Rica Park Hotel Drammen, Drammen

...wedding. We stayed at the Rica Park Hotel since that was the hotel chosen for the wedding guests to stay at. I think we had a special deal since there were so many people from the wedding staying there, but a double room for 2 nights including breakfast was 1400NOK. XE.com tells me that with todays exchange rate, that works out at around £139.

The hotel has 100 rooms, which consist of 2 suites, 5 business rooms and 93 double or single ...
...chain of hotel with hotels all over Norway, and the other Scandinavian countries too.

When you walk into the hotel it looks really nice. There is a big wooden reception desk and there are stone statues around the place. There is also a bar to your right, and the restaurant to your left. There is a grand looking staircase next to the reception area, but also a lift if you prefer not to walk up the stairs! There are 4 or 5 floors (I ... more

Recently I was in Drammen, near Oslo (Norway), for a wedding. We stayed at the Rica Park Hotel since that was the hotel chosen for the wedding guests to stay at. I think we had a special deal since there were so many people from the wedding staying there, but a double room for 2 nights including breakfast was 1400NOK. XE.com tells me that with todays exchange rate, that works out at around £139.

The hotel has 100 rooms, which consist of 2 suites, 5 business rooms and 93 double or single rooms.

'Rica' are quite a large chain of hotel with hotels all over Norway, and the other Scandinavian countries too.

When you walk into the hotel it looks really nice. There is a big wooden reception desk and there are stone statues around the place. There is also a bar to your right, and the restaurant to your left. There is a grand looking staircase next to the reception area, but also a lift if you prefer not to walk up the stairs! There are 4 or 5 floors (I can't quite remember!)

Check in was quick and easy, since we had pre-booked all we had to do was give our name and we got the key to our room. We arrived quite late at night so it was nice to have such a simple check in since we were quite eager to get to bed. They use key cards and not 'old style' keys, so once we got to the room all we had to do was insert it into the slot and then we could open the door.

We got to the room, it looked quite nice but fairly standard. We unpacked and put all our things away. I had started to get changed for bed when my boyfriend decided to go to the toilet.. after a few seconds all I heard was "Oh my god!". I thought something terrible had happened so was frantically asking what was wrong. He opened the door to reveal lots of little insects crawling over the floor, crawling out from underneath the toilet. The insects were about 2 - 3mm long and were not ones I had really seen before, they went at super-speed and almost glided across the floor almost like little snakes, but in insect form (the new species insect snake!) I also have to add that the soiled sanitary bag that hangs next to the toilet had not been changed either.. I also found what looked like a dead one next to our bed. We trapped two of the insects under some glasses and off we went down to reception to ask if we could change our room, since we really didn't want to stay in a room with strange creepy crawlies. The receptionist looked at us strangely and asked if they were just normal insects that you get everywhere (they really weren't) She finally gave us a new room.. right next door to the one we had! We were a bit worried that since the rooms were so close together that there might be insects in there too but we inspected the bathroom but luckily did not find any of the beasties in there.

The rooms are quite basic and generic but have everything you need to make you feel comfortable. I am guessing all of the rooms in the hotel are the same, since the two ones that we had were identical. There is a desk next to the window, which has a folder on it with some writing paper and some leaflets about the hotel, then on the desk is also a tv. Our tv and remote control were both broken, with the bottom of the tv having completely come off and the remote split in half down the two sides, only just being held together. It is possible to get movies on your tv, and the cost just gets added to your hotel bill, but we didn't make use of this facility (not that we would have been able to anyway..) There is a 'double bed' in the middle of the room. This is actually two twin beds pushed together, a little annoying when they start separating in the middle of the night and you end up falling down the gap. The duvets on the bed are also two single duvets, not one large one, which I think I would have preferred.
There is a comfy chair in the corner of the room and a trouser press. There is a mini bar which stocked beer, wine, juice, chocolate and crisps. This was quite expensive so we didn't use it, but it was nice to look at!

The bathroom consisted of a toilet, shower and sink. The shower wasn't that good. The holes in the head of the shower must have been slightly broken since you didn't actually get a nice even spray of water but instead clumps of water that was quite hard to wash with. The shower head also sprayed water outside of the shower area, so the bathroom ended up soaking wet too. You get complimentary toiletries in the bathroom which look really nice. You get two bottles of shampoo, two shower gels and some soap. I used all three of them and have no complaints with those. There are two pictures on the wall of the room which were of flowers and seemed quite generic too, but they were quite nice.

One thing was (and I know its not the hotels fault) that it was so hot last weekend in Oslo, with temperatures at around 28'c, that the room was unbearably hot, and with no air conditioning we had an almost sleepless night. The windows open into the room and not outwards, so the tv and the curtains actually blocked us from opening the window fully and it was like an oven in there (I know it sounds like I am complaining a lot!)

It is also possible to get internet in the room which you can connect to via wireless on your computer. You can either pay by card or you can get a voucher from reception.

When we got up in the morning, we went down to breakfast, which is served between 7am and 10am. I have to say I was so impressed with breakfast! The choice was amazing. There were hot foods such as bacon and eggs, omelette, fried potatoes, but then also cold options such as cereal, bread and cheese and hams, fruit and yoghurts. This was the highlight of my stay at the hotel! The breakfast was served in the hotel restaurant which was called 'Urterhaven' which means 'Herb Garden'. There was a cute little white fence around the restaurant, which looked really nice. They also serve lunch and dinner too, but we only had breakfast there since it was included in the price.

It is also possible to get room service, you can get sandwiches and soups, but this was quite pricey and we didn't make use of this. You can also, at a charge, get breakfast served in your room.

There is also a bar in the hotel, which is directly to your right as you come into the hotel. We had a beer here and is serves the local beer which is called 'Aass' beer (but it does taste nice!) I'm not sure how much the beers cost here, we did go for a drink there but I didn't pay.

In terms of location the hotel is wonderful. It is a short 5-minute walk into the centre of town where we found a little fruit market and lots of nice shops. You can choose to walk along the river bank to get into town, which has some cute little restaurants and some boats tied up. The hotel has a park on either side of it which would be great for relaxing in, unfortunately we were so busy, and only there for the weekend so we didn't get a chance.

There is car parking on the street outside the hotel for hotel guests, and there was also a car park just across the street.

All in all I was not very impressed with the hotel rooms. Having found insects in one of them, and then having a broken tv and dodgy shower in the other didn't make a really good impression on me! I did love the breakfast they served, but not enough for me to go out of my way and stay at this hotel again if we ever return to Drammen. 

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