Hotel in zona Riutta Lean-to Shelter, Lappeenranta

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).

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.

After our premiere last year, this was the second time we visited the Saimaa region and stayed at the Holiday Club Saimaan Rauha. Our overall, aggregate impression and experience is positive but there are admittedly a few things that could be improved. Let`s start with the rooms. Ours has been quite spacious but the general look and feels is definitely a bit dated and could certainly benefit from an update. That said, there`s everything you need. Next, the food. Here, the Holiday Club Saimaan Rauha offers several choices. First, there are two separate in-house restaurants/bars with the New-England-style sports bar O'Learys and the Classic Pizza Restaurant. Apart from these, there's a dinner buffet that offers various salads, mains and deserts. Overall, these are good, but the general variety could be a bit better, as the offer appears to repeat itself after 3-4 days. While there are some really nice dishes (e.g. the mango salad, ground beef pasta or skewers), others are more on the average side. One recommendation would be to offer (even) more Finnish or regional choices as well as some soups. Also, offering the dinner buffet as a booking option might make sense (at least I was'nt able to see it in the order process). Besides the dinner buffet, there's also a breakfast buffet, which - especially in comparison to the dinner buffet - is definitely a great offer both in terms of quality and variety. Another plus is the service and the friendly and helpful staff, with which we always had a positive experience. One of the biggest assets of the Holiday Club Saimaan Rauha, however, is definitely its location in the middle of the amazing Saimaa landscape and close to one of Finland's innumerable lakes. Apart from the hotel, there are also a lot of rentable apartments and houses, which might definitely also be a good alternative choice. Taking all these things in consideration, the Holiday Club Saimaan Rauha is definitely a very good option if you plan to visit the region and if you don't have the highest standards.