Review: Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands

My partner Jessy and I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands, situated just outside the Faroese capital of Tórshavn, for three nights during our visit. 

As the only major chain hotel in the entire self-governing archipelago, the Hilton Garden Inn is also the only hotel that’s bookable on points in an otherwise pricey destination.

Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands – Booking

The cash rate for our specific dates was upwards of $500+ (CAD) per night. The cash price was quite steep, so we opted to redeem 50,000 Hilton Honors points per night instead.

This is a fairly expensive part of the world to begin with, and combined with this summer’s phenomenon of “revenge travel”, the elevated cash rate wasn’t too surprising.

It was nice to get such good value from our Hilton Honors points. We’d ordinarily value Hilton points at 0.6 cents per point (cpp) (CAD), but we managed to get a redemption value of 1cpp+ at this property, which was quite satisfying.

I’ve been collecting Hilton Honors points for quite a few years now without a compelling way to redeem, so I was quite happy to spend 50,000 points per night here in the Faroe Islands.

Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands – Location

The Hilton Garden Inn is located at the northern edge of Tórshavn, the capital city of the Faroe Islands.

It’s a leisurely 20-minute stroll to the city centre, which was a good way to get some steps in and soak up our surroundings as we headed downtown.

The hotel is also situated fairly close to the highway, making it an easy launchpad for exploring the rest of the Faroe Islands. In less than three minutes, you’ll find yourself on the main road to other popular destinations.

It was a 50-minute drive from Vágar International Airport in our rental car. As we arrived at the hotel, we were pleased to find free parking in the outdoor parking lot.

The building is sandwiched between two parallel streets that are on different elevations. There’s a sideroad leading down from the higher road to the hotel’s parking lot, and there’s also a paved pathway available for pedestrians to access the lower road.

Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands – Check-In

After parking, we walked up to and admired the hotel, or rather the reflection of the beautiful scenery bouncing off of the hotel’s glass window façade.

There was also grass growing on the roof, which made the hotel blend perfectly into the surroundings. We’d later discover that this was a very common roofing style all over the Faroes. 

The windows provided ample natural sunlight throughout the lobby as we entered. In the lobby, there are a few different seating areas, as well as a fireplace, with oversized incandescent lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling.

Our stay happened to overlap with a two-day Faroese national holiday called Ólavsøka (St. Olaf’s Day). The hotel was fairly full, and on our third night, it was completely booked up.

Unfortunately for us, this meant that there was no suite upgrade forthcoming with my Hilton Diamond status.

Had there been availability, the highest suite we could’ve been upgraded to would have been the King Junior Suite. In our case, we were simply treated to a King Room with View, which was still an upgrade from the base-level King Room into which we had originally booked.

The check-in process was smooth and quick. 

As we finished our check-in, we were told that we had breakfast included with our Hilton Diamond status, as well as two bottles of still or sparkling water from the lobby market per day. Naturally, we tried a few different flavours of water throughout our stay.

After grabbing our sparkling waters, we made our way over to the elevators and up to our room.

Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands – King Room with View

We were assigned Room 426, located on the hotel’s fourth floor. The hallways are clean and modern, lined with a blue carpet and accented by large wooden door frames.

As we entered our home base for the next few days, our first impression was that the décor was very… green.

In the entryway, there is an open closet, which also functioned as the luggage rack. The room then opens up to the bedroom, which has a green headboard, a green ottoman, a green chair at the desk, and a green chaise lounge.

The view from the window was also very green.

I found this to be a slightly unusual colour motif for a hotel – one that I certainly hadn’t seen before to this extent.

The comfortable bed was accompanied by hanging lamps and circular wooden side tables. There were plenty of outlets on either side for charging our devices.

At the foot of the bed is a large flat-screen television, with a small ottoman resting underneath.

Between the bed and the window is a long chaise lounge.

Next to the television is a wooden desk. On the desk is a water kettle and a coffee station, and there is also a small Smeg refrigerator tucked underneath.

The open layout connected the room with the bathroom area. While the whole room was on the smaller side, we didn’t really mind too much, as we planned to be out and about exploring the Faroe Islands instead of hanging out in the hotel.

Another interesting part of the room was that the hardwood floors covered the entire room. The wood floors extended all the way to the glass-enclosed shower room, which was a somewhat strange design choice.

There are two rooms in the bathroom. In one is a shower, and in the other is a toilet.

Between the room’s entrance and the bathroom enclosures is a small white vanity. 

Although the hotel opened fairly recently in 2020, the shower already had a distinctive metallic smell coming from the pipes. Hopefully this is something the hotel addresses soon, as it was a bit unpleasant.

Otherwise, we thought the room was comfortable, and it gave us some good nights of sleep and great views of the Faroese landscape.

The north-facing window looked away from Tórshavn and gave us a glimpse of life in the Faroe Islands. We enjoyed gazing out over the pastures, where wildlife grazed right in front of us.

Our view offered a nice introduction to the Faroe Islands, allowing us to get up close and personal with the islands’ nature and scenery without having to leave our room.

Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands – Breakfast

Each day, our complimentary breakfast was served in the lobby restaurant, Hallartún. Breakfast is served from 6–10am from Monday to Friday, and from 6am–1pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Breakfast came in the form of a buffet station, with hot and cold options.

There were plenty of options, including the usual pastries, cereals, coffee, and tea. 

There was also a made-to-order omelette station, which is always appreciated.

I thought the quality of the food was actually fairly average. There were a few dishes and options we liked, such as a bowl of entire avocado halves which we could make into avocado toast.

However, I thought the hot breakfast items – scrambled eggs, sausages, etc. – were below the quality that I would’ve otherwise expected.

So, we mainly treated this breakfast as a quick way to fuel up in the mornings, rather than maximizing it and filling up as much as we could.

Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands – Other Facilities

The lobby hosts a small co-working space, which was a nice touch. I came down here to attend a few virtual meetings during our stay.

In the lobby was also a self-serve market, where you could help yourself to some toiletries and essentials, as well as some snacks and drinks.

As mentioned above, Hilton Diamond members are entitled to two bottles of still or sparkling water from the market per night of their stay.

On the second floor is a fairly well-equipped fitness centre. While it didn’t have the greatest layout, I thought it was pretty good for a hotel in this kind of remote location.

There was a range of dumbbells, kettlebells, and cardio machines, as well as yoga mats. The two treadmills provided sweeping views of the surrounding landscape.

There was also a laundry room on-site, along with complimentary laundry detergent available from the front desk. This was very useful for us, as we were getting to the point in the trip where we needed to do some laundry. 

The dryer didn’t appear to be working well when we tried to use it, so we ended up drying our clothes in our room instead.

There is supposedly a Jacuzzi available for guests, although it was closed when I tried to use it. It was a little unclear if this was a temporary or a more permanent closure here at the Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands.

That was a shame, as I thought that spending time in the outdoor hot tub would’ve been an ideal way to fully immerse myself in the hotel’s natural surroundings, especially in a destination as outdoors-oriented as the Faroe Islands.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for accommodations in the Faroe Islands, there really aren’t too many options in the first place. Having opened in 2020, the Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands is the only international chain hotel in town, so I’d recommend it for that reason alone.

If you have Hilton Honors points saved up, then this certainly isn’t a bad hotel to use them on. You’ll probably get a good redemption value, especially when compared to the steep cash prices here.

With its location both close to the city centre and near the highway to continue exploring the islands, we thought the Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands made for a great home base for our three-night stay.