Scandic Hotel Continental, Helsinki

...paying.

Scandic are a big company who have hotels all over Finland, as well as in Swedon and, I think, Norway.


--- Location and Transport---

The Scandic is on Mannerhiemintie, which is a large street running straight through the city centre. It's about five or ten minutes walk from the very centre of town, but there's a tram stop right outside if it's cold or you're feeling lazy. Three different ...
...August. The curtains in the Scandic more than meet the requirements. They're very definitely black-out curtains.

If you've stayed at the Scandic enough times, you get a customer loyalty card. With this, you can get a free upgrade to an Ambassador room. Of course, this depends on how busy the hotel is. If there are plenty of people willing to pay extra for these rooms, they're not going to give you the upgrade no matter how many times ... more

My mum frequently comes to Finland on business and this is where she stays whenever she's in Helsinki. This means it's the place I've stayed on all my previous visits here. I've never found a reason to complain about it, but then again, my mum has always been the one paying.

Scandic are a big company who have hotels all over Finland, as well as in Swedon and, I think, Norway.

--- Location and Transport---

The Scandic is on Mannerhiemintie, which is a large street running straight through the city centre. It's about five or ten minutes walk from the very centre of town, but there's a tram stop right outside if it's cold or you're feeling lazy. Three different numbers of trams run down Mannerhiemintie at this point, so you shouldn't have to wait too long. The Finnair bus, which goes directly to the airport, stops immediately behind the hotel and there's a schedule for this bus available at the front desk.

The hotel staff are happy to arrange taxis, which will park immediately in front of the hotel main entrance. There is a sign in the lobby reading "taxi meeting point," which is where the drivers will wait to help you with your luggage. However, taxis are pretty expensive in Helsinki so, unless there are three or more of you, you'd be better off relying on the excellent public transport system.

The hotel is just across the road for a large, central park which is a wonderful place for a pleasant walk and tends to be very pretty whatever the weather. Also within easy walking distance (even within the park!) are kayak rentals, the Finnish Opera house and the Helsinki Winter Gardens.

--- The Rooms ---

The most important thing about any hotel. The rooms are nothing particularly special but they're not bad. The beds are decent; I've never had a problem getting to sleep on them. You get the things that seem to come as standard in most hotels: TV (complete with list of pay-per-view movies), mini-bar, kettle with tea and coffee selection, telephone.

The telephones have a direct-dial number so people can call the room without having the call the front desk first and be redirected. I'm not sure how much the hotel charges for making calls, as we'd usually phone the hotel to speak to Mum, rather than her call us. They'll probably be expensive, because hotel phones always are.

The rooms come with bath and shower rooms ensuite. These have two good-sized towels and two hand towels for a two-person room. I expect family rooms would have more, but I've not actually stayed in one, so I don't know. The soap and shampoo comes in large, squeezable bottles on the wall. This means there are no little bottles to steal, but it's better for the environment and saves the hotel money, so they don't have to charge quite as much for the rooms. There's also a polite note asking for you (in three different languages) to hang up your towels if you don't mind using them again. This is pretty standard practice for most hotels.

The rooms are all centrally heated. You can adjust the level of heat a little, but not a lot. I've found the rooms tend to be slightly on the warm side, but this is easily remedied by opening the window, so I suppose it's better than the other way round.

A surprisingly important feature in a Finnish hotel is the curtains. Remember, this is a country where it stays light most of the night in mid-summer. Helsinki isn't an area that gets midnight sun, but it's still important to have thick curtains during July and August. The curtains in the Scandic more than meet the requirements. They're very definitely black-out curtains.

If you've stayed at the Scandic enough times, you get a customer loyalty card. With this, you can get a free upgrade to an Ambassador room. Of course, this depends on how busy the hotel is. If there are plenty of people willing to pay extra for these rooms, they're not going to give you the upgrade no matter how many times you've stayed there. My mum's loyalty card has earned us an upgrade on the majority of my visits there with her. The Ambassador rooms are slightly larger, come with a writing desk and (sometimes) an ironing board. More importantly, the key card lets you into
the Ambassador lounge.

--- The Ambassador Lounge ---

This is located on the top floor of the hotel. It's a pleasant room with a view out over the city. There are comfortable chairs, a selection of newspapers in different languages, two computers with internet access and a selection of drinks and snacks. The food selection isn't great, but there's tea, coffee, hot chocolate or juice to drink and some biscuits and crisps to eat. More importantly, there are Fazer chocolates. I love Fazer chocolates and the lounge usually has a bowl of pink (sort of praline type
thing) and a bowl of blue (plain, milk chocolate, but much nicer than dairy milk).

If you have an Ambassador room, your key will let you in here. Once inside, everything is available free. People generally leave the newspapers behind after they've finished reading them so that the next person can enjoy them, so don't be too surprised if you find someone's already started the crossword or sudoku.

I always use the lounge for the internet. The keyboards are, unsurprisingly, Finnish, so I generally spend the first five minutes wondering how the heck I get the @ symbol (you press Alt Gr). The lounge can be absolutely deserted or fairly full and there's no easy way to predict which it will be, so sometimes you might be kept waiting a while to get on one of the computer. Usually though, at least one is available when I want to use it.

The lounge is available to those who pay extra for their rooms or who travel often enough to get a loyalty card. This means its usual occupants are business men and women. It's extremely rare for there to be families in here with young children. I find this a good thing. There are no rules against children being in here, it's just unusual.

--- The Main Lounge ---

This is next to the hotel lobby on the ground floor. It has comfortable arm chairs and sofas and, for most of the year, a roaring log fire. There's a selection of newspapers available in various languages, though usually the Financial Times is the only one there in English. There's nothing to stop you doing the sudokus in the Finnish ones though!

Unlike the Ambassador lounge, it doesn't come with free drinks and chocolate, but it is right next to the bar.

--- The Bar ---

This is on the ground floor of the hotel, between the lounge and the restaurant and you can take drinks from here into either. It has a good selection of alcoholic drinks and a standard selection of soft drinks. There's a board up on the wall recommending the drink of the day.

As well as drinks, it sells sandwiches and light snacks. This is useful if you want something to eat when the restaurant is shut or if you don't feel like a full dinner. There's nothing spectacular about the food, but it's definitely not bad.

I don't drink, so I haven't spent much time in here.

If you're a regular visitor to the Scandic, the loyalty card will entitle you to money off vouchers for use in the bar or the restaurant. You can only use one at a time, but it's acceptable to use one on your drinks in the bar, and then go through to the restaurant where you use another.

--- The Restaurant ---

The Scandic's restaurant sells mainly traditional Finnish fair, so there's a lot of fish and steaks (including reindeer and elk). They also serve pasta dishes if you don't want to try anything new. The menu offers a range of starters, main courses, light snacks, hot sandwiches, health options and deserts. There are some vegetarian options, particularly in the health and light snack sections of the menu, but these options never seem all that wonderful to me.

The menu changes slightly about every month or so, but you should always find options like beef steak, reindeer steak, spaghetti bolognaise and salmon. I would strongly recommend the salmon. The Finns have excellent salmon and this restaurant cooks it really well.

The last time I was there, I had a mixed sea food grill. This included salmon and scallops with crayfish sauce and came with a choice of side dishes. It also came with roast vegetables, including some excellent carrots. The sauce was a little salty, but the fish was cooked to perfection. Fish in any decent Helsinki restaurant will be extremely fresh and this is no exception.

The deserts include a delicious selection of ice-creams and sorbets. The baked apple ice cream is very nice if you want something slightly unusual. Then there are main deserts. My last meal there included cheese cake with raspberry sauce which was absolutely exquisite.

The restaurant isn't particularly cheap, but it will fall into the reasonable category when compared with what else is available in the area. The main courses come between fifteen and forty euro. The light snack and hot sandwich options tend to be cheaper. If you're staying in the hotel, you should definitely have at least one meal here. If you're staying elsewhere in Helsinki, it's worth thinking about as somewhere to go to eat out, but it's probably not your best option.

I do have one complaint about the restaurant. On occasion, the service can be very slow. This usually happens if there's a big party or conference group eating there. Usually the speed is fiarly average, but every one in a while, it will take forever.

--- Breakfast ---

This is served in the main restaurant. You go in and find yourself a table and then help yourself from the huge selection on the buffet. There's a section with yoghurt and fruit. There's a table with a whole selection of excellent breads and pastries. There are cereals (generally just cornflakes and muesli).

Then there's the cooked selection. This includes all the ingredients of a full English (although I never think much of their sausages) as well as some things you won't find in England. I would definitely recommend trying rice pastries (also known as karelian pastries) with egg butter. I have never found karelian pastries in any other country and I absolutely love them, so a breakfast here always includes one of these. They're a thin, soft pastry base with a white filling, which I assume is made from rice.

To drink, you get a choice of coffee, a wide variety of teas, at least three different types of fruit juice, or milk. Or all of the above.

The price of the breakfast is fixed, so you can eat as much as you feel like. We've always tended to fill ourselves up here and have hardly anything for lunch later. You should definitely be able to find something you want to eat from what's provided. The problem is chosing!

--- The Sauna and Swimming Pool ---

These are located on the top floor of the hotel. I've never liked saunas. I just don't see what the attraction is with getting hot and sweaty in a stuffy little room. But the Finns are very big on saunas. Even my mum's got to like them with her frequent visits.

The saunas are separated into male and female, as saunas are generally taken naked. I've avoided the saunas here, so I don't know how busy they get or how likely you would be to get one to yourself.

The swimming pool is a reasonble size and very, very cold. You have to swim pretty hard in order to keep warm. The pool is rectangular and a little smaller than the standard size you'd find in a UK leisure centre, but it's still big enough to do decent lengths. It doesn't tend to be very crowded, but this may be something to do with the temperature.

There's also a very rickety, old exercise bike near the edge of the pool. I've never been tempted to use this for fear I'd humiliate myself.

--- The Shop ---

There's a little shop next to the main desk in the lobby. Here you can buy slightly gimmicky, tourist gifts. You know the sort: fridge magnets and useless ornaments with "Helsinki" written on them. You can also buy sandwiches, games, moomin toys and Arika jewellery. Arika is a Finnish brand of jewellery that I sometimes like, so I have actually bought a few items from this shop. It's fairly reasonably priced. I could probably find a better deal if I hunted from the city, but it's often cheaper than Stockmann, the big department store.

--- Price ---

There are a variety of rooms available, including suites, which have two bedrooms joined together, two bathrooms, private lounge and other such luxuries. It is possible to get adjoining rooms with the standard rooms if you're on a family holiday and want to keep the kids close by.

Prices vary depending on the time of year. At the moment, the cheapest (economy) room is from 105 euro per night. The other rooms go from 130 euro. This does include breakfast, but even so, it's not particularly cheap. At the end of September, the prices go down to 74 euro for the economy and the others from 99 euro.

My boyfriend and I, whenever we go away, always look for the budget hotel options. We wouldn't stay here. But, if my mum or her company are paying the bill, it's a great place to stay!

--- Last-minute Bookings ---

I know this place accepts bookings at late notice. Last summer, my parents and I went on holiday to Lapland. To get back, we would fly from the local airport to Helsinki and from there to Heathrow. On the last day of the holiday, we drove to the airport to discover it had burned down!

OK, that's a slight exageration, but there'd been a fire. No one had been hurt, thankfully, but there were no planes taking off or landing. So we had to drive a couple of hundred kilometers south to get to the next airport, hoping to get there in time for a flight that would let us make our connection. We got there in time. Unfortunately, everyone else had had the same plan and there were no seats left.

So, out came the mobile phone to see the Scandic Continental had space for three people for one night. They did.

This place frequently hosts large conferences, but I've never known it to be completely booked up.There are 512 rooms, so there should be at least one available. You should be able to get a room here even at late notice.

--- Disabled Access ---

I'm not disable, nor is anyone in my family, so this has never been an issue for me. I can say with confidence though that I've never had to walk up a single step in this hotel. There are three lifts that go to all floors and no stairs but the emergency exit.

I haven't ever had to ask about disabled rooms, but I would be shocked if they don't have some.

--- Overall ---

It's definitely not the cheapest hotel you'll find by a long way, but it is in a good area and has a plenty by way of facilities. I've enjoyed my many stays here and would be more than happy to stay there again... providing my mum's paying the bill.

It's a very nice hotel, but you have to pay for that. 

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