Thon Hotel Panorama

Paid reservation but no hotel! Arrived in oslo with paid reservation at thon panorama (even had a confirmation the day before) only to get there and find a sign in front saying closed for refurbishing and that booked guests should call this number. I had to turn on roaming and international calling and spend 30 min on hold to be told my hotel was moved across town to a different hotel. It wasn’t walkable so I went into a different hotel and they graciously called me a taxi ($40). I missed my pre booked sauna for 3 reservation so that cost me $75. The hotel they put me (thon slottsparken) was nice and courteous and had they given me a warning, I’d have been happy to get off right by there from airport and make it to the sauna. Not telling me I’m advance was completely unacceptable. It cost me $115 in transaction costs and hours of aggravation. Completely unprofessional.

So let's start with the fact that I booked this hotel on January 6 for a mid July stay of two nights in Oslo. I booked it for a number of reasons. 1 - centrally located near the fjord front and things we wanted to see/do. 2 - it had onsite parking, as we were driving from Western Norway to Stockholm and this was a stopover. 3 - it had a split larger room that my family stay in comfortably. So again, 6 months advanced reservation for a hotel that, while not perfect, fit what we needed. Anyway, we drive the 6 hours from Western Norway and arrive to the hotel on July 18th for our 2 night stay and there is scaffolding over most of the front and side of the hotel. We park on the sidewalk to unload the car and see if our room is ready....and I walk up to a sign that states...'Thon Hotel Panorama is closed for refurbishment. You should have been contacted and moved to another property. If not, call this number XXXXX.' Needless to say in the 6 months since my reservation, I had not been contacted about a change and to call with my plan was going to cost me .25c/minute (not a killer, but its principal at this point). After attempting to figure things out for a minute, a very nice employee of Thon came out and asked if we had been a scheduled guest....yep. So I went inside and we did the dance where I explained I hadn't been contacted and she finally admitted that '...certain phone numbers or emails for people from outside of Norway didn't get thru and we didn't know which ones.'.....WHAT? So we finally figure out where my family and I are supposed to be, while it is still in town, it is not where we wanted to be for what we wanted to see in 36 hours. No compensation, no offer to make good (although I will say we talked to another guest and they were made to pay for a night on their own somewhere else until a room was ready for them the next day). Anyway, we finally drive over to the other Thon property (Thon Hotel Slottspark)....they have no parking onsite. The front desk person can't understand why this matters and can't really explain where it is. When I express my frustration with the overall Thon situation to him in a very calm manner, he states, '...that isn't my fault or problem.' Well, my family had nowhere else to stay, so we had to take this place. I finally park the car about 1km away, we get in the room and there is no room by room AC, it is one central for the entire building (from our understanding, another something that Panorama had and this one doesn't). We can't open the windows to air it out get some cooler air in as we have scaffolding outside of our windows as well, so you are stuck with the temperature you have. Not completely a strange thing for a hotel, but still that is why I booked Panorama and not the one they sent me to. Needless to say, this would be a 0 star if it could, but it has to have something. Overall, Thon Hotels will never again get money from me as this was screwed up in a massive way and there has been no