My husband and I stayed at this hotel for three nights. The hotel is beautiful and the staff is very friendly and helpful. Espescially a woman in the reception named Marianne.

Havnekontoret is perfectly situated in Bergen, between The Haakon's Hall and city centre. It is walking distance to everything. Flybussen (the bus to the airport) stops outside of the hotel when you arrive and when you leave.

The breakfast was a bit smaller than what we are used to from other Clarion hotels, but nothing to complain about. Between 3 and 6 in the afternoon one can make waffles, and there are free coffee and tea all day. The light evening meal is what we expected. Not a huge buffet, but not bad at all.

The rooms are nice. Not big, but not too small either. The only negative thing about the room was the glass door between the room and the bathroom. I dont see the point in having a door made of glass (some of it frosted, so you cant actually see through it all). I also have to agree with some other comments on this site; the towels were surprisingly thin and the lighting didnt make it easy to put on make-up.

All in all, we enjoyed our stay and would recommend this hotel to everyone. Its a really great hotel.

As everyone says this is briliant value with the food offering given the high prices in Norway. This alone would send me there again.
Decor pays homage to W (USA) and Malmaison in UK but public areas are calm and we loved the Nordic paintings on the old custom house ceiling. We were on 6th flooor with view of funicular and it actually stopped raining long enough for us to go up it. Excellent Art galleries in Bergen.
In rooms be careful not to hit head on sloping beams and take own toiletries as they provide nothing but tissues and dispenser soap (not even ST bags) This surprised me with a hotel of this calibre but then I was not prepared for low standard, staff don't care Norway at this stage of the trip. No porter so you will have to hunt for a trolley. Car park is across square and a scary one you put in credit card with no English instructions.

My sister (from Australia) and I (from USA) are just now completing a 3 night stay at this hotel prior to boarding the Nordkapp for the cruise up the coast. (I am using the free PC in the hotel lobby to write this!) This is going to be a lengthy report because we think all the problems are worth addressing.

As others have noted the decor in the hotel is refined elegance. We love the choice of colors, materials, and lighting. We are also happy with the location and were able to walk just about everywhere although we will take a taxi to the Hurtigruten pier. (We arrived by train from Oslo.)

We also noted the bathroom floors are heated.

We also were very impressed with the included meal service: good hot and cold selections for breakfast, coffee and tea service all day, afternoon waffles, and evening buffet. (The price of soup at the top of the tram is US$18!!) We ended up eating all meals here except an occasional coffee out during the day.

However...

1. For the first evening buffet there was no lettuce with the salad bar. An excellent mussel soup and wonderful breads were the only other choices on offer. On the second evening there was lettuce and the soup was a good scallop soup. Oddly, on the third night there was a much greater selection of hot foods: baked salmon, Swedish meatballs, delicious roasted chicken, hot vegetables and potatoes. We don't understand why hot meats were not available the first two nights.

2. To use the wonderful sauna/steam room/fitness center downstairs you need to walk past people eating in the dining room - the first night we wore swim suits and wrapped a towel around our shoulders. Second night we learned there are bathrobes available from the front desk.

3. On the third night we went to the front desk to ask for robes and it was unattended. We had a long wait and so did two other guests before someone finally came to see why we were there!

4. After our first night our room was not made up until 4:00 in the afternoon.

5. For such an elegant decor, the towels have a definite institutional feel...one would expect something a little thicker or fluffier.

6. As others have noted, the door between the main room and the bathroom is transparent - if sharing the room, one person can't go into the bathroom and turn on the light without light streaming on to the other person (who may be trying to sleep).

7. In the twin bedded rooms there is no good reading light for the person in the bed nearest the bathroom door. I ended up balancing a lamp on my lap next to my book.

8. There is also no good lighting for applying makeup or shaving in the bathroom. It is quite dim. Oddly enough, the one good reading light is over the toilet!!

9. At one point, we had a lamp with an apparently burned out light bulb. My sister went downstairs to arrange for a new one but no one came to the front desk. She ended up leaving a note there. After an hour - still no light bulb. Finally my sister took the burned out bulb downstairs, and finally someone was at the desk. My sister handed in the bulb and the person seemed to be oblivious to the fact that we were waiting to have it replaced.

10. One word of warning: quite by chance we realized that the door to the room does NOT automatically lock when you leave and close the door behind you. You MUST insert the key card to lock it when leaving. Since this is not standard we think it is essential that the front desk staff make a point to tell guests about this when they check in.

All this may seem like we are very picky - we're not really - we just feel corporate needs to provide better training and resources for the staff so that service matches the beautiful surroundings.

Stayed at this hotel for two nights in the beginning of January, and it is really top value for money! The room was very tastefully decorated with "heavy" decor far from the the minimalistic fashion the past years. The beds were extremely comfortable! The room had a dvd-player (hidden in the desk), minibar, two chairs and a table, desk and chair, great bed, good cabinetspace for keeping clothes and stuff, a window facing "Fløyen" (east), and a well decorated bathroom with a tub. We had a superior room which we got at a good price since we prepaid it. The waffles and coffee in the afternoon is a nice touch, and absolutely marvellous is the evening-buffet included in the room-price. The buffet had one-two warm dishes, a good selection of breads, ham, various cheeses, herring, jam, vegetables etc. It is great if you don't want to go out in the evening to dine, or just to have a little snack. The breakfast was good - not too fancy, but had everything you needed and was tastefully presented. The hotel provided parking (at an extra fee), and it is advisable to book in advance, as they don't have many p-spaces. Only minus is the beatifully decorated glass door between the bathroom and the room - not everybody enjoys the lack of privacy (even if the toilet is hidden behind a tiled wall). It looks great, and works fine if you're not dependent on total privacy in the bathroom. Some people will probably resent the carpeting on the floor. This didn't bother us, as it made the room nice and cosy. The cleaning was good.