The Apartments Company - The Sweet

For our stay, we booked a studio apartment at The Sweet. The room was lovely and kitchenette was well-equipped. We were able to cook meals there over the days of Christmas when most restaurants and shops were closed. The location is a little outside of the center- nice and quiet but easy to access public transit. My biggest issue with this hotel was that communication was very… odd. As the booking notes, I called the hotel in advance to schedule my check-in. When my call was answered, I told them who I was and that I was calling to schedule my check in (for a time when the booking said check in is available). I was told no one would be at reception at that time (3pm on Dec 23) and they would text me instructions for how to check myself in. Then she confirmed my phone number and asked for my email address, but when I started to give it, she said, “oh, that’s ok. We can’t use email anyway”. Odd. Before getting off the phone, I had her confirm that I would receive a text the next day with instructions to check in. Our train arrived around 2pm in Oslo and we still hadn’t received a text, so we waited at the train station thinking perhaps they would send the text right at 3pm since that was the time I had requested. At 3, I still hadn’t received anything, so we called the hotel again. A different employee answered from the one I had spoken to the day before. I gave my name and explained that I was calling because I had scheduled check in the day before but hadn’t received the information to check in. The employee asked where I was and told me that there were people staffing reception to help us check in, which I thought was odd because the previous employee told me no one would be there. When we got to the hotel, we rang the bell and got into the building, but reception is apparently in the basement- there is only a very tiny sign that says this- so we missed it and I called them again. A man came up with our keys and got us set to go. We got into our room and it was lovely! About 5 hours later, I got a call from Trip saying that the hotel is trying to contact me because they are wondering why I hadn’t checked in and they don’t have a way to get in touch with me. I was sitting in the hotel room when I got this call. I told the Trip representative that I was checked in and it was fine for her to give my phone and email to the hotel. I know the communication elements have taken up a huge portion of my review and I know they are not the end of the world, but I want to share them because I believe it would be quite simple to avoid situations like this in the future and make the guest experience that much more pleasant at The Sweet. We greatly enjoyed our stay at the hotel overall and thoroughly enjoyed exploring Oslo!