Hotels, hotels...

Time visited: June 2018 | Guests: 2 adults + 2 children  | Room type: Luxury Double Review: Upscale boutique hotel in the Estonian countryside I was very positively surprised how upscale this property was. The manor was tastefully renovated, keeping the old but still being functional and modern. I just recently talked with a friend how Estonians really know how to restore old buildings but at the same time build modern facilities. Padise Manor is a good example! Service at check-in was friendly and warm. We had an extra kid with us who we hadn't included in the reservation but this was no problem at all. Extra bed was in the room sooner than we :-) The property didn't have a lift but we felt totally ok by leaving the stroller downstairs. Service: 4 / 5 Room: 5 / 5 Activities: - / 5 Food & drink: 4 / 5

Time visited: May 2018 | Guests: 4 adults + 2 children  | Room type: Big studio x 2 Review: Modern apartment hotel with a great location in Agia Marina     Crete is one of our favorite holiday destinations and we've been there many times. However we haven't booked and stayed in a hotel before. In search for a place to stay for our summer holiday, location was number one criteria. Since we've been to Agia Marina before, we knew exactly what a good location was and what not. Aestas Apartments has an excellent location. It is not on the busy beachroad but two blocks up the hill, still only 5min walk from the beach of Agia Marina. Both of our studios also had a nice sea view being situated on the top floor which at Aestas is the 4th floor. What is also good about this location is that 3 min walk away you have restaurants and supermarket but it is still quiet at night. Or at least after 10pm when the nearby church bell has finished operating :-) Pictures on Boo

Time visited: April 2018 | Guests: 2 adults + 1 child  | Room type: Standard twin Review: Take a swim in the pools, forget about staying the night Welcome to the 80's! That was all I could say when entering the room at Spa hotel Cumulus Resort Eden. First of all the room door was light green. Then the room had this cork pattern vinyl flooring. Wooden writing table and TV stand where in good condition but so out-of-style. Headboard was this wooden framed jute panel. No quilts or bed throws on the beds. Orange shaded wall lamps and ceiling lamp with a fan, where do you see those anymore? Blue and white striped bed skirts and curtains that did not match with the rest of the room. Seriously, who pays over hundred euros a night for a room that was so out-dated. Unfortunately us :-( In this modern country of ours that is a forerunner in many things, the hotel world has stayed in the 80's. I wasn't able to find information when the hotel was actually built but I h

Time visited: March 2018 | Guests: 2 adults + 1 child  | Room type: A-cabin with seaview Review: Floting hotel, cruising Helsinki- Stockholm- Helsinki It's a cabin not a hotel room. True but I think the cruise ships sailing between Finland and Sweden are like floting hotels. So why not rate a cabin? I rarely see anybody writing about the cabin on a cruise ship which gives even more reason to do so in my blog. Like half of Finland's population, we have been on numerous cruises in our lifetime. This time we chose Silja Line over Viking Line because we used points to pay for the trip. I would have so much to say about the (shitty) loyalty program of Silja Line but let's go into that... Usually when cruising on Silja Symphony or Serenade I book the Promenade -cabin because that's a specialty on Silja's ships and it's fun to do people watching from the cabin's window to the shop & restaurant Promenade. But this time I booked the A- cabin with

Time visited: July 2016 | Guests: 4 adults  | Room type: L-room (2 rooms) Review: 25 hours in Frankfurt My review is from a past stay back in July 2016 when we travelled to Germany with some friends. I booked the hotel direct from their website. Normally I would write a review soon after the stay but this design hotel was so cool I wanted to write about still. I had booked 2 L-rooms and both were very different from each other. At first I thought they had given us an M-room and an L-room but later on I realized both were actually L-rooms - just different. I really liked the decor in the rooms and public areas; bright and colorful and the cool innovations like a pair of "forgotten" Levi's jeans hanging in the room and free of charge MINI's for the guests' use. The location of the hotel is not the best for sightseeing as all the main sights of Frankfurt are pretty far if you are walking and if you spending one day in the city like we did. Then aga

Time visited: February 2018 | Guests: 2 adults, 1 infant  | Room type: King Deluxe (upgraded to King Family room)  Review: room with a view in Barcelona   It would make sense to stay at Hilton Diagonal Mar during summer because of two reasons. First; you can avoid some of the crowd because it is located outside the centre of Barcelona and second; they have a beach club, Purobeach that apparently is very popular. However our stay was in the winter and the beach club was obviously closed. I think it is closed during the whole winter from October to March. I was a bit disappointed that apart from Purobeach they don't have an indoor pool for winter season. There are two options to get to the heart of Barcelona from the hotel. You can take the L4 line metro from El Maresme / Forum station and get off at Jaume I which is right next to the Gothic Quarters. Travel time is about 20min. Other option is the H16 bus that will take you to Placa Catalunya in 45min. I used both

Time visited: August 2017 | Guests: 2 adults, 1 infant  | Room type: Double Review: go for the garden not the hotel Bernstorff Castle is located close to Copenhagen , about 20min train trip away. The nearest train station was about 15min walking distance from the hotel. We took the train to The Tivoli and it was quite convenient. I think it was betterto takethe train than car to city center Copenhagen. The property itself is on a beautiful setting, surrounded by a large garden and a park. Perfect for kids in the summer time to run around or for guests with dogs (which apparently are allowed in the hotel because we had one running in our feet at breakfast). Rooms are located in a separate building next to the castle. Reception and breakfast are to be found in the main building (castle). As the area is so vast, parking is free for hotel guestsand so is WiFi. I booked through Booking.com on the day of arrival but felt I got a reasonable rate (DK 1195) for one night. We arri

Time visited: January 2018 | Guests: 2 adults | Room type: Standard (upgraded to Superior) Review: sleep, eat, drink and swim over the rooftops of Helsinki This is our second time in Clarion hotel Helsinki and in this review I will compare our two visits with each other. The first time was just after the hotel had opened in November 2016. Clarion hotel Helsinki is situated just outside the city center in Jätkäsaari. Close to it is the terminal for Tallink Silja shuttle ferries that cruise between Helsinki and Talllinn. The best part of this property is the height of the building because both the rooftopbar and the rooftop pool have amazing views over Helsinki. The building has 16 floors and rooms are located in the first 15. However this many floors means you will waiting for the lift longer than usual. During both visits the service was good. We visited the bar (a must) and on our first visit we also had dinner at the restaurant. Food was slightly better than in your

Time visited: December 2017 | Guests: 3 adults, 1 infant | Room type: Interconnecting standard with twin bed  Review: Family fun in the pools of Aulanko We had a really bad start. What made this even worse was that I had heard so much good about the property before hand. What happened at check-in? Well, we had to change rooms 3 times! I had booked 2 interconnecting rooms from the chain's OWN website. When we received the first rooms they weren't interconnecting at all. I wentback to the reception and explained I had booked interconnecting rooms. They had NO record of this but had interconnecting rooms available so all was good. NOT! The next rooms we entered were infact interconnecting but not with each other. Oh my...I thought walking again into the reception because the phone in the room didn't work. Now I got to speak to the manager (of some kind) in the reception. He was of course sorry, checked the rooms we now had and changed one of them to an