reading - has a robe in the room - has room service Very disappointing for the price So, more a serviced apartment although they only seem to service the room sometimes

First of all - the VERY positive: the Assistant Manager on the Front Desk, Christian is professional, friendly and helpful. The lady that welcomes you to the restaurant for breakfast (she takes your room number and clears the dishes) is friendly, welcoming and has a wonderful, warm smile that really lifts you! Areas for improvement: - This is not a cheap hotel (4,935.06 Kroner / £349.00 GBPounds per night) not good value. - We asked for a Sea View and got a room with a view of the hotel carpark and the neighbours - There is absolutely no storage for clothing in the entire hotel room (No Closets; No Clothes drawers or cupboards) so you have to live out of your suitcase - the bedroom was filled with a large bed - you have to walk sideways to get around the bed! The bed has two single duvets on a double bed. ?? - I am surprised that when you pay this much for a room: each person is charged 275.00Kroner / £19.50 GBPounds each time to use the SPA - We went to check out and there was no one at the front desk for over 25 minutes. When the receptionist did eventually show up, she was very indignant and complained she was by herself. (Totally different to the good service from Christian).

While Enter St Elizabeth Suites was away from downtown, it was a comfortable 10-15min walk with a supermarket just 5mins away. We chose the hotel for its location which is situated on a hill with nice view of the harbour and the self-service laundry which most of the other hotels in Tromso did not have. As it was recently refurbished, all corners of the hotel was clean and new. We stayed jn the One Bedroom suite with seaview for 3 nights. Bedroom was very small, with the queen bed taking up most of the walking space and there was just a wall shelf with coat rack. However, this didn’t bother us. The sofa in the living room doubles as a sofa bed which comfortably sleeps 2 teens. Kitchen was compact but well equipped with oven and dishwasher. For those who need the room to be cleaned will need to place the card outside the door the night before. Although we did not request for housekeeping service during our short stay there, the housekeeping team dropped by anyway (on day 2) to check if we needed to replenish any items. Breakfast was included. Small selection but sufficient for us. Breakfast is served on the top floor restaurant on 5th floor with nice views of the harbour. The self service laundry room is located on the 2nd floor at the other wing near the restaurant. As there was only 1 washer and 1 dryer, you’ll need to wait if someone was ahead of you. Overall a very comfortable stay and we will stay here again if we return to Tromso!

The St Elizabeth Suites ended up being quite disappointing largely because of the poor service The hotel is located 10-15 minutes out of the town which didn’t particularly bother us as it is a pleasant walk if you take the higher road. Other pluses was that the spa was pleasant and nicely designed, beds comfy (though single duvets on double bed!) On the negatives: 1. We stayed for four nights and despite complaining every day our room only got serviced once – we constantly had to go out to ask reception for basics such as towels and loo roll. We weren’t the only guests experiencing this as we witnessed other complaints. We stayed over New Year, but you can’t expect to inflate the prices and halve the service! 2. Our 2 bed apartment was not particularly comfortable and could have been designed so much better. No clothes storage at all. 3. We booked our tours through Enter Adventures (through the Hotel) as expected this to facilitate changes if tours get cancelled. The reality is the Hotel does not take any responsibility for the tours and I would recommend booking directly with the agents. We had a northern night tour and checked with the reception several times over the course of the day as we heard that other tours were being cancelled because of the weather. They assured us that “their “ tour was running. We waited for 45 minutes in the reception for our pick up before being told that it had been cancelled- via an email that had gone into junk a few hours earlier. By that time, the alternative tour offered by the operator had been fully booked. I would definitely book direct through a reputable agent to take control of the booking rather than have a false sense of security that Enter is looking after you. 3. The breakfast was pretty poor and we ended up going in to town for a decent coffee and pastry. It was self service coffee from a big urn. 4. There was a nice view from The top floor but it didn’t seem to be open apart from breakfast and only had restaurant tables. A shame they didn’t make it more comfortable and available for lounge use. 5 There were a couple of nice members of the front desk team who seemed knowledgeable but they were matched by a couple who were new and didn’t seem to have any knowledge about the hotel or Tromso.