Rovaniemi Hotels with Pools

A unique hotel with great location in central (but quiet) location in Rovaniemi. The breakfast at the hotel is just amazing. Probably the best anywhere in Finland, just superb. Great variety of alternatives, fresh, tasty. Local specialities (such as clouberry jam, squeaky cheese, local bread), unbelievably variety of fruit, berries, cakes, etc. You name it. Have not seen anything like this is Finland before. I had a small loft room on top floor. Spotlessly clean, great bed, quiet, good amneties. Only small minus for carpet floor, laminate is always preferrable. But a great room with everything you need. And it was the smallest and cheapest in the hotel :-) The personnel is attentative and friendly. Parking easy and free-of-charge behind the hotel. If you arrive late and the parking space is full, there is a lot of places 50-80 metres away, by the round-about and the nearby streets. These are free-of charge between 18:00 in the evening and 8:00 in the morning. As a hotel, a super hotel. If you are on your way to Rovaniemi, forget all chain hotels and ”S” hotels - Arctic Light is the place to stay.

After reading the reviews and all the nice promises on their website, i had high hopes about this hôtel. How foolish was i?!? I wrote an email the week before our arrival to ask if an early checking at 2h instead of 4h could be possible as we had to prepare for our wedding. They’ve answered that they will ask the cleaning team to do the room first so we could enter it earlier. When we arrived there was no one available so we had to ring and wait for someone as it’s how this place work. The person who arrived 10 minutes later was really not nice nor polite. We felt like disturbing him when he told us that they never do early checking. When i told him i’ve sent an email about this 2 weeks before he said i was lying. Oh ok!?! As we had 2 hours to wait we’ve decided to use the safe locker room they are providing. There is only 10 lockers there. After 10 minutes of struggles to try to lock a locker with all our luggages inside, we had to go back upstair to ring the rude guy again. We’ve waited 10 minutes again for him. When he arrived he told us that the lockers were broken and unusable. No sign to tell us that or nothing, just figure this out yourself when he knew it was broken! There is only two seats in the entrance and there were already 4 people waiting there with their luggage. I asked him what we were then supposed to do and he told us to just leave all our stuff unattended and unlocked there, with everybody able to go through them. I asked him if he was serious and he told me ”if you don’t trust us you can leave with your luggage!” I told him that i don’t know him and with some reviews already talking about stolen stuff in the hôtel you can understand why! He was very rude so i told him i was going to film him and that’s when he said i could leave our stuff in our room while it was being cleaned. We’ve decided to do this and whild doing it we’ve met the cleaning team. Honestly they should be the ones dealing with guests while the rude guy should be left far from any hospitality job where you interact with humans! They told us nobody told them we’ve asked for early checking otherwise they would have done our room first, especially if we wrote an email way earlier to ask for this. Probably the rude guy who forgot how to do his job again! After all that we only had 30 minutes to wait LOL When entering the room, we’ve realised that the fire place is fake. If you wait for the heat or flames of a real fire place you’la be sadly disapointed. Just a fake very light colored ”flame”. The bathroom is one foot away from the bed and the toilets are in it with the shower and sink. There is just a small wall separating between your pillow and the toilet. Wonder why we don’t see this on their website??? The room is advertised as a room ”with view”. If a view on street work and an old building is ”a view” then this is true. (see my pics for that awesome view) People are smoking and drinking at night on the steps of the outside entrance so it’s always

Very nice cottage, and big. Even though I travelled solo, I could see the space is comfortable for 2.4 persons. Service of staff is good, they don't volunteer information but if you asked they respond in very friendly way. Breakfast was average, both in terms of spread and quality. As the village was so quiet during the time I stayed (beginning of Autumn), I didn't try their restaurants for other meals, choosing instead to go to city center. Facilities-wise this is a resort, and there was no help to get your luggage to your room which is a few minutes walk. you can pay for it. Also, no transport to city provided by hotel. You need to take public transport.

We didn't originally plan to stay at the Scandic. The rooms were honestly a little small. We made a reservation at a competitor hotel in Rovaniemi (for a 6 person room) only to be turned away for having too many children!. (We are a family of 6). The Scanic welcommed us and provided a room with space for the 4 children. Breakfast waas included and fast internet access allowed me to do some work. The Scandic chain is great for what it provides, clean, comfortable, nordic style rooms with a great breakfast. Nothing fancy or extra, but great value.

It was helpful that they kept our luggage even before check-in. There were a few clumps of dust in the bathroom, but the room was generally clean and nice! There was a wide variety of breakfast options, and we enjoyed it. Santa Claus Village is easily accessible from the bus stop about a 10-minute walk away. There was also a supermarket about 10 minutes away from the hotel, which was convenient.