Longyearbyen Hostels

It is at the entrance of Longyearbyen town. The third stop of the airport bus is this hotel. It is only about 10 minutes' drive. Longyearbyen is really small, but it is surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It is a wilderness! The hotel itself is not big, and the facilities are definitely not comparable to those of our domestic hotels. The room area is not as big as ours, but fortunately it is quite clean. As soon as you enter the door, there is a huge polar bear, which is super cool! The room is comfortable and tidy, and the curtains are thick enough. After all, the Arctic is in polar daylight during the summer vacation, and it is daytime 24 hours a day! It is truly a city where the sun never sets! I like the hotel restaurant very much. Looking out is the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and I feel really too small. The breakfast is also very rich, in the form of a buffet. Recommended!

Polfareren in Longyearbyen is a lovely hotel situated in the main town just off the shopping street. The staff were very friendly and the room the best we stayed in while being in Svalbard. The room was very clean and had sufficient storage. A delicious white chocolate on the bed for both of us which was a really nice touch. The amenities were very good. We had dinner at the hotel and that was not so good. We left hungry despite having had 2 courses each. The servings were much too small and I am even not a big eater. The breakfast was amazing. Nothing to fault. Polfareren was the best hotel we stayed in while in Svalbard. I can highly recommend the hotel including the breakfast but not to have dinner there.

This is probably the best place to stay in Longyearbyen. Check-in was fine, and the staff (who spoke excellent English) also helpfully made a restaurant booking in town for us. The room was very comfortable. Breakfast was extensive and very good quality, with a wide choice including freshly made omelettes and fried eggs. The rainwater shower didn't work - there was no apology when we reported it. The website listed slippers among the amenities in the room. When we told the front desk there were none in the room, they told us that they don't provide them in a standard room. When we showed them the website, they said that it was an error and they would have to get that changed (but didn't offer us any). After we insisted, they gave us some - a small issue, but we didn't want to come to breakfast wearing our heavy walking boots. Overall though, a good stay.

Breakfast was rich! Choose a lot of these! This hotel is the only 4-star hotel in Svalbard! There are saunas and outdoor baths! It's warm inside the hotel! Also close to the local supermarket! Environmental facilities are really good, love his sauna! It's so comfortable!

A stay at Basecamp Spitsbergen Hotel places you in the heart of Longyearbyen, within a 10-minute walk of Svalbard Museum and University Centre in Svalbard. This hotel is 0.7 mi (1.2 km) from Svalbard Church and 0.8 mi (1.2 km) from Svalbard Kirke.Make use of convenient amenities such as complimentary wireless internet access, gift shops/newsstands, and a television in a common area.You can enjoy a meal at Kroa Svalbard serving the guests of Basecamp Spitsbergen Hotel, or stop in at the snack bar/deli. Quench your thirst with your favorite drink at the bar/lounge. A complimentary buffet breakfast is served daily from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM.Featured amenities include multilingual staff, luggage storage, and a library. Free self parking is available onsite.Make yourself at home in one of the 16 individually decorated guestrooms. Your room comes with a pillowtop bed. Complimentary wireless internet access is available to keep you connected. Private bathrooms with showers feature rainfall showerheads and designer toiletries.

Polarrigg is a funky hotel. From the outside it looks like it has been thrown together from driftwood, perched on a heap of gravel. And is surrounded by rusty artefacts from the mining age – appropriate since it is a converted miners’ hostel. There is a variety of accommodation offered, but I can only comment on the single rooms, organized in a long corridor with shared bathrooms dotted about. The rooms are small and basic, but well heated, with blackout curtains and comfy beds. Four negatives affected my stay, two of them really minor: first, the chair in my room collapsed on me. The staff were very helpful in replacing it immediately, but two of them said ‘oh, that chair’, indicating that it had happened before. Second, at breakfast, quite nice standard Scandinavian fare, the oat milk curdled in my coffee. The staff assured me that the milk was fresh, so it must have been the coffee they were using or over-brewing, that became too acidic. But in this case change the coffee or the milk, don’t blame the customer! Third, something inherent to the design of the place and not helped by the fact that flights to and from Oslo sometimes arrive or depart in the middle of the night, so that I was awoken most nights by the clatter of people operating the noisy door locking mechanisms in the corridor outside. Finally, and most alarming, there was a foul stench of sewage that, at various times, pervaded different parts of the building, but especially the area close to the restaurant. This is the kind of thing that would get the place closed down if inspected by the public health department, so the plumbing and waste disposal system absolutely needs to be fixed as soon as possible. I raised this at reception and was told ‘yes we know about it, it affects all of Longyearbyen’. Sorry but that really isn’t good enough. Polarrigg is half the price of a proper hotel, so one should expect what one pays for. But I really didn’t pay for the smell of sewage. I note that hardly any other reviewers have dared mention this, but it is unavoidable. On the plus side, the residents’ lounge with complimentary tea and coffee is spacious, comfortable and characterful, with an attached kitchen for those who prefer to self cater. And although it is located some way out of the centre, the path over the river is very convenient to get there in just 10 minutes.