Clarion Collection Folketeateret Oslo is one of the top ranked hotels in Oslo for TripAdvisor reviewers. The hotel is usually #2 behind The Thief, a luxury waterfront hotel opened in January 2013. I visited the hotel two times during my stay in Oslo, even though I did not stay at Clarion Collection Folketeateret. The property is appealing to me for its proximity to Oslo Central Station for easy airport and rail access. The top floor lounge library was one of the most relaxing hotel spaces of all the hotels I visited in Oslo.
Nordic Choice Hotels link for Clarion Collection Folketeateret Oslo.
My first night in Oslo, I stayed at Clarion Royal Christiania directly across the street from Oslo Sentralstasjon. Clarion Royal Christiania is more of a business conference hotel and knowing what I know now, I recommend Clarion Collection Folketeateret as the better hotel of the two. The pool is the one feature of Clarion Royal Christiania not available at Folketeateret. At some point there will be construction in the vacant lot across from Folketeateret. Oslo is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe and no space remains vacant for long.
There is an important distinction to know in the brand names for Nordic Choice Hotels in Scandinavia. All hotels offer complimentary breakfast in the different Nordic Choice brands of Clarion, Clarion Collection, Quality, Comfort and Ascend Collection hotels.
The difference with Clarion Collection hotels is a complimentary evening buffet and afternoon tea with pancakes are also included. I stayed 13 nights in Norway with seven nights at Clarion Collection hotels where I had access to food nearly all day long. While I tended to only eat pancakes when getting back to the hotel after strenuous hikes in Bergen, the availability of fruit and coffee/tea in the middle of the day was welcome. Norway is expensive and an orange and cup of tea can cost $5 to $7. CC Folketeateret has an automated coffee machine available for coffee, espresso, latte, cappuccino and such in the lobby.
The real deal is with the light evening buffet which can save $20 to $30 on what it might cost to eat grocery store food for two, up to $50 to $75 on what it would cost to eat in a café/restaurant.
- Monday – pork chops in rice and carrot soup
- Tuesday – pasta with meat and aubergine (eggplant) soup
- Wednesday – cod and sausage soup
- Thursday – beef stew and cauliflower soup
- Friday – baked fish and mushroom soup
- Saturday – chicken drums and tomato soup
- Sunday – seiloins (a kind of cod fish) and broccoli soup
I did not see the evening dinner setup at Folketeateret in the top floor lounge, but I had similar meals in my seven nights at three Clarion Collection hotels in Norway. I saw evening meals at three other Clarion Collection hotels in Oslo and they all provided a good buffet of breads, salad, cheeses and sufficient offerings to save you from spending $50 per person to eat at a restaurant. There is generally only water or coffee and tea for drinks with other drinks sold separately. Unique to the dinner buffet at CC Folketeateret is an automated wine bar. You buy a wine debit card and serve yourself.
Prices? What Prices?
Here is a sample of drinks prices during dinner service at Folketeateret which are fairly typical for restaurant prices around Norway.
- Coke, Sprite, Fanta, Mineral water = 45 NOK ($6.50)
- Beer (Ringnes, Carlsberg, beer of the month) = 65 NOK ($10.75)
- Whiskey (Jack Daniels, Jameson) = 80 NOK ($13.00)
- Wine = 85 to 110 NOK glass ($14 to $18) or 380-495 NOK per bottle ($64 to $82)
There is a separately operated bar and restaurant adjacent to Clarion Collection Folketeateret that serves the morning breakfast buffet for hotel guests. Dinner is served in the hotel, breakfast is in the adjacent restaurant.
The lobby of CC Folketeateret is a modern design style.
There is a cool sculpture in the lobby by the elevators.
My two weeks eating limited amounts of food and hiking a hundred or more miles around Norway had the effect of a few missing pounds around my middle too.
The Rooms
I visited two suites at Clarion Collection Folketeateret. The Morgenstierne and Eide Suiten is named after the architects of the Folketeateret building constructed as a working class people’s theater in 1935. With the depression and war (Norway was occupied by Germany during WWII for its strategic sea ports and natural resources), the theater did not open for many years. A theater operated in the building from 1952 to 1959 and the Norwegian National Opera used the building from 1959 to 2008. The Clarion Collection Folketeateret opened in 2009.
Room 704 is a beautiful suite and one of the nicest rooms I saw in Norway. The mini bar in the middle of the wall is different.
The unique feature of the room is a bi-level layout with the bed upstairs.
I checked my spelling. The building is called Folketeatret and the hotel name adds an extra ‘e’ as Folketeateret.
This is an interesting feature of the room seen from the stairway.
I would love this hotel room for a stay with my wife. She loves to watch TV from bed, but we took out the TV from our bedroom over a decade ago.
The view from Room 704 looks west to Oslo Domkirke, the main cathedral of Oslo dating to 1694-97.
The bathroom walls in the bedroom had this polished stone look. The half-door is common to hotel shower tubs in Norway. I inevitably needed one bath towel reserved for all the puddled water on the floor after my showers.
Room 704 could be a good room for a hotel stay splurge. I don’t think the Morgenstierne & Eide Suite will be offered for points. You can always try the 200 NOK trick at check-in.
Room 716 two bedroom family suite
Room 716 is a two-room family suite with two bedrooms and a wraparound deck.
There are two bathrooms, one with a shower and toilet and the other with a bath/shower.
The second bedroom was small and minimally furnished with a small closet and TV.
The enticing feature of this room is the wraparound patio balcony that links both bedrooms.
The smooth glass skyscraper is Radisson Blu Plaza Oslo.
One feature I noticed at every Nordic Choice Hotels was the availability of ice from machines in the hall.
Apparently each floor of Clarion Collection Folketeateret is painted a different color. Unfortunately, I only saw floor 7.
Also on Floor 7 are the dinner lounge and library room.
Clarion Collection Folketeateret Oslo Library
As someone trained in education, seeing libraries in several of the Nordic Choice Hotels I stayed in and visited is a distinctive feature of these hotels.
I was told guests can take advantage of Clarion Collection hotel stays to borrow a book and return it to a different Clarion Collection hotel.
The top floor lounge and patio is probably the highlight of the public spaces for this hotel. The dark colors in the lounge seen in the photo above contast to the light color space in the same room seen below.
The space looked great for relaxing.
This 7th floor lounge space was empty at 2:30pm on a weekday when the hotel was nearly sold out. During my time in Oslo the weather was mostly in the low 70s (22C) during the day. The patio outside the lounge was a place for fresh air and views.
In summer there are rooms with an outside view and generally more noise. The tram runs along the street outside Clarion Collection Folketeateret. Interior facing rooms have less noise, but also less view and privacy.
The one other space in Clarion Collection Folketeateret is the basement fitness center. I thought the space seemed kind of dark with urban ghetto street art. Certainly a functional space though.
Here is an insider tip when you can’t wait for pancakes or you slept in and missed breakfast. There is a granola dispenser in the gym.
Clarion Collection Folketeateret is a great hotel choice for Oslo, especially for Choice Privileges members at 16,000 points per night. Typical summer prices start at $200 to $300 USD.
Other Nordic Choice Hotels reviewed by Loyalty Traveler:
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