Hotels Travel

Review: Hotel Front, Copenhagen

Staying in Scandinavia doesn’t have to cost the earth. If you know where to look, you can get some very good deals. One such hotel is Hotel Front in Copenhagen, where I stayed for four nights. Does a hotel that promises “comfort, warmth and quality” deliver? Here’s my review.

The Room

Rooms come in sizes small to extra large and are priced according to these sizes. I stayed in a single room for £57 a night plus taxes via Hotels.com. Even for their smallest category room, my room was quite spacious. As well as an amazingly comfortable bed, there was a not so comfortable lounge chair with coffee table, a desk and office chair, a mini bar, a flat screen TV and a copious amount of storage space. The decor was modern and minimalist with white walls and black furniture. The carpet was a thick shag pile. A set of double French doors opened into the room, letting in plenty of light and air. Artificial lighting consisted of spot lamps, which had to be pointed to the ceiling in order to get the best light. Overall, lighting was poor, including in the bathroom. The en-suite bathroom housed an excellent rain shower, a terribly small and inconvenient sink and of course, a toilet. The flooring was heated and made up of pebbles set into concrete.

Location

The location of the hotel is surely one of it’s best qualities. Literally right by the water’s edge, opposite the new Opera House. The iconic, lively and colourful Nyhavn with it’s many bars and restaurants is 2 minutes walk away while Kongens Nytorv Metro station, connecting you to other areas of Copenhagen and the city airport is 8 minutes away. Amalienborg Plads, the royal residence, is just around the corner and the statue of the Little Mermaid is about a 25 minutes stroll in the same direction. The world famous Strøget shopping street is 10 minutes away. All of the cities sights are within walking distance. If you’re arriving via the main train station though, it’s quite a walk. Either catch an expensive taxi, or take the S-Train to Nørreport and change to the metro to Kongens Nytorv.

Amenities

Each room has a free mini bar which is topped up daily. It contains four bottles of water, a bottle of Coke Light, a regular Coke and two bottles of Carlsberg. The hotel provides free wifi in-room and in public areas (ask at reception for the password when you arrive). On the flat screen TV, there was a meagre selection of channels in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. The only channels in English were Bloomberg, CNN and BBC World News. Luckily, Scandinavian TV stations import a lot of television programmes from Britain and the US which are subtitled rather than dubbed, so English speakers shouldn’t go without something to watch. Besides the regular channels, there are 4 Pay TV channels provided by the hotel. The toiletries provided in the bathroom are of a high quality. Each room contains a good-sized safe and a hair dryer. Strangely lacking is tea and coffee making facilities. Bicycles can be hired at reception for DKK150 per day, as can DVD players (price unknown). The hotel’s restaurant, Front Diner, sold pricey American diner-style food (burgers, steaks etc.). While expensive, the food was good and filling and the ambiance was relaxed and friendly.

Service

The best thing going for Hotel Front is its staff. Whether from housekeeping, at reception or in the restaurant, every single member of staff I encountered was friendly, relaxed and noticeably tried to be as helpful as possible.

The Good

• Free mini bar
• Free wifi
• Very comfortable bed
• Excellent rain shower
• Extremely helpful staff
• Cosy and clean rooms

The Bad

• Sound-proofing of the windows and doors was quite bad. The hotel isn’t on a particularly busy street, but buses do stop outside and can be heard up until midnight and from early morning. The room doors are quite thin and slam loudly.
• The hotel requires a credit card to be authorised on arrival, even if you’ve paid in advance. As I don’t have a credit card, I was charged a deposit of DKK500 (£50) a night or DKK2000 (£200) for my stay in case I made use of any extras. This was charged to my Maestro card. When it came to getting my money back, it turned out they couldn’t refund onto Maestro and so they gave me the cash back. Due to the exchange rate, I only got back £190 (£10 less than I paid).
• Housekeeping go to every room between 1800 and 2000, offering a turn-down and a free apple. It got irritating pretty quickly. Stick the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on your door to avoid it.
• No tea and coffee making facilities
• Poor in-room lighting.
• Practically unusable sink in bathroom due to central location of faucet and small size (a case of fashion over function).

Conclusion

For what I paid, I can’t really complain. The location was perfect, the room spacious and comfortable and the extras most welcome. The free wifi in particular was most appreciated. However, I can’t help but feel they need to get the basics right first before worrying about things like luxury toiletries and allergy-free bed linen. Sound-proofing is a priority for me. I don’t want to hear other people flushing their toilets or people yelling in the street while I’m trying to sleep. Installing thicker doors and making sure the windows shut properly will solve this problem. This is especially the case when you consider prices for the room I stayed in can more than double in peak times. Offering a “home from home” is all well and good, but it’s no good if you have difficulty getting to sleep. Whether I’d recommend Hotel Front hinges on whether you can find a good deal. If you find the asking price is over £100, I’d suggest you look elsewhere. If, like me, you’re lucky and you find a price nearer £50, then go for it. You can do a great deal worse.

Hotel Information

Hotel Front
Sankt Annai Plads 21, Copenhagen 1021, Denmark
http://www.front.dk/