This hotell is now known as Hafjell Hotel & Apartments. It is in the centre of Oyer, a small village situated in the picturesque valley of Gudbrandsdalen.

The first thing you will notice about the hotel is how family friendly it is. The rooms feature two rather narrow single beds, with a small bed above these. There is a cute little ladder to get up to this bed and I bet all kids will love sleeping in it. There is also a sofabed, so you could fit a family of four into one room. There is a table and seats to eat, a large cupboard and a decent size fridge. This could save you lots of money - if you do not fancy going out for dinner or just want to eat in your room there are three supermarkets nearby. No cooking facilities though.

There is a childrens' playroom next door as well as "Lazerland", where you will no doubt find the older kids and teenagers. You simply
run around shooting each other with lazers, in the UK this used to be called Quasar. You will also find "Lilleputthammer" next door, this is a miniature replica of the nearby city Lillehammer. There are a few rides as well. Further afield you will find a theme park (mostly for smaller kids) and lots of opportunities for going hiking, skiing, cycling, horseback riding and ATVs (UK: quadbikes).

We stayed during the low season so the hotel was very quiet. They are refurbishing the rooms but we could not hear any noise from the refurbishment. The rooms themselves are not bad, and the bathrooms are all nicely tiled with underfloor heating. There is a phone and a TV. The channels are mostly Scandinavian, with most kids programming dubbed. Some of the rooms have children's drawings framed on the walls, very cute.

When we arrived we found the TV was not working and the shower was either boiling hot or very cold. We booked by phone and the receptionist confirmed there was a radio on the room - imagine our disappointment when it turned out there wasn't. However, the lovely receptionist swiftly provided another room (yes, I did check the shower first!) and by next day they had managed to conjure up a portable radio (probably the one the builders were using).

The hotel is accessible with a manual wheelchair and provided you get a room on the ground floor makes it step-free.

Breakfast is good and a nice touch is that they always have lit candles on the tables when you walk in. You will find all the staples of a breakfast, i.e. toast, soft/hard boiled eggs, orange juice and coffee. They also do scrambled eggs, a dish made of refried potatoes, meat and vegetables and various things to put on your bread like cheese, meats and sandwich fillers.

The dinner menu is "homestyle cooking", a minus point for finding a few hairs in our food. Vegetarian options are lacking and the food is merely average but filling. The sauces seemed to come out of a package and the presentation was a bit lacking. However, if you are dining do try the trout.

The staff were very helpful and did whatever they could to make our stay comfortable.

If you are a family or watching your budget I would recommend this hotel as it is good value and a really good location for both summer and winter activities. A car is recommended, and there is ample parking outside.

I have returned from 1 week in Norway with my boyfriend. We are both 34. We spent 5 nights in Hafjell staying at the Oyer Gjestegard and the main reason I am writing this review is to recommend the hotel/guesthouse. When booking our accomodation for 5 days snowboarding in Hafjell we could find very little accomodation via the internet for Hafjell and almost ended up having to book in Lillehammer which would have meant 30 mins each way daily via a scheduled bus or an expensive taxi. Finally we found two places in Hafjell (The Quality Inn and Oyer Gjestegard). As the Oyer Ghestegard was half the price (approx 70euro for 2 people sharing including huge buffet breakfast and dinner and desert) we decided to try it. There was only one review from 2003 on Tripadvisor so we really didn't know what to expect as relative to all other accomodation in Norway this sounded pretty cheap. It turned out to be clean, comfortable, warm, friendly and a few minutes walk from the ski slopes. Perfect for families and couples wishing to be close to the slopes and not paying a fortune. However, if you are interested in going to pubs in the evening or apres-ski I would not recommend staying here as it is quiet. We used the pool in the Quality Inn for a small fee which was nice and right next door. We then had money left over to do the "Norway in a Nutshell" Fjord tour which we found very enjoyable and to stay in a 4 star hotel in Oslo. We staying in The Thorn Opera which was fine but nothing special and being so close to the train station is excellent for bag carrying but not so great at night. Lastly I would like to recommend a restaurant we ate in while in Oslo. It consists of a wine bar called “Dr. Kneipp's Vinbar” and a formal restaurant called “Markveien Mat & Vinhus”. It was only a short walk over the river in an area which is somewhat bohemian/village (Torvbakkgt. 12). We are in the wine bar section as we did not have a reservation in the restaurant. Both the food and service were excellent and probably cheaper than the actual restaurant. The ambience was great with good music and lots of late-twenty, early-thirty couples sharing tapas and eating full meals. It is a small spot so go early if you want to eat in the bar or book for the restaurant. We enjoyed Norway a lot and found we had a perfect holiday which combined snowboarding, sightseeing and a city break.

Just back from a March 2003 visit to Norway. Highly recommend the Hafjell ski area just north of Lillehammer. Our family of four stayed at the Oyer Gjestegard hotel right down the road from the ski area, and found it wonderfully convenient. The staff is friendly and everyone speaks English, although I think we were the only English speakers at the hotel. The family room was smallish, but comfortable, except for one sofa which was made up as a bed but was too narrow. Our older child slept in the bunk bed which is over the larger parent's bed. Go to the Web site ... for lots of info about the area. We did the obvious, ski, both cross-country and downhill (my first ski lesson, and I'm 42, so anyone can try it!) We also made arrangements through the local Tourist Office (which is right across the street from the hotel) to do some extras, like an evening horse-drawn sleigh ride, a ride down the Olympic bobsled track in a special "bobraft" (a blast for the adults and my 10 year old, but the 3 year old was too young) plus dog-sledding (we got to drive the sled, too) and tobogganing down a snowy hillside. On that last one, we were again the only English speakers amongst another family from Denmark, but the squeals of delight from the kids were universal. The host family were local Norwegian farmers, who didn't speak much English but were very friendly and hosted all of us in their farmhouse for cookies and hot drinks afterwards. All of this ran into a pretty penny, but was worth every cent. Go!!