Hilton Helsinki Strand = Solid Hotel if Content Without Room Upgrade

I stayed at Hilton Helsinki Strand more than a decade ago and the hotel was fine back then and I decided to return this year.  I also considered other options, for example Klaus K (Design Hotel – Marriott) and Lilla Roberts (Small Luxury Hotels / Hyatt) and perhaps the other Hilton in the city (Kalastajatorppa) but I found a relatively attractive price at Hilton Strand so I booked there.  Our stay was ok but I might be inclined to try other hotels next time and it would depend on price again.  People interested in this review would probably care more about a comparison to other Helsinki hotels which I am unfortunately not qualified to provide since I never stayed at another hotel in Helsinki besides the Hilton at the airport.  For what it’s worth, within a 10-day span we stayed at Hilton Tallinn, Hilton Helsinki Strand, and Hilton Stockholm, so short of being able to provide a useful comparison to other hotels in Helsinki, I can at least compare with other Hiltons in this part of the world.  

Hilton Helsinki Strand is located in a quiet neighborhood near the water but not so far away from city center as to be inconvenient at least not in the summer – you can easily walk to city center in 15 minutes and don’t need public transportation.  Bus 615 is on a direct line from the airport to Hagnäs bus stop just a couple of minutes walk to the hotel which is also convenient.  

We arrived at 11am and our room was not ready but I asked if we could go the executive lounge and we were given an access card. Shortly after, staff from reception came to meet us in the lounge and gave us a room key which was proactively well done rather than make us go back to reception later to ask if the room was ready.  Unfortunately the hotel was fully booked on the second night of our stay so we did not get a room upgrade at all: I booked a sea view room and this is what I got. I guess the lack of upgrade can always happen at any hotel but it definitely makes for a different experience than when receiving a generous upgrade at other hotels.  The issue is not that the hotel is stingy by not upgrading when they can. Looking at the floor plan they simply do not have many suites – only one per floor, and I counted 37 rooms on our floor. One suite out every 37 rooms is unlikely to result in very good odds of a suite upgrade particularly if staying more than a couple of nights.  

Overall the room was not very big which is not surprising given the age of the hotel, but it was large enough to be functional, and clearly larger and more comfortable than the room we had at Hilton Stockholm.  Hilton Helsinki Strand is more than 25 years old but fortunately rooms have been renovated so they generally look fine. The vinyl / fake wood floors are better than carpet, and the furniture was in good condition and relatively modern.  Because of the location of the hotel, rooms on one side of the hotel have great water views which are further enhanced by the bay windows which are nicer than traditional flat windows on the wall.  However it’s clear it’s an older hotel and they could have done a bit better on renovations particularly in the bathroom.  The vanity side was ok, but I would have preferred a walk-in shower like more recent Hiltons and the shower hand had considerable wear and tear and was leaking. Also the door of the bathroom was very brittle and thin.  Since we did not get any upgrade at all (not even an executive room), there were no bathrobes in the room.  However when we called reception to ask, they delivered two to the room.  Overall the room at Hilton Stockholm had significantly better quality materials and build than in Helsinki, but the room in Helsinki was larger, more functional, more quiet and better views.  Hilton Tallinn beats them both by a mile but that is somewhat unfair given that it’s a brand new hotel.

The rooms are not the biggest in Hilton Helsinki Strand, and for the executive lounge it’s even more the case.  You access the lounge via key card and there is no staff at the entrance.  If you need help or information during the stay you will not have an additional layer of service from the lounge unlike staffed Hilton lounges.  There is one staff in the lounge but only during breakfast or happy hour time, that person taking care of refills for the food buffet and to clear tables.  Because of the small size of the lounge, happy hour was quite full on most days.  We had to arrive before 5pm to ensure a good seat and on some evenings almost all seats were taken by 5:15pm.  Hors d’oeuvres are served until 7pm and drinks are a generous 4 hours (until 9pm). 

Although the lounge was crowded, the water views from up there are very nice especially if you get one of the tables by the windows, even better than views from our room since the lounge was on a higher floor. There is also a small terrace outside which was lovely particularly with the sunny 20C weather during our stay.  

I was pleased to see Prosecco available and the rest was fairly standard, a subpar Argentinian Malbec Merlot, the Sauvignon Blanc was moderately better (also from Argentina), plus beer and spirits.  Cold salads were good with decent variety and healthy choices.  There was a choice of two hot dishes every evening which were ok but not great.  Most choices were mediocre such as meatballs, quiche, and spring rolls, the exception being one evening they had chicken breast which was very good.  Variety could have been better however, three nights out of four they had beetroot patties or beetroot balls.  I guess they like beetroots.

Breakfast in the restaurant and in the lounge is only until 10am during the week (11am on weekends) which is less convenient than many other Hiltons which are until 10:30am or 11am every day.  If this was a business hotel with most guests having breakfast early, I would understand the early cut-off.  However they show a sign in elevators with red/yellow/green lights to indicate what busy times are for breakfast and they clearly want to communicate to all guests that the busy time is after 9am and they warn that there will be waiting lines in the restaurant.  Yet they end the breakfast at 10am – this is not guest friendly.  I would also note that the sign on the executive lounge door says breakfast is until 10:30am so they must have changed the timing recently to 10am, fortunately staff did not come at 10am on the dot to remove food so they seemed more lenient about timing in the lounge than in the restaurant due to lack of staff upstairs.  Breakfast in the lounge was more quiet than in the restaurant as can be expected, although it was not that quiet.  In some hotels, almost nobody goes to the lounge and people choose the restaurant instead, but in Helsinki there was a decent number of guests in the lounge.  The food options are not that great – sausages, bacon, and eggs, plus some fruits and veggies but nothing that stood out.

Breakfast in the restaurant is usually better than in the lounge for most hotels; it was the case for this Hilton as well, but I would note that the difference was more significant than I normally observe. Unlike in the lounge, fruits were a bit more interesting for example berries.  But most importantly, the hot dishes were numerous and not just the standard boring stuff.  They seem to cater to Asian guests: fried noodles, fried rice, they even had cooked salmon.  I like smoked salmon for breakfast but to be honest I sometimes get tired of it so this was a welcome change.  The tables in the atrium are a fantastic setting for breakfast with large windows, water views, and the ceiling going all the way to the top of the hotel with a view of the elevators.  The tables closer to the buffet are in a more cramped low-ceiling and unpleasant environment. We went to the restaurant before 9am to avoid the large crowds and it was clear that by the time we finished around 9am the situation was a bit tight.  If we ignore how crowded breakfast is, in terms of food offerings this is among the better Hilton breakfasts I have seen in Europe (and far superior to Hilton Stockholm and Tallinn), possibly in part due to the Asian influence.

It was great service for staff at reception come meet us proactively in the lounge to give us our room key at check-in, however for the rest of our stay I cannot say that service is the strength of this hotel. First of all, we did not receive any kind of welcome gift in the room, not even an apple or a bottle of water.  The one staff in the lounge during happy hour was doing a good job but it’s only one person and he or she was spread thin. During the day there is nobody in the lounge to help guests with questions, and when calling reception from the room sometimes the phone rings non-stop because they are busy at reception and not picking up the phone.  Going down in person to reception to ask for something resulted in waiting queues.  Perhaps as the hotel tries to limit staffing costs, one time the toilet in the executive lounge was apparently not cleaned all day and was one of the dirtiest I have ever seen for a lounge toilet.  One morning I did not see any staff in the lounge during breakfast to clear tables when we were there so around 9:30am there was nobody we could ask for refills when the buffet was out of stock of one item.  Towards the tail end of breakfast, the lounge was not full of people but either tables were occupied, dirty, or available but no cutlery.  One positive aspect of service was that housekeeping was done well in our room and always exactly when requested.

Last but not least regarding service, one of my biggest pet peeves when staying at a Hilton chain hotel: check-out time. While elite guests get guaranteed 4pm check-out at Marriott or Hyatt hotels, and sometimes the hotel grants check-out even later than that, with Hilton it is often like pulling teeth to the point where if I have a late flight I am sometimes tempted to let that drive my choice of hotel to avoid a hassle of late check-out at Hilton.  This time was not very different.  I thought not getting an upgrade at all meant late check-out would be an easier request for the hotel to meet, but no.  We were offered no later than 2pm check-out because they said the hotel was full, although we could wait in the lounge after that and it was very quiet and comfortable in the lounge from 2pm to 4pm.  It is true that the hotel was full that night, but I would note that not all guests check-in at 3pm so hotels can easily have the flexibility to allow later check-outs especially when the room is not a specialty suite and if the hotel is very large with plenty of rooms of that type.  This is exactly how other hotel chains can manage the situation and grant 4pm check-out automatically.

Wifi worked very well at all times with speeds of about 25 Mbps.

Overall our stay was decent, we loved the water views, plus the price was quite reasonable.  In both Tallinn and Stockholm, Hilton was cheaper than other options I considered and my takeaway after the stays was that Hilton was solid value for what we paid, and that I would return.  However in Helsinki my conclusion is somewhat different.  In absolute terms I preferred Hilton Helsinki than Hilton Stockholm, but Hilton Stockholm was considerably cheaper than competitors such as Sheraton which is why despite its warts I thought the value of Hilton was good.  In Helsinki, the price premium to pay for other hotels I considered instead of Hilton was not as significant so I might consider paying more for another property in the future rather than return, unlike in Tallinn and Stockholm.  Ignoring the location, in the same price range I prefer Hilton Helsinki airport but obviously for a longer stay that is not a choice, however it illustrates to me that the value for the money at Hilton Helsinki Strand is ok but not stellar.  

Our stay was not horrible by any stretch of the imagination, and if Hilton was the only loyalty program I was using, I would most likely return without giving it a second thought if I needed to be in the city. The Hilton at the airport is one of the nicest airport hotels I have been to, but it is not suitable for a city stay.  Hilton Kalastajatorppa is too far out of the way and only marginal cash savings over Hilton Helsinki Strand therefore Hilton Helsinki Strand is not perfect but good enough to return if I needed a Hilton stay.  However, given that I spread my stays around between various programs, I have choices and while I won’t rule out Hilton, as mentioned above I will possibly consider alternatives more seriously next time.  Perhaps if we had received a suite upgrade I would feel differently about the value of Hilton, but given the limited number of suites at this hotel I do not think it’s abnormal to just get the room you booked and I suspect odds of upgrades are unlikely to be worse elsewhere.  So for guests who care most about an excellent breakfast, a decent lounge, and a quiet location with nice water views, Hilton should be high on the list.  But for guests who want a newer construction more centrally located in the city and higher chances of a room upgrade, I think there are better choices.