Hotel berhampiran Tavaratalo Mainio Joutseno, Lappeenranta

In a busy July week this place is like children's amusement park. Busy and loud. If you're looking for peace, quiet and relaxation, not easily available here. That being said, the situation is probably very different on a November or January weekday, our visit was during the busiest Finnish vacation month. Breakfast, busy and crowded. Dinner, you'll have to queue or book a table from the more expensive option. We had a room on the ”castle” (not a castle really), an okay room, but some issues with the level of housekeeping and WiFi not great. Spa is loud, busy and targeted for children. The sauna world (separate fee) was very nice and more quiet. The beach and the outside grounds of the hotel are nice with pieces of history remaining. A nice cafe on the beach. Was tempted to rate this as two, but do realize that during a less busy time things might have been better. Also the staff handled our feedback well.

The rooms and the hotel are clean and modern, in good shape because they are new and maintained. The rooms are quiet and the location is nicely central to Lappeenranta. The mall below has two grocery stores, a pharmacy, several restaurants, coffee shops, ice cream and other stuff, so you don't need to go outside for anything. The aesthetics are pleasant and tasteful, the staff was helpful. The only issue I have is that the hotel's upgrade fell prey to a trend I've seen in many, if not most of the upgrades happening in recent years in hotels and other businesses; the lighting systems they install are all computerised and wireless, and as such the only lights you can go to and just turn them on or off are the reading lights by the bed. The rest are clusters of lights that you choose. Selecting one of those gives you a package of lighting. So in the room I was in, you can either be in a pitch black room with just a reading light on, or everything is all lit up. Turning just the overhead light off only and having a light or two on in a corner so the room is lit but chill isn't possible. The designers probably like doing this because the room can be reconfigured without digging the wires out of the walls. .In the room I had, t means that the big overhead light is right in my eye line if I'm in bed reading, unless the room is pitch black. And if you leave a dimmed light on in the bathroom dimmed and the door at a crack so you can see your way to it in the night, it turns itself off after a bit. Fortunately I typically keep a small flashlight with me, so I can feel around for it and use to get to the bathroom without waking my wife with every light in the room blazing , but I shouldn't have to bring a flashlight with me to a hotel to use the toilet. I could go on, but I've had to ask for older and shabbier rooms in some hotels like this one that haven't been 'upgraded' so I don't have to deal with this nonsense. All the Sokos hotels seem to be doing this, so unfortunately I'll be avoiding an otherwise decent hotel chain. And little do hotel operators know: this hotel has 250 some rooms; my smallish room has 10 switches in it each ,with batteries. At some point a couple of years down the road they are going to be hiring electricians to replace 2500 little lithium batteries.

The hotel has great location, near the lakes. Clean and relatively quiet rooms, Good breakfast. Nice sauna at the last floor, with access to a balcony for cooling down, but it was only open for a couple of hours after 19:00 (at least in Summer).