Naantali Spa Hotel

Classic spa environment

Since the hotel boasts 5 stars our expectations were high upon arrival.

Although we arrived much earlier than nominal check-in time, we were still given rooms. Staff was helpful during the stay.

Although 5-star hotels tend to be flawless, we experienced weaknesses not in the quality of individual employees, food or facilities, but in the logistics and in organization. I will mention three such issues:

1) Breakfast logistics
Our room contained a note with a recommendation that one should have breakfast before 9 o'clock to enjoy a peaceful breakfast. Our first breakfast was indeed peaceful as we had it by 8.30. Next day we agreed to have brekfast around 9.30. This was a big mistake! By 9.30 we entered into chaos - no clean spoons, no glasses, no juice, just a few slices of bread left etc. A 5-star hotel should have the capacity to serve a decent breakfast from beginning to the end. I don't know where the bottleneck is in the restaurant but our (and many other guests) breakfast was a fight for scarce resources (knives, forks, spoons, bread and juice) resembling more an airport lounge than a 5-star luxury hotel.

2) Check-out
Our second frustration was check-out. Staff was sooooo slow :( The reception was staffed by two persons during peak hour between 11 and 12. When I arrived there were two lines with 4 people in each. Arriving as number 5 in one of the lines I expected a short wait. It took the hotel 25 minutes to simply check the people in front of me, which is clearly unacceptable. Print the bill and receipt, request signature on bill, hand over receipt, how diffiicult can this be? An employee sitting further away from the desk was called upon by a frustrated guest and only then did the employee join his two colleagues at the front desk to help check out guests that were forced to wait much longer than what is acceptable from a 5-star hotel.

3) Transportation to/from hotel
Our third issue, which is not fully the spa hotel to blame was the transportation to and from the hotel. We had purchased a cruising package with boat trip from Stcokholm to Turku (Åbo), including bus transportation to the spa hotel. To our surprise when we stepped out from the cruising ship the bus included in the cruising package was not waiting at the port but was expected to come in an hour (!). For a bus that had been chartered to bring people from a boat to a hotel as part of a cruising package, it is beyond comprehension why the bus was not waiting for its passengers rather than the other way around. Being a larger group with five small kids, waiting an additional hour when kids were getting very hungry was not an option. We had to grab taxis that brought us to the hotel. On the return trip the bus driver didn't step out of the bus to help us load our suitcases in the designated compartments. Instead we had to bring our suitcases and baby strollers into the bus that was already crowded with people. Having to stand among strolllers and suitcases in the isle in the bus on the way back to the cruising ship, this was not the way we expected to travel to and from the spa hotel.

Unique Quality: The Spa hotel is located very beautifully at the seaside, with Moomin World within walking distance.

Extensive list of spa treatments that were fairly expensive (e.g., 92 Euros for 75 minute massage)