Hilton Helsinki Kalastajatorppa — Hotel in Helsinki sub-region

Let's start with the positives...

Great location by the sea and very well connected with the centre of Helsinki via a 15 minute journey on the no. 4 tram, which stops a short walk from the hotel and takes you direct to the heart of the city. The trams are very clean and run 24/7 with intervals of around 7 minute up until around midnight. We really enjoyed the location and being able to get around so easily plus the HSL app makes it very easy to plan where you want to go as it will calculate the best route between any two points you choose, including walking distances to and from the tram stops.

The hotel itself was very clean but we found it quite dated whilst others might enjoy some of the retro features. The hallways were particularly dark and gloomy, and felt at odds with other parts of the hotel.

Our junior suite room 870 was spacious but the sofa in the living room was of the sofa bed variety and so uncomfortable we used it for 30 minute's on the first evening and then spent the rest our time whilst in the room sat on the bed.

Tea & coffee making facilities are provided in the living room, along with a minibar but no plugs are provided for the kettle or anything else for that matter, which is really odd, so you can't power a laptop or phone charger whilst sat on the sofa unless you unplug the TV or the single lamp.

The air con in our room didn't seem to work and didn't provide any controls for on/off or fan speed, so we slept with the windows open as the room was incredibly warm.

The bathroom had a separate shower but this was of the open variety and placed between the side of the bath and the side of the basin countertop with a small wall separating it from the latter. This meant the bathroom was drenched after just one shower as the floor is sloped to channel additional water towards a drain placed in the middle of the bathroom where you stand in front of the basin. We had to use towels to make a dam in order to stop the bathroom flooding.

The bathroom also had a strong lingering odour of dirty drains, which I suspect came from the drain in the middle of the bathroom floor. The hairdryer was of the mini variety, not very powerful, no diffuser and attached to the wall, so I was going to suggest you take your own but you won't find any plugs near the single mirror in the hallway, so don't bother.

The usual Hilton Crabtree & Evelyn bathroom products, which smell like toilet cleaner and leave your skin dry, so take your own or a very good hair and body moisturiser if you insist on using the Hilton products.

On a positive, the bathroom mirror was heated, the hot water was plentiful and the bed comfortable but don't waste your money on this room type as it's just not worth the additional cost over a standard room. We have Hilton Gold membership, so normally receive a complimentary room upgrade subject to availability but we rather foolishly paid for this one and can't recommended you do the same.

Breakfast, if you could actually get to it, was more than sufficient but the queues and air of general bedlam on both the Saturday and Sunday of our stay were not. We went down for breakfast, spotted the queue and decided to return to the room and call room service but the line was dead, so we tried reception and that was the same. My partner then returned and was eventually seated at a table for two and was enjoying some fruit salad when the person responsible for seating guests proceeded to seat another guest at his table, which is totally unacceptable in a 4 star hotel and a first for us in all our years of travelling. I managed one breakfast on the three days we were staying, which was on the Monday morning just before we left for the airport.

We enjoyed Helsinki but we won't be recommending or returning to this hotel for the numerous reasons...

We originally booked two nights at Hilton Helsinki Kalastajatorppa—but ended up extending our stay to six nights because we enjoyed it so much!

We stayed in both a Seaview room and a room in the main building (switching during our stay), and both were very comfortable. The Seaview rooms are a bit older but have a cozy, cottage-like vibe and beautiful, relaxing views of the water. There were slippers and robes, and the rooms were good sized. We’d definitely choose the Seaview side again for the view alone.

Beds, pillows, and bedding were all comfortable. There’s no air conditioning (which we only noticed because of a heat wave), but after the first couple nights we asked for fans and discovered we could open the windows, which helped a lot.

The hotel has a resort-like feel. There's a small beach right on the property where people were swimming daily, and we loved being able to borrow bikes from the front desk to explore the area. There’s also a lovely waterside walking path that starts at the hotel and follows the water—very peaceful. We stopped by the ice cream truck parked by the beach a couple of times.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant on our first night and really enjoyed it—especially the cauliflower appetizer, classic salmon soup, and the burger. The breakfast buffet each morning was fantastic: a wide selection from hot items such as eggs and sausage, to fresh salads, yogurt, porridge, fruit, and an excellent coffee machine for cappuccinos, lattes, or whatever you prefer.

The hotel also has an inviting indoor pool and several saunas, which we didn’t use but saw many families enjoying.

Water pressure in the shower was good, and the Wi-Fi worked well for the most part—we did experience a short outage one evening, but it was quickly resolved.

Location: It’s located in a quiet, residential neighborhood with easy tram access into central Helsinki. There’s also a small town with restaurants and a grocery store less than a 15-minute walk away.

It was quiet in the sea view rooms. In the main building we were next to a room with a barking dog but they kindly accommodated our request to change rooms.

We arrived by taxi from the airport and later took another to the cruise port—public transportation is certainly an option, but with our luggage, taxis were just easier. That turned out to be a little pricey, though. Next time we'd try to use public transportation.

Lastly, a big thank you to Sophi at reception, who made us feel welcome and answered our questions throughout the stay.

We’d absolutely return—and next time we’d love to try one of the igloo-style sleeping cabins...

Worst hotel I’ve stayed at in a very long time. It is around half an hour by tram from the city with literally no restaurants round about. We purposefully booked it to be in nature and enjoy the facilities. Ha! Basically, to use the facilities (pool, sauna) you have to either skip breakfast or dinner. Despite it advertising these facilities, what they don’t tell you is it’s only open 7-10am or 6-10pm only. This is for “cooling and cleaning” purposes. I did get up one morning at 7am to swim and very quickly regretted it. While the pool itself was warm enough (just), the area around the pool was not heated at all and was freezing. Not at all a pleasant experience. We went to use the sauna but it is only single sex saunas so we couldn’t use together. If we wanted to have a sauna and conversation, well that would be EUR 60 per hour for the privilege. The women’s sauna on said morning I went to the pool had a bunch of children in there so no relaxation for me! Next and more sensitively, we arrived home one evening (around 9pm), turned the corner to the hotel and saw many police cars, armed guards etc. My heart raced and I said to my partner “oh God, what’s happened”. Nothing as it turns out, just a special visitor or two. Yet the hotel didn’t think they needed to give anyone a courtesy note or say to guests not to worry. We went for a walk the following morning and on our return were quizzed by a (friendly and polite) armed officer if we were staying at the hotel. There were even special officers on our floor so it just felt very uneasy. Sorry- but we are from the UK. When we see this many police in one place it usually means there has been another terrorist attack. I left this hotel after 4 days in one of the most chilled countries in the world more stressed than I arrived. I’d also add that the room was very dated, unclean in places and so we ensured we were out of the hotel as much as possible. The only nice thing about this place? The breakfast- staff were lovely and the food was...