Yggdrasiltunet Hotel — Hotel in Tromsø

short version: cozy, clean, & relaxing. Comfy beds. Good food. Great for getaways. But if you’re doing multiple excursions, the drive can be draining & eat into your vacation. Staff was friendly. Owners not so much. |Detailed version: Absolutely charming! Very clean & comfy. My mom & I stayed in cabin #4 & it’s right next to the dining hall. The cabin has 2 rooms, an entryway, & a bathroom. One room had a built-in bed, nightstand, windows, & chair. The other room had a built-in bed, nightstand, windows, & another separate bed with different covers & possibly a different mattress. The built-in beds we so soft & cozy! Both rooms had small, plug-in radiator heaters & they’re super efficient! There are no dressers or cabinets for clothes so we left ours in our suitcases & put them open under our beds. There’s lots of open space under the beds (may be a nice idea to convert part of that into cubbies or drawers?). You will need outlet converters if you’re not from Europe. ||The bathroom has a small sink, toilet, shower, one shelf & hair dryer. Toilet paper is provided. And liquid hand soap that smells fantastic. One bath towel & one hand towel provided per guest (more available upon request). no wash cloths so bring your own. The entry way to the cabin has heated tile flooring which was a nice touch. No outside shoes are to be worn in the bedrooms or bathroom, so shoes are to be removed in the entryway. It would be very helpful to have a chair or bench here for shoe removal/application. There are coat hanging hooks along 2 of the walls in the entryway which was great. The bedroom doors & bathroom door all have hanging hooks on them. Thank you!!! Such a big help. It would be very helpful to have a few more shelves for toiletries and small belongings. There’s plenty of wall space in the rooms & bathroom for free-floating shelves. ||The dining room consists of 6-8 tables. Some are 2-seaters. Some are 6-seaters and can be rearranged as needed. Soft, relaxing music plays in the background while you’re served delicious foods made straight from their kitchen, with some of it sourced from their farm. The ambience is really peaceful. You must try the carrot cake & the almond cake. Both were fantastic!!! They have several blends of teas. Coffee & cappuccinos are available. There are some lamb skins from their own farm available for purchase along with handmade soaps, knitwear, & other items. There’s a living room with couches upstairs in that building. Outside shoes are not allowed past the entryway so it helps to brings slippers or thick socks. ||The parking lot designated for guests is down a significantly steep hill. Maybe a hundred yards or so in distance. Parking at your cabin is allowed only during brief moments like loading/unloading your vehicle. If the owner sees your vehicle parked outside the cabin for longer than 15 minutes, you will receive a knock on the door with a somewhat urgent request to move your vehicle. This becomes especially tricky if you’ve gone into town for an excursion & arrive back at the hotel just in time for dinner. With dinner being scheduled during a window of 1900-2030, time can be crunched to get back in time for dinner. This happened to us twice. We temporarily parked outside our cabin so we could walk to the dining hall in time for dinner & planned to move the car after dinner. Both times, the owner approached us with requests to move our vehicle. He does a great job of keeping the driveway & pathways plowed; a big task, no doubt. But the urgency in his requests for us to move our vehicle immediately at 8:15pm seemed unwarranted while we were trying to enjoy finishing dinner. Especially considering that the plowing doesn’t take place until early morning hours. ||I do NOT recommend walking this hill without shoe spikes when there’s snow on the ground. And I definitely don’t recommend walking this hill at all for anyone with mobility limitations. As we were leaving, we saw two guests carrying their full-size suitcases down this icy hill, most likely because of the strong request not to have your vehicle parked near your cabin, or the hotel. I see this as a significant safety risk and large liability on part of the owners||The staff, especially Ursula, are very friendly. When we arrived it was dinner time. We quickly unloaded our vehicle & I went to dinner (my mom was too sick from food poisoning so she went to bed). The check-in process consisted of me giving the waiter my name & him handing me the key to our cabin after verifying our reservation. The dinner was a delicious soup with bread & butter & again the ambience was perfection. Even though I was eating by myself, I felt no need to be on my phone or do anything but simply relax. This place draws u in like that.

I have to start this review by saying what a truly beautiful area of Norway, with breathtaking scenery and incredible access to the sea and mountains. The Kvaloya Husky sledding, just 15 minutes down the road, is an absolute must! We also hiked to Yggdrasiltunet’s cabin at the top of a small mountain with one of their members of staff who was charming and as invested as we were in trying to see the northern lights.We had a bit of a shocker getting to Yggdrasiltunet as we had an avalanche blocking the road so were unable to make our first night of two. A lot of travel issues do occur in this area due to its extremity, so I highly recommend travel insurance. We immediately called Yggdrasiltunet upon being notified about the avalanche, spoke with Maria, and confirmed that we wouldn’t be able to make it for the first evening. Immediately, from that first call, we started to get a feel for the lack of flexibility from this place. We eventually arrived 24hrs later, slightly frazzled by our delay, to the most cold of welcomes. Maria, who we had spoken to several times via phone to keep informed of our plans, was sat in the main room. We showed our delight to have finally arrived and she couldn’t have been less interested in us. On trying to speak with her on one occasion, she rudely remarked, “I’m not working today”, despite choosing to sit in the main room where so many of her guests come to relax. Next part - the place is extortionate across both food and activities. Suggestion - charge more for the rooms which are actually quite nice and include some activities in the stay. Easy win! Breakfast - go early or risk not eating. They don’t top anything up so when it’s gone, it’s gone. If you ask for anything post 10am, you pay. If you ask for anything at all food wise, unless it’s exactly what is written on the menu, expect a no in reply. Lunch - we got 3 sandwiches and asked for a side salad for each sandwich. The sandwich was the smallest thing I’ve ever seen and the side salad no more than a few lettuce leaves. £80!!! You’d pay less for a world class tasting menu in London. Maria’s response, “we get charged 25% tax by the government”. Dinner - you have to order in the morning as they make everything fresh. That’s cool, we like that approach, but give your guests a bit more food or have a bit more flexibility in your menu if guests want to order an extra side. When everything you ask for is always met with NO, it leaves a bad taste. No pun intended! Hot tub and sauna - if you want to cancel anything, do it 24hrs in advance or you will be charged. Maria doesn’t care about your circumstances, it’s her way or the highway. Like a strict school ma’am. When we arrived they tried to charge us for the hot tub that we had booked for day 1, despite telling them that we wouldn’t be able to make it. Maria even said that her team had switched it on for our 5pm booking. We called Maria at 11am letting her know we wouldn’t be able to make it so why Maria didn’t speak with her team to tell them not to switch it on we will never know. £50 for 1hr. Evening hike - £100pp to walk 30 minutes to the top of the hill. We were so lucky to see the northern lights which of course is priceless, but, see them or don’t see them, you cannot charge this price. It is ridiculous! If you are going to continue it at this price then include hot drinks, an alcoholic beverage and some food that caters to all dietary requirements. Make it an experience! Sea swim - £120pp - sauna and swim, and let’s be clear, you’ll be in the water for no more than 5 minutes. At Aera Nord this is included as a free activity, along with countless others….at Yggdrasil, I’m surprised they don’t charge you for breathing. Snow shoes - £15pp. Everywhere else we stayed went out of their way to make every experience as memorable as they possibly could. They understood hospitality. They understood how to be warm and welcoming. They understood kindness. Yggdrasiltunet has a lot of work to do...

Absolutely horrible stay, AVOID this hotel at all costs! I don’t usually post reviews, but this was so bad I feel urged to warn other travellers.

The manager Maria barged into our room at half past midnight the final night before check-out. She literally took her key and opened the door while I was in bed and my wife was in the shower! She said she ”suspected” that we would leave in the morning without paying, and demanded us to pay on the spot. I was shocked, it’s something I have never experienced after staying at countless hotels around the world. A completely humiliating and insulting way to treat your guests. Here’s a genius idea- If you have such low trust in your guests that you barge into rooms in the middle of the night to demand payment, I suggest taking payment at check-in going forward. I am sure Maria will reply to this review trying to explain her behavior, but I think we can all agree it is INEXCUSABLE for a hotel manager to enter a guest’s room without permission in the middle of the night.

Other reasons you should absolutely avoid this horrible hotel (besides harassment and invasion of privacy from the manager): They do NOT clean the rooms! We put up the ”please clean room” sign on the door, they did not even bother making the bed or change towels. They try to scam charge for incidentals. They charged us 100 NOK for a ”Kombucha” drink at checkout which I had never ordered, very scammy! They charge for EVERYTHING extra, they even charge for borrowing snow shoes (!) They charge 600 NOK (!!) to use the jacuzzi for 1 hour, but cannot even provide a bathrobe or slippers for you. Have fun walking from the dressing room to the jacuzzi with a tiny towel in the middle of the freezing arctic winter! Parking is down the hill, you need to walk up a long, steep and very icy/slippery hill every time to get to your room. Just a matter of time before an accident happens. No towel heater in the bathroom. Again, it’s freezing arctic winter so the least I would expect when paying for a hotel is to be able to have dry towels each morning. Extremely weak breakfast with very few options. Dinner was also utterly tasteless, they charge at a premium (~500 NOK per dish) taking advantage of the fact that the closest option for food is 45 min away by car, in Kvaløysletta. You will be happier with a hot dog at the gas station at 1/10th of the price. The coffee at breakfast was quite good though.

These people should NOT be in the hospitality industry. Take your money somewhere else, there are much better options around...