Hilton Stockholm Slussen = Good Value when Priced Competitively

I stayed at Hilton Stockholm Slussen almost ten years ago and had an ok stay back then.  This year I considered alternatives for example Sheraton, a few Design Hotels (Marriott) such as Nobis, and Bank Hotel (Small Luxury Hotel / Hyatt).  However I was surprised to see how expensive all those hotels were relative to Hilton at least for my dates, plus none of them have a lounge except for Sheraton. I did not remember Hilton to be perfect therefore I did not mind paying extra for another hotel instead of Hilton, but Sheraton (2.8k SEK) was double the price of Hilton (1.4k SEK) which I thought was overboard.  I booked at Hilton and even got a Best Rate Guarantee approved which meant my final price (1.0k SEK) ended up being almost a third of the price of other hotels I considered.  Despite the numerous minor service irritations I experienced during my stay, at that price it’s hard to argue Hilton is bad value for the money.  

The location of Hilton is a bit less convenient than Sheraton because once you arrive from the airport at the train / bus station, you need to transfer to the subway and Hilton is a couple of stops away from central station whereas Sheraton is right next to central station. However once you are in the hotel, the walking distance to the old town Gamla Stan is pretty much the same from Hilton or from Sheraton so Hilton is definitely not a bad location.

I booked a deluxe room and at check-in I was upgraded as Diamond to an “executive room with view”.  I noticed the day I booked that no suites were available online so I did not expect a suite upgrade, and by the time of check-in suites were still unavailable. As it’s been noted in other reviews of this hotel, suite upgrades at this property are very unlikely so nobody should expect them.  I asked reception and they told me they have 6 suites out of 289 rooms therefore a ratio of 48 to 1 which is even worse than Hilton Helsinki where we stayed a few days prior and I commented about the difficulty of getting suites given there was only one on our floor out of 37 rooms.

Our room was somewhat small, in fact noticeably smaller than the non-upgraded room we received in Hilton Helsinki Strand.  The views of the old town are nice but as you are near busy roads it’s not the quietest location and there was a lot of construction right in front.  You can partially open the window to get some fresh air but traffic noise makes it less desirable.  

The room was clearly built with high quality materials and can withstand the test of time quite well.  The hotel must be more than 25 years old but with hardwood floors and marble in the bathroom the room was still in decent shape.  

While the bedroom is all fine, my main issue with this room is the bathroom which is poorly designed.  One problem is that the toilet is right in front of the entrance so it is blocking the way to the corner where the towel rack is.  The bathroom is small to begin with, and making the corner not easy to access makes the problem more acute and is almost a waste of space. You have to sneak between the toilet and the sink as the two are quite close to each other and on the way there you can knock your head on the mirror which sticks out of the wall unless you move it out of the way.  Also the counter space is severely lacking and is at knee height.  To make matters worse, in the shower the joint at the bottom of the glass wall was not tight, so on the first night I flooded the small counter space because water leaked out of the shower area.  I would much rather have a stand-alone shower than a bathtub, but it’s not so surprising for an older hotel and even the tub was not well designed. The tap is neither at the far end of the tub nor in the middle of the tub; it is exactly where your legs are when you stand under the flow of water so you can easily knock your legs on the tap.  Also the tub is unusually high so it would not be surprising to hear of a guest getting hurt while getting out of the slippery tub and wet floor outside the tub.

I was disappointed to find out that the executive lounge was closed during our stay for renovations.  I guess it avoided us getting noisy foot traffic outside our room since we were very close to the entrance of the fourth floor lounge.  As a temporary lounge they are using some kind of conference room right off the main restaurant on the floor below reception and according to what they told me at reception, the normal lounge won’t be ready for another few weeks.  Staff at reception tried to spin it positively by saying some guests like this temporary lounge better because it is more spacious.  Nevertheless, the temporary lounge was very crowded during happy hour and the space was very bland and not particularly inviting.  

I guess the advantage for us was that we could go to the main breakfast buffet and bring our plate to the temporary lounge in order to benefit from the more quiet room while also having the extra choice of the breakfast buffet.  In any event, breakfast was forgettable and nothing to write home about.  There were no fruits that stood out as being an interesting choice – everything was standard hotel fruits.  Hot dishes were also standard western items such as bacon, sausages, and scrambled eggs; I guess meatballs is the one thing that gave some kind of local flavor to the breakfast.  They did not have smoked salmon but rather mackerel.  Overall I found it to be a quite boring breakfast buffet and I am glad we did not have to sit in the main room because it was very crowded and felt cramped due to low ceilings except for a few tables which were near the stairs with a high ceiling.  

Happy hour in the lounge is 6-8pm and I was pleased to see Cava available rather than only wine, in addition they not only had white+red wine, but also rosé.  Spirits and beer were also available.  They had some raw veggies and sandwiches which is inferior to other Hilton lounges which often have more interesting varieties of creative and healthy salads. However the choice of hot dishes was above average for Hilton lounge standards.  One evening was macaroni with salmon and vegetables with the other dish being some kind of shredded pork roll, and the other evening was rice with strips of salmon – a positive surprise.

Since the temporary lounge was full during happy hour, I can easily imagine that in the regular lounge there is simply not enough room for all guests, which is a shame.  Especially on the second night it was an absolute zoo – very loud people, babies crying, people banging the back of our chair several times when going to get food or drinks, and if you sat at a table of 4 and you were only 2 people, then you would have strangers sit immediately next to you because they did not have anywhere else to sit.  So the food for happy hour was above average, but the environment was considerably subpar and would possibly be even worse when it’s in the regular lounge.

Service is for sure not the strength of this hotel. Service in the lounge for breakfast was good but the rest of our stay left to be desired.  A couple of times I called reception before leaving the hotel to ask if housekeeping could come clean our room before our return in 1-2 hours. When I make this request, almost all hotels are happy to give priority to our room but at this hotel, both times I met resistance and I was told that housekeeping was very busy and that they were not sure they could get to our room right away.  In any event, by the time we got back, housekeeping had done our room fortunately but cleaning was cursory and the floor had obviously not been swept both times.  Also since there was no real lounge, I tried to print a document myself from the two computers near reception (I normally do so in the lounge) and it was not working because they apparently block USB sticks from being used there.  Instead I sent an e-mail to front desk with the attachment but they did not do anything.  The next day I asked about my printout and they told me to e-mail it again.  When we came back a couple of hours later the printout was not delivered in our room, so back to reception I went and wait in the queue.  I asked about my printout and front desk told me they had not looked at my e-mail because they had been “busy” and instead told me to use the computers in front of reception and I repeated that I would of course do it myself but they have locked USBs from being used, hence my request to them.  A few hours later I went to reception again to ask for the printout and they had still not gotten to it; fortunately that time I spoke to someone at front desk who finally took care of it immediately.

Last issue regarding service: check-in and check-out time. We arrived very late so no problem getting our room but I asked for late check-out and after some discussion I could get 1:30pm and they explained that this is the best they can do and they try to please everybody who have early check-in.  On the last morning I also overheard a grumpy Diamond member around noon complaining that his room was not ready and that as Diamond they should have had priority.  I suspect this hotel struggles with housekeeping times (as referred to above when I requested my room to be cleaned) and they struggle with the flow of check-ins and check-outs.  Hilton has something to learn from Marriott and Hyatt who guarantee 4pm check-out for elites.

Wifi was not very fast, at most 4 Mbps when I measured it late morning and even slower in the evening.

Overall not my best Hilton stay ever, but my expectations were not at a high level anyway.  Given what’s offered in the lounge for happy hour and the cash value of it in light of local prices, no matter how bad the environment was and no matter how questionable service was, it is hard to conclude that 1.0k SEK is not a good price for what you get.  So I would rather save money and stay at Hilton which is in a good location, decent views, comfortable bed, and has an executive lounge, for less than half the price than better hotels many of which don’t even have a lounge (except Sheraton). If you set your expectations accordingly this property is good value.  However if for my next stay Hilton was priced 0.5k SEK within Sheraton or other good options then I would rather pay a little extra and try something else next time.