Review: Hotel Reisen, Stockholm – A Hyatt Unbound Collection Property

Review: Hotel Reisen, Stockholm – A Hyatt Unbound Collection Property

My wife and I recently stayed at the Hotel Reisen in Stockholm. This is a Hyatt property and is part of their Unbound Collection. It’s also one of the newest Hyatt properties, such that we got a “new hotel” bonus for staying here. How was it? Would we stay here again? And did they give us nice perks for Globalist status? Here are my thoughts.

Booking Process

This was actually my first time using My Hyatt Concierge to book a property. I got that perk after reaching Globalist status and staying 60 nights last year.

The Hotel Reisen in Stockholm is a Hyatt category 4 property, which means it costs 15,000 points per night. However, my wife and I each had a category 1-4 free night award, due to having the World of Hyatt Credit Card. Rather than making 2 separate bookings and explaining this at check-in, I figured I could use my concierge to make the booking and set this up.

She was able to do this efficiently and replied with the confirmation number when it was all done. She also noted that she had asked the hotel to upgrade us, if possible, since we were visiting around holidays (we checked in on New Year’s Day).

The cash price of the hotel was $258.53 per night during our stay. At 15,000 points per night, that’s a redemption value of 1.72¢ per point. That’s just a little above our average value of World of Hyatt points.

Prior to Arrival

We did not receive any communication from the hotel or from my Hyatt concierge prior to arrival.

Location

The Hotel Reisen is really close to the Royal Palace in central Stockholm. It overlooks the river and sits on the island of Gamla Stan, the original center of the city. The hotel is close to several bus stops and a ferry terminal, as well as within walking distance from numerous tourist attractions.

However, it’s not within “pulling your suitcase” distance (especially not in the snow!) of the train station or metro stations. We took the Arlanda Express train from the airport and then took Uber from there to the hotel.

Outside the hotel, there are some benches and small tables overlooking the riverfront. I assume these are popular in summertime, but they were deserted in the sub-freezing temperatures during our stay.

Check-In

We arrived at the hotel around noon. I knew this was quite early and didn’t really expect our room to be ready. A friendly employee confirmed our reservation details, checked our passports, and then laid out our options.

We could:

• Have a suite upgrade that included a sauna in the room, but the view is into an alley in the back (the Nordic Suite)
• Upgrade to a suite overlooking the water, but there’s no sauna (the Stockholm Suite)
• Come back at 3pm and have whichever of those rooms we preferred.

My wife wanted the room with the view over the river, so we left our backpacks and suitcase with the front desk staff then went out to explore.

Around 5pm, we returned to the hotel to complete our check-in. The manager showed up and talked to us, asking if we need dinner recommendations, help making reservations, or anything like that. We received our keys to room 108, which are made out of wood and really cool. I liked them.

We then watched jaws hit the floor when we said we didn’t mind retrieving our own bags. This must not be common. Our suitcase has wheels, so pushing it into the elevator and into our room isn’t difficult for us. The staff had seemingly never seen this, so we had an audience.

It wasn’t until later that we realized no one had told us about breakfast during check-in. It should be included, right? What time does it start/end? We had to call down to ask about this later.

Public Areas

The public areas in the Hotel Reisen are really beautiful, and the hotel makes good use of windows to provide views of Stockholm and the river across the street.

The lobby isn’t overly spacious, but by keeping the check-in desk at one end and the waiting area at the other end, it doesn’t feel cramped.

I will note that you need to go up some steps from the door at the street. For wheelchair access, there are signs pointing to an alleyway and a separate entrance.

Behind the lobby, there is a living room-type area.

Past this, there’s a large bar. This was a ghost town every time we passed by.

Some steps behind the bar lead down to the sauna, which is free for guests to use. It was always crowded the few times we tried to get pictures of it, so we didn’t take any to avoid the awkwardness of taking pictures of strangers in their bathing suits.

If you get too hot in the sauna, there’s a cooling off pool adjacent to it.

To the left of the lobby, there’s a small bar and the hotel restaurant. This is where we had breakfast every day. This was included as a perk of Globalist status.

There are stairs near the restaurant/bar, and we often used these, since our room was on the first floor.

Immediately next to the check-in desk, there are 2 elevators. To call for the elevator, you must tap your room key. Then, to push the button for your floor, you must tap the room key again. This prevents non-guests from taking the elevator and prevents people from going to floors they aren’t staying on.

The elevators are a bit small but work well and move quickly. They look nice, also.

On our floor, the hallways were quite bare and not very interesting. They were always clean, though.

The Stockholm Suite at Hotel Reisen

We entered to a narrow hallway with a half bath located on one side and a giant mirror on the opposite wall.

Next to the door, there are coat hooks. This was a great feature, since we visited during winter and had coats and scarves that we hung here.

Moving into the room, there’s a bookcase along the wall. It holds a small safe.
Next to this is the thermostat, which was easy to use.

Opposite this and flanking the half bath, there are 2 small closets. One contains the iron & ironing board, plus some hangers, and the other has shelves, drinking glasses, and some snacks for purchase.

Living Room

Moving into the room, there’s a medium-sized living room area. I’ll call this an “area”, since there was no door dividing any parts of the room.

The living room had a chair, sofa, and glass coffee table.

On the coffee table, we had a note and welcome gift. It was a pack of gummies, so it was not impressive in any way.

Beyond this, there’s a desk and chair along the window, facing the river.

As they said at check-in, the Hotel Reisen Stockholm Suite has a nice view over the river.

Lots of windows along the front wall help with viewing. And during other times of the year, this would let in a lot of natural light.

Bedroom

In the bedroom area, there’s a king-sized bed flanked by 2 night stands. Each night stand has a lamp, light switches, and an outlet.

In the corner, there are more windows, and they have quality black-out curtains.

The bed is large. It had pillows of various firmness. But we weren’t fans of this bed. It’s suuuuuper soft. I felt like I was falling through the bed when I laid down on it. I’ve never critiqued the firmness of a bed before – I usually say the bed is fine and then talk about whether the pillows are good. This is the first time I’ve had to mention the quality of a mattress, so that says something.

Opposite the bed, there’s a large TV. Under this, there’s a kettle to make coffee and tea.

Bathroom

The main bathroom is nice and spacious. Even though it’s not that wide, the layout makes good use of space to not feel cramped. We never felt like one person needed to leave the bathroom so the other person could pass by, etc.

There’s a nice shelf behind the toilet, plus lots of counter space around the dual sinks.
The toiletries had an amazing citrus smell. We loved the smell and the quality of these.

Under the sink, we had a blowdryer and 2 bathrobes + 2 sets of slippers. These were fantastic.

In the corner, the shower is inside a glass box and has both a handheld option and a rainfall shower option. It got hot (HOT!) very quickly and had good pressure. Controls were easy to use.

The bathroom also had its own thermostat, and the floor is heated. This was fantastic, especially given the temperature outside.

Strangely, though, there is a step up into the bathroom. I found this a bit odd.

Some Issues in the Room

The room wasn’t without some issues.

• Bed overly soft – I already mentioned this one. The bed is just way too soft.
• Toilet running – the toilet would run for a long time. We had to play with it nearly every time we flushed, pushing and jiggling the buttons until we could make it stop. However, it would start running again on its own sometimes. We had to sleep with the bathroom door closed to block out the sound.
• Confusing lights / light switches – there are a lot of light switches, rather than just “main”. We finally figured this out just before leaving. The switch by the door and the switches by the bed require the following to turn the light off: hold the switch in until the light gets all the way bright, let go, hold it in until it dims all the way, let go, then push it to turn it off. Why is it that complicated?
• Shower door doesn’t close properly – the glass doesn’t line up quite right, so the door swings open during your shower. Water goes out on the floor because of this, so we had to pile up some towels nearby to avoid flooding.

• Mystery light – the first night, we had this mystery light near the bed/above the curtains that we couldn’t figure out how to turn off. After sleeping with it on the first night, we finally figured out the next day that the switch next to the bookcase controls this. Why is it over there?

• Lamp not working – while the lamp on my wife’s side of the bed worked, mine didn’t.

Overall Thoughts on the Stockholm Suite at Hotel Reisen

There are a lot of things to like in the room. Given the list of negatives, maybe I like the suite more than I should. I have an overall positive memory of our 2 nights in this room. The room itself also had a great smell. My wife and I both remarked that it smelled like going to your grandma’s house as a kid.

Housekeeping

I always decline housekeeping. Amazingly, we forgot to put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign, so we got housekeeping. However, it was not very good.

Essentially, housekeeping staff made the bed and cleaned the bathroom. They didn’t provide more water (2 free bottles of water is a World of Hyatt daily perk) or even take out the trash.

Daily Breakfast

Quick summary: we loved it. Due to the current restrictions, you have to make a reservation for a time at breakfast. However, we got exactly the time we wanted both days, so it doesn’t seem that difficult. And the restaurant never seemed “packed”.

The amount of options at breakfast was awesome. They managed to fit a ton of choices into a not-huge space without it feeling crampy or tacky. The breakfast bar had all of your standard options, made-to-order omelettes, and a whole corner full of items for people with dietary / allergy restrictions. We loved the fact they had non-dairy / vegan yogurt.

Service was minimal, since it’s a buffet, but you could request hot drinks to order. You also had to check in and tell your room number when you arrived. Other than these small interactions, there’s not a lot of “service” involved in the breakfast here. That being said, we still enjoyed the service we did receive. Breakfast was fantastic both days.

Check Out

Our check-out process was simple and efficient. They had properly zeroed out our breakfast bill, so we had no charges to pay. Since we’d use World of Hyatt free night awards, we didn’t need to pay our settle any bill. They released our credit card deposit, and we were done.

The employee wasn’t very friendly. He got the job done and wasn’t rude by any means, but a little more warmth would improve the check-out experience.

Final Thoughts on Hotel Reisen in Stockholm

Despite mentioning some negatives, we really liked this hotel. We maximized our free night awards, both got credit for the Brand Explorer perk, and stayed in a beautiful suite overlooking the water. There are some things that could be improved, for sure. That being said, would I stay here again? Definitely. I would definitely recommend this hotel to others, as well.