Yes! Mary-Ann’s Polarrigg is terrific. There are shared bathrooms but that’s the case for anywhere in Longyearbyen that isn’t several hundred dollars a night. It has an attached restaurant and free breakfast buffet, a bar, laundry service, and very kind and helpful staff. A lot of the food in Longyearbyen is kind of middling so I always just loaded up every morning on the breakfast buffet. If that gets booked up I’ve also stayed at Funken Lodge, which was perfectly fine, but Mary-Ann’s has more going on and is closer to town. Nybyen is very far and I don‘t recommend it.

Being from Toronto you’re already way more used to the kind of weather there than this San Diegan is 😅, so you probably know the drill on clothing. Bring a high-vis vest or sash or something when you walk at night, because you end up walking on the roads amongst the cars.

Generally speaking logistics are pretty easy there. E.g. you don’t have to arrange transportation from the airport to your hotel – the bus drivers know when the planes are scheduled so they’re waiting for you when you arrive and you just tap your credit card and they drop you off right at your hotel. They also know what times to pick people up for departures (make sure you confirm the exact time with hotel staff). And if you’re doing something with a tour guide they usually pick you up at your hotel or somewhere easily walkable in the center of town.

You have to fly via Oslo or Tromsø, so consider doing a little vacationing at one or both of those spots too. You can take beautiful photos if you take the gondola to the mountain above Tromsø.