Good location, opposite the lake and Cathedral, and two minutes walk from both the harbour and the rail and bus stations.

The hotel seems to have an identity problem. Its current name seems to be “Rainbow Hotel Maritim ” but there are many in-house references to “Golden Tulip Hotel” and “Golden Tulip Hotel Maritim Rainbow” To avoid confusion the “Rainbow” or “Tulip” or “Maritim” covered by this review is the one on Kongsgata street facing the Breiavatnet lake, and just down the road from Cathedral, and as mentioned above close to the harbour, and to rail and bus stations.

In some ways “just another” standard business type hotel, but it creates the right impression. Décor, carpets and corridors are in pristine condition with pleasant decorations. Everywhere was spotlessly clean. The price, for Norway, was reasonable. .

A big plus point is its tranquillity. In contrast to the harbour-front hotels which are liable to noise from music and drinkers in the harbour side bars the Rainbow Maritime, although only minutes away, suffers none of these problems.

Good buffet breakfast.

It took us at least 30 minutes to find the hotel entrance as it is hiden in a pedestrian area where vertually all streets are forbidden for cars except bus and taxi.

The front desk staff was quite professional, efficient and smiling. The room was quite small but very clean. The hotel is facing a very nice lake but it's impossible to have a direct view on it if you are not at least on the 9th floor (two adjacent buildings in the entrance court are hiding the views).

Breakfast quite standard. The location is quite central, close to restaurants and shopping area.

Like said before in an review, this hotel is difficult to find. The hotel entrance is hidden behind a building in front at the street. Signs are not very helpful to point out where you have to go to find the entrance to reception. First of all you have to get behind this building in front and then you have to cross an open air cafe area which seems to belong to the hotel. The entrance itself looks like an open terrace door which leads to the mentioned cafe terrace - very misleading. The single room itself was allright, not spacious, but as European we are used to it. People from Overseas would have problems. The bathroom had a shower cabinet which you could close without overflooding the whole bathroom floor, that was good! On the other hand I missed some little details to cleanliness as I still found hairs on the bathroom floor when I entered the room the first time, which didn´t belonged to me. Beside this there was still an open and used shower gel from the guest before me, left in the shower cabinet!
Breakfast was very crowded, due to the many tour groups which stayed in this hotel. Going to breakfast at 7am was not a good choice. It was hard to find a table, as the breakfast room is not very big. Waiters are rushing around to try to clear up tables as quick as possible.
All in all a good hotel for discount travellers!

Seriously, the website does not do this place justice! First, it is located in a perfect area, downtown bordering the city lake and the cathedral, with a 2 minute walk to the harbor and waterfront for shopping and restaurants/bars and 1 minute to the train/bus station. Second, the rooms were clean and delightful. They decorated with pleasing colors of yellow and warm woods and though the room is a standard European "smallish" size, it has all the comforts and amenities you could want. We had a terrific view, as to half of the rooms, of the lake and the other half could see the ocean the other way. The restaurant was very nice and once a month they have a complimentary guest dinner - be sure to check and see if this is available during your stay. The hotel is hidden a bit by some trees and the meeting center in front of it, so it's easy to miss, but don't do it! The price was excellent - $75-100 less than anywhere else nearby (ie: SAS hotel across the street - overpriced!) and was just as lovely as anyplace we could have stayed. It was a tremendous value and the service was also very good. Our overnight train to Oslo was not leaving until 11pm and they gladly allowed us to store our luggage for the day after checking out. As Norway tends to be rather expensive, definitely stay here to save money and be able to spend more on the other great things Stavanger has to offer - like the bars and nightlife and shopping and the fine food at the restaurants -particularly the pub Phineas Fogg. Outstanding!