Tallink Hotel Riga

“Everything Lukewarm”

We stayed at Tallink Riga at the end of Oct / beginning of Nov 2024. We realised our request of a double bed room could not be provided despite having requested when booking with a third party website. As a season traveller, we understand this happens and according to the duty manager on the morn… more

We stayed at Tallink Riga at the end of Oct / beginning of Nov 2024. We realised our request of a double bed room could not be provided despite having requested when booking with a third party website. As a season traveller, we understand this happens and according to the duty manager on the morning of 1st Nov, all the other double rooms were fully booked for the remainder of our stay. In a situation like this, my view is that it could have been so simply dealt with with a courteous PR-style apology of not being able to do so. On the contrary, the duty manager was 'diplomatically arguing' with me and 'emphasised' that it's my third party booking's fault who didn't deliver my request to them. Whether he had got a point or not, it was far from necessary and adequate to speak to a staying guest in such manner. In addition, the room we had unfortunately had a series of minor issues, from a malfunctioning light bulb to a low-battery-powered security box. We did, however, appreciate the maintenance team's quick response after we demanded a quick fix. Free Spa access in the morning was a good perk, however the jacuzzi was not warm at all. Breakfast looked good with a good variety but... almost nothing was hot except scrambled eggs, despite being served on a hot plate buffet. The final trigger of writing this overall negative review is this overheard conversation/comment made by the same duty manager on the 1st Nov, in Latvian, to which I have very little comprehension of but but it was understood by my Latvian friend. It took place when we returned to the reception asking for both of our room keys to be reactivated, the comment went, although not directed towards us: "This is quite normal, guests just keep their cards near the mobile phones"! He made this comment to another reception staff while she was fixing the same mulfunctioning card issue for other guests, this other female colleague was asking why there had been so many room card issues on the day (Friday 1st Nov). First, for the record, both myself and my travel companion had kept our keys in separate compartments absolutely far from our phones. Second, to make a comment indiscreetly like so was extremely inappropriate and borderline rude. Despite all these mini incidents, we did enjoy our stay overall and would not allow one member of staff to ruin the whole Riga stay. Overall, for the price and location, it was fine to stay, but on a serous note, the staff and small maintenance must improve before I ever consider staying there again or recommend it to others.

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