Scandic: Sweden - Denmark - Norway
 

My wife and I are planning on using our Hhonors points to stay at Scandics during a trip we are planning for late May 2006. We have a month, or more, to really enjoy Scandinavia.

After reading the variouis Scandic threads its seems the first choice in Stockholm is the Continental, and the second is the Park. I'm a little unsure about both the status of the the Scandic Anglais in Stockholm (closed until 2006 . . . reopens when) and how it is likely to rank with the two previously mentioned. I can call Hilton for an opening date, but I can't get a FlyerTalker's take without asking!

It seems Oslo Scandic Byporten is recommended, as is the Scandic Bergen City.

We'll likely stay 4-5 days in Stockholm and a few days in each of the other cities.

Now that I've given the background, my question is where else would my fellow FlyerTalkers recommend we visit in Norway, Denmark and Sweden, where we can use our Scandic points for a nice stay and worthwhile area visit?

Of course we will visit places where there are no Scandic opportunities, so please do not see Scandic stays as the defining parameter for out trip! We'd just like to stay at Scandics where it makes great sense as a part of a larger itinerary (now under development).

All help appreciated!

I can confirm the recommendations for Byporten Oslo and Bergen City - both very good 3* properties, and a snip at 10K per night, with a free, generous, breakfast.
One tip - if Hilton says there are no reward nights left at a property, or a reward blackout, just call the hotel direct. Worked fine for me this summer, when the hotel was at nearly 100% occupancy and I was Gold.
Regards

Would like to help, but could you give a little bit more detail about your plans? Especially how are you going to travel around Scandinavia (car/train/bus/plane/boat)? A month is quite a long time to spend anywhere on a holiday, I think. Any plans to add the Baltic states, Finland or even Russia to your plans? (I would)

We are recently retired and have lots of time and points too (our road-warrior days are over . . . three months on the road this year)!

We thought we'd map out where we'd like to go and then figure out the best modes of transportation (probably no driving in cities with good public transportation, trains in scenic areas where a car driver would miss a lot, ships in fjords, rental car where economical and good individual access useful, etc.).

Most of our lives we had very limited time for travel and squeezed in as much as we could in a day. These days we like to get to know an area a bit before moving along.

We are very into landscapes, water and scenery as a priority. Cities are great, but we sometimes get overwhelmed by cities after seeing too many of them sequentially. So, we like a mix. The Norwegian fjords and coastline sound like places well worth a little extra time (especially if the weather is good).

Mentioning weather, we hope to beat the summer crowds and yet arrive while the spring weather is good. We are flexible regards travel time, so if there is an absolutely ideal time to be in Scandinavia, that would be helpful to know too!

We are open (VERY OPEN) to all suggestions as we are in the very early trip planning stages and highly value the recommendations of fellow FlyerTalkers (and grateful to get them). Our goal is to have a solid plan by New Year's day and then book as much as we can, as fast as we can!

I've stayed at the Scandic Anglais in past years and went past it a couple of weeks back; it's been shut down for several months now and seems to be going through an external and internal renovation that is a major gutting -- i.e., almost looks like a new building has been going up. (I don't know if I like what they are doing because I used to get cute rooms overlooking the park/buildings across the street from it that had balcony-style door-windows and the new renovation looks to have none of that.

Scandic Continental, Scandic Sergel Torg and Scandic Malmen are the ones I use most often in Stockholm.

When visiting Copenhagen, I often stay in Sweden at the Scandic Kramer (in Malmo) or in Copenhagen itself I use the Scandic Webers or Scandic Copenhagen.

(If someone was only going to visit once there, then I'd suggest visiting in July when the days are so nice and long and the weather is absolutely perfect, but then the touristy places are busier.)

Enjoy your trip.

It is a little risky giving recommendations but weathervise the best time to go would probably be July. Add to that the fact you want to beat the crowds, I'd say June is not too late.

Some places I love include the Danish countryside with its people and idyllic villages (stay at eg. Scandic Bygholm Park Horsens, peaceful and a little bit manor like by a park). Why not continue via Odense (H.C. Andersen's home town) to Copenhagen? Maybe along the Swedish coast (nice city Scandic in Halmstad for instance) to Norway and a scenic (short or many days long) cruise of the Fjords. Then you have to decide how north do you want to go? Trondheim? Lapland? Or straight towards Stockholm? After Stockholm maybe the beautiful archipelago between Sweden and Finland (Mariehamn Scandic, difficult to get award nights though - I've not succeeded yet). Why not all the way to Helsinki and from there the train to St.Petersburg (no Scandics) with a side trip to Tallinn (Scandic Palace)? Just some possibilities... As GUWonder said, enjoy your trip!

Some Scandic info
 

We just came back from a trip to Scandinavia (great place! loved it), and I can vouch for Scandic Sergel Plaza in Stockhom as a *great* place to stay.

Competent staff, friendly service, incredible free buffet (we used HH points so this was especially nice, considering how expensive everything is in Sweden), nice location, good rooms, free in-room internet and a nice modern business center, all this makes it a very good deal for 10,000 points.

In Copenhaven, we stayed in Scandic Kopenhagen, very nice place, good roms, good service, liked the location (about 3 blocks from central square), liked everything about it. The breakfast buffet was great, too (though not as vast as the one in Stockholm).

We were traveling at the end of October - early November, but we apparenty lucked out with weather, as it was quite reasonable, esp. in Denmark and later on in Germany, 14-16 C every day. It was a bit colder in Stockholm, +4 C during the day, but Stockholm is rather far up north (60-th parallel, if I remember correctly).

Thanks for the great input into our trip planning. It is impossible to beat info from fellow FlyerTalkers! I'll keep checking back for possible additions.

Thanks for the timely thread!
 

I am planning a similar trip to Norway with my mom in late may or June of 06. We have been talking about this trip for years because my Mom's grandparents came from Norway and she's always wanted to go (she's never been to Europe!). We had been putting it off because it just seemed like it would be sooo expensive. Thanks to flyer talk, I discovered the Scandics and got the Hilton Amex and have tried to stay at Hiltons for work travel to rack up points for our trip.

If folks have any additional recommendations, I'd love to hear them. We will probably be over there 2-3 weeks and may try to visit one or two other countries.

Miles-to-go - please share any additional ideas you have come across in your research!

Mid Summer celebration
 

If you can time your visit to coincide with the speciasl celebrations of midsommar (around the 3rd week in June) YOU WILL EXPERIENCE SOMETHING VERY INDIVIDUAL TO SCANDINAVIA!

Don't worry too much about pre-planning as you will likely find more to see and do that a month will allow for.

Have a wonderful trip!

Btw. There are speculations of HHonors reward category changes and point increases in this thread - it seems there will be some changes in June. Something to maybe consider when thinking of when to make bookings.

Norway Additional thoughts
 

Most hotels, including the Scandics, offer attractive discounts in Summer and it may work out that paying cash for some of the hotels (typically approx $75 to $90 for the less popular hotels) could be a better deal than using the 10000 point award. I suggest that you sign up for the Scandic promotional material on the Scandic site.

I also suggest that you IMMEDIATELY make reward reservations at the key downtown hotels (Scandic Continental in Stockholm; Scandic Byportan in Oslo).

Also consider some train travel in Norway. The views are spectacular and the price (if you make advance reservations directly) is very reasonable.

Thanks for the advice. In order to get an idea of the prices, I did a search on the Scandic website and tried a few dates in May and June for the Bergen City Scandic and they didn't show any availability for the dates I tried. Hope that doesn't mean they are Already booked!

I think we will try to work in the train from Bergen to Oslo - it sounds spectacular.

We also want to spend some time in and around Kristiansund where our relatives are from. I'm not exactly sure how we are going to get up there.

I think we will have a great trip once we get the logistics worked out!

Definitely not an expert on Scandinavia, but last June we spent a bit over a week travelling in Northern Sweden (and a bit of Norway) and absolutely loved it. If you prefer wilderness and space to cities, shopping, cultural events, then Europe might not sound like a good choice, but Northern Scandinavia is bit of an exception: there are still large areas that remain relatively untouched (by European standards) by the crowding in the continent farther south. It helped that we had great weather (temperatures not far from those in Southern Europe at the same time), and the midnight sun allowed us to do lots more walking and sightseeing than usual (you can always catch up on your sleep when you fly back south).

We spent lots of our time above the Polar Arctic Circle and, among others, we had awards at the Scandics in Kiruna, Lulea, Skelleftea. The best car deal we could find was with Avis, a rather large compact (I'd call it a mid-size by European standards) came to about $150/week. Petrol was the biggest expense, more than food, and certainly more than lodging (;)). The Scandics in Kiruna and Skelleftea were very nice (and offered the usual fantastic breakfast buffet). The one in Lulea seemed like a rather modest property (even by Scandic's standards), more like a motel. No complaints, though, our room was clean and the service was friendly.

I certainly hope HHonors won't mess with the Scandic awards come June, as it's probably our last reason for still collecting HHonors points after all the various rounds of devaluation.

These Scandic awards sure are great. I just booked 2 rooms for 1 night at the Scandic Edderkoppen in Oslo. The rate on the Scandic website shows NOK1595/night (US$235), so this is a steal for 10,000 points/night. I also asked to book 2 rooms for 1 night at the Scandic Copenhagen and was told that there was a family room available that had 2 beds, a sofa bed and a living area (and slept 4) for the same 10,000 points/night (plus I only need one room now). This room is going for DKK1700 (US$270) on the Scandic site so is an even better deal than the Oslo hotel.

So, 6 virtual races costs ~$150 and I get 30,000 points. Those 30,000 points are getting rooms worth ~US$740. I understand why the number of points needed for these hotels is increasing, but this sure was nice while it lasted (and for the next few months).