Hotel Helka

Especially considering the cost and how the hotel presents itself as excellent, the overall experience was underwhelming to say the least. The room did not feel very clean, some areas had dust. And to make matters worse, the hotel did not offer slippers. This is the first time I have stayed at a hotel that didn't offer complimentary slippers. When I asked the reception about this, I was told that because we booked a 'standard' room, slippers were not included, only the more expensive 'premium' rooms come with the slippers. What's with the "lower class" rhetoric? The hotel boasts about its sustainability standards, if their response was something like "because of our sustainability policy, we do not offer the single-use slippers to reduce waste", although there is such a thing as eco-friendly hotel slippers, I would still accept it much better. But the response I was given just gave me a shocking impression of disregard for service quality. The hotel brags about its excellent breakfast and that it "has earned the maximum number of stars in the Portaat luomuun program", which is priced in every room rate, so there's no way to opt out of. According to the hotel, they embrace diversity and make everyone feel seen and included. However, the attention given to dietary restrictions was just disappointing.Labels for lactose-free, gluten-free and vegan were there, but left to the side, the staff couldn't be bothered to place labels clearly next to each food item they referred to, leaving guests to do the guess work.I had one of the porridges and believed it was safe, since all the labels in that area referring to porrige were marked with V for vegan. Because I really couldn't be sure about some other dishes, I decided to ask for clarification. To my disappointment, this hotel does not assign any staff to the breakfast hall. I couldn't see anyone for a long time, until finally a kitchen staff came over to refill food items. He indicated to me the items that were vegan and also pointed out that one of the porridges had cow milk in it. That just happened to be the one I ate from, misguided by the labels. It doesn't stop there though, besides the concerning disregard for dietary restrictions, the breakfast offering was among the most boring I have ever seen at hotels around the world. Small, not that much variety, cold (who enjoys eating porridge that's so cold it seems straight out of the fridge?), artificial-flavoured "juice" (yuck). And the small variety just gets repeated every single day. If we could have paid for a room rate that didn't include, we gladly would. How does this hotel have 4 stars?

Great and very friendly staff. Old, but clean facilities, with awesome and central location! Breakfast was very average...

The hotel is excellent! Breakfast was good and the location very convinient , close to downtown.

Superb location, staff is super kind ! Very easy to walk around the city from the hotel. A pity the beers are so expensive, but that's the same for other places in the country.

Great breakfast and bar, comfortable bed and friendly helpful staff. Great location