Forenom Aparthotel Oslo

We booked and stayed at this hotel from 18th-21st August, and we had a great time! I had been massively panicked by some of the reviews, but having been and stayed very recently I want to allay some of those fears for any prospective travellers hoping to stay here! The first thing I will say is pay the price (Oslo) for what you want!! We are from the UK and typically pay between £70-£100 a night for a hotel. This hotel cost us about £350 and is considered BUDGET for Oslo. If you are expecting the £100 a night (UK) experience in Oslo, you will be spending A LOT more, so either manage your expectations or choose a more expensive hotel. Going into the trip we were quite happy that it was a budget hotel so our expectations were zero, as long as we were comfortable and had a good nights sleep we were happy. The hotel is not in a “tourist” area of Oslo, and it is a suburb of a capital city, no different to somewhere like London. This means it is not as pristine as central Oslo, and is full of locals going about their daily lives… this includes homeless people, who you also see in central Oslo. If you can’t cope with that, pay the price and go somewhere more central or to the West of the city. The hotel sits above a greengrocers and a supermarket, so there are people outside on the street throughout the day, which caused us no problems at all. In terms of other reviews making issue with safety and people loitering outside the hotel, in our 3 night stay we had 2 occasions with people sat in the entrance area of the hotel. This area is outdoors but undercover, and is immediately next to the supermarket entrance. The door to the hotel only opens with a key code you input, and closes quite quickly behind you. The “loitering” people always moved out the way if asked and not once attempted to gain access to the hotel. Once inside the hotel there is then a further key code controlled door which takes you through to the stairs and lift area. You then go to your room and enter a key code to access that. So in terms of safety you do feel safe inside the hotel. Moving away from cutting through the scaremongering, the rooms are great for the price. We had a studio apartment on the 5th floor. With windows open you could hear typical road noise, but with the windows shut you could hear nothing unless sirens went past but even those were quiet. We had aircon in our room which worked really well. The bed was 2 single beds pushed together which I thing is quite typical scandi style and was advertised on booking. The mattresses were comfortable, pillows were good quality and was exactly what we needed after long days doing 25,000+ steps. The shower was a waterfall shower, good water pressure, quickly got to temperature. The kitchen had all the facilities needed for cooking comfortably. The TV was a Samsung flat screen with a couple of English Channel options. They provide dishwasher tablets, washing up liquid and hand soap for the bathroom. They don’t provide shampoo or body wash so make sure you bring or buy some - we had read the reviews so were already prepared for this. We literally had everything we needed for our stay and would highly recommend this hotel to anyone travelling to Oslo on a budget. If you want 5* luxury, pay the price and take your business and complaining when you have paid for a budget hotel but expect perfection somewhere else! For general Oslo recommendations, we would highly recommend Barcode Street Food for good food at a reasonable price (£44 for 2 meals and drinks). The Ekebergparken sculpture park is amazing and provides stunning views over Oslo. If the weather is good, you can get a beautiful sunset looking over the Oslo fjord from the swimming area of Bjørvika area which has loads of seating (the dockland area next to the Opera House). Talormade doughnuts (also in the dockland area) had some of the best doughnuts I’ve ever eaten.

We arrived late at night terribly frightened by the negative reviews of safety and cleanliness. It didn’t help that there were lots of partygoers and a police car outside the club downstairs. BUT when we checked in, the room’s spacious layout, thoughtful amenities and cleanliness surprised us. The next day, we explored the area and debunked our fears. Yes the locals are mostly of African descent but they are people too. Yes they can get a bit raucous but they are just having a good time. Yes there are people around the entrance but they are just smoking in the shade and that just happens to be that corner. I had a good stay and honestly wish I didn’t read the negative reviews and scare myself unnecessarily.