VALO Hotel & Work Helsinki — Sauna, Coworking & Alojamiento

VALO is a great value hotel located approximately 5 km from the city centre, which is roughly 20 minutes away by public transportation. The size and popularity of the hotel surprised us the most — we visited in the middle of August and it was almost fully booked. Unfortunately, this also caused queues to form both at the manned reception and at breakfast. While check-in and check-out can be done at kiosks on-site, if you book multiple rooms under your name, you will need assistance from a receptionist to add all the guests' details. This took us 30 minutes, though, because the first receptionist we spoke to promised to correct the booking so that we could finish the self-check-in process, but shortly thereafter disappeared. Since nothing had changed in the system, we had to wait in line for the second receptionist, who eventually checked us in manually. When we initially reserved the rooms, we saw in the room pictures that the beds could be converted into tables. However, as it turned out, hotel guests are not permitted to do this themselves and must instead request housekeeping to do it. As this seemed rather burdensome, we decided not to make use of this option. Since we had initially booked a Smart room and it did not have any other tables (as we expected to be able to use the built-in one), we requested to be upgraded to a Comfort room but that process turned out to be really tedious since we were initially asked to pay significantly more for the upgrade than the price difference between the two room types on their website. Eventually, we found a compromise that worked for us, but the process was not enjoyable, to say the least. We also found out that some rooms might not have a refrigerator (or rather, a minibar, given its size), and that was true even for some Comfort rooms. The rooms in general were clean and modern. The bathroom was really tiny and could only accommodate one person at a time. There was a large TV facing the bed, which was convenient. The Comfort room also had an additional table and a couch, which was great. Breakfast was very crowded, and it was somewhat difficult to find a table. In terms of taste, the breakfast was decent. At almost any given time, multiple breakfast items were unavailable because they were being consumed faster than they were being restocked. The breakfast also somewhat lacked variety, particularly in terms of hot and sweet foods. The coffee machine, funnily enough, also dispensed only one type of coffee. Despite some limitations, the hotel offers relatively good value for money, and we would consider staying here again.

Spacious and very well-equipped rooms. Excellent breakfast buffet.