Hotel Viking, Newport

Note that we've only stayed here off season (January) so the summer experience may differ from ours. This is our 3rd year coming and we'll be back again! Wonderful old world hotel but with modern touchs. Great value. 5 star service from the staff (although we have noticed a small slip over our 3 years of visits in staff attitude). Fantastic food and wine. We love to park ourselves in the bar, watching a game and drink wine and eat some wonderful bar food (the fresh made potato chips are scrumptious!) Bedding is luxurious and very comfortable. The hotel has just finished a major facelift so all the older, well worn rooms are gone. The rooms have flat panel TVs and stylish marble baths (although ours was teeny, tiny; no counter space and a glass door that made night trips possibly disturbing to your sleeping companion). The spa is one of the best we've ever experienced. Worth the trip alone! They have Balianese as well as Thai massage that is hard to find elsewhere and superior to all. The indoor pool/whirlpool is wonderful and relaxing and well maintened. Couldn't ask for a better (and economical) romantic getaway!

We originally booked a "Manor Guest Room" but we were given a complimentary upgrade to a beautiful & romantic top-floor, one bedroom suite with egyptian cotton and silk linens, huge rain shower and original clawfoot tub, plasma televisions and beautiful views. The service from the front desk, bellman and bartender were superb and the location is perfect. It was the ultimate Newport experience. Tips: Ask for a room in the updated part of the hotel and USE THE VALET. There is limited parking in Newport.

The Estate section of the hotel was recently redone May 2007. New EVERYTHING. Nice rooms. Great service, good dinner & breakfast, fun bar.

Paid $466 for one night for a tiny room overlooking the parking lot. The shower would not turn off, the tub would not drain during showers and we were kept up all night by the ice and vending machines in the hall not to mention the fact that you could hear every movement of the person above. The bathroom was so small with a little sink outside in the room. Check in was 4:00(very late) and our rooms were not ready until 4:45. Can't remember the last time I stayed in a room this small and uncomfortable and can't believe I paid $466.00 for it! The staff, restaurant and spa were all excellent but you can stay in a comfortable room elsewhere and come to the hotel for dinner or the spa.

It has been awhile since we enjoyed being at the Viking. We loved the location, the breakfast room, nearness to the center and the fun of walking around Bellvue Ave.

We recently came back from a 3-day stay. Our room was extremely small. We had a beautiful four-poster bed (that had a spider walking across it) and that was all you could fit except for an armoire. The bathroom was so small the toilet (which faced the sink) was 5 inches away from the sink. The bed sank in the middle. The next day they gave us another room alittle bit bigger. This mattress was not so great and there was no hot water. I must say the food in the dining room was excellent the one time we ate there. This hotel needs a complete renovation.

We were told if you ordered on line you would get the cheapest rooms they had. We paid $75 per night they asked if we would like the historic end or the newer end. We took the newer end. The rooms were clean we had a view overlooking the parking lot but we could see the ocean from where we stayed. The staff was very helpful and pleaseant especially Ryan and Melissa. The 2 gentleman when we were arrived went out of their way to help us out. The pool area was quiet and the hot top wonderful. What a deal we got.

The historic guest rooms are simply awful. First, we were supposed to have a queen bed but received a double and the room was so tiny and dingy that only a thin chest of drawers fit. We switched to a second room that had a queen bed but the deadbolt on the door was broken. This room was only slightly bigger and could barely fit a chair. Plus the room was next to the elevator and we could clearly hear every bing through the thin walls. We switched to a third room that had a broken lamp, stained bedding, a broom closet for a bathroom with a half-sized tub, and a jello-like mattress. We were so uncomfortable and disappointed that we checked out shortly after arriving. To top it off - neither the the valet attendant nor doorman offered to help my husband with our luggage and neither of them opened the car door for me - and I'm 7 months pregnant! We will never go back there nor recommend to others.

We booked two rooms for the weekend of the Newport Jazz Festival. The Viking was the only hotel available on this very popular weekend, but we had heard that the Viking had an excellent reputation. BIG mistake! This is, hands down, the worst hotel in which I have ever had the misfortune to stay. Online, the hotel advertises "spectacular room rates", and they're not kidding! It was "spectacular" all right: $378 per room per night! Here's what we got for this great rate: Our rooms are incredibly small - about half the size of any other hotel room we had ever stayed in. The bathrooms are miniscule. You can stand in one spot (and one spot is the ONLY place you can stand!) and touch all four walls quite easily with your not-quite outstretched arms. The view from our windows was less than picturesque. Room 227 looks out across the roof to an expanse of blank wall. Room 210 looks out on the hotel mechanicals. But inside, the view was worse: there was peeling wallpaper, peeling paint, and exposed pipes in room 210; peeling wallpaper, peeling paint and a bubbling plaster ceiling in room 227. Both rooms included very small televisions; in room 227 the television was placed precariously atop a tall, skinny chest of drawers, and couldn't be seen from the bed comfortably unless your were sitting on the bed sideways. Room 227 also featured light switches that refused to turn on the lights, and a lamp that sparked when touched. The tiny bathrooms offered a gas station toilet, no place to put your toiletries, cracked tiles and, in room 210, a cheap plastic tub that flexed alarmingly (several inches!!) beneath your feet along with taps that continued to drip when turned off, and a shower head that would not have been out of place at a long-abandoned summer camp. In room 227's bathroom, we encountered a large, crawling insect. We asked to be moved as soon as we saw our rooms, but were told nothing else was available. We asked if the hotel would book us somewhere else, but were refused by both the inexperienced desk staff and the unsympathetic evening manager. After a long haggle, we were offered a small credit in the dining room. As the dining room had already closed for the evening, we decided to use the credit the next morning for breakfast. That evening we went to the pool, which we had nearly to ourselves. The pool is okay, but the deck around it is heavily scarred and pitted, and looked as though it hadn't been cleaned in quite a while. The breakfast on offer was buffet or two a la carte choices: pancakes and eggs Benedict. Two of us had the pancakes (quite dry) and two had the eggs Benedict (adequate). With coffee and orange juice, the tab came to $82 (!!!) before tip. (There was no written menu, nor any sign listing prices.) As we ate breakfast in the dining room, we noticed a baseboard heater with exposed wiring - and a curtain right next to it! The Viking's literature is very slick, and describes the hotel as a "national treasure" with "the modern amenities today's sophisticated travelers expect." Perhaps this hotel might - might! - have been considered a national treasure in the deepest, darkest days of the Soviet Union, but surely nowhere else.

We had a bachelorette weekend planned for eight of us. My sister booked the room for the weekend and specifically told them that there was going to be eight of us, not only did they say that was fine, they also assured her that the room would be plenty big for all of us. The hotel was booked and I came on line to review the hotel, after reading the reviews on line, my sister called again to double check on the reservation, she spoke to a manager again and said that there were 2 queen size beds, and there would be two roll-away beds, which was fine. Well we get there to check in and said that the room we had could only hold 5 people and that they had nothing else for us. After we told them that we called twice and were assured that it would be fine for 8, they wanted to give us two rooms and charge us for both of them. The staff was very nice trying to make our stay pleasant, and we did not make this ruin our weekend. But believe what you read, they seem to have a lapse in communication there because you don't get what is promised to you. The Spa facilities was out of this world.