Hotel Izmailovo Beta > Reviews > When all goes wrong...

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money
Quality of Rooms
Standard of Service
Cleanliness
Quality of Facilities

Advantages:	relatively inexpensive
Disadvantages:	old, horrible service

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I stayed in the Hotel Izmailovo Beta twice – in 2001 and a few months ago in April 2003. And I’d like to share my more recent experience.

My husband and I were going to fly to Moscow and stay overnight before taking a train to Saint-Petersburg. So we thought we’d stay in the Hotel Izmailovo Beta (http://www.beta.msk.ru)– we both had stayed there before – and I started the Internet bookings. That wasn’t much of a problem in itself as I was born in Russia and speak fluent Russian, so I found a company which is located in the hotel and does all their internet bookings through their website. The company is called PALMERON (http://hotelbeta.narod.ru).

A double lux room was booked for us and all seemed to be going well until I got the instructions telling me on arrival to go to that company’s office on the 7th floor of the hotel, pay there, get the key and only then check in at the reception and organise breakfast. We were planning to arrive at 11 pm and were told that the person on duty at the company’s office will be Alexander.

Needless to say we were absolutely shattered when we finally arrived at the hotel so late at night after a tiring flight. As we got to the 7th floor, to our astonishment we found that the company’s door was locked. When we knocked, a floor lady appeared from somewhere and shouted to Alexander to open the door. What we heard next made my hair stand up. We heard a real roar coming from the office!! A minute later the door opened and we saw Alexander who was absolutely drunk but could still talk more or less sense. He was not alone in the office – we saw a giggly woman sitting on the sofa…

To cut a long story short, Alexander didn’t bother to look for our booking, we paid a lesser price and got the key to a standard room. Not what we reserved… It was very basic, in black-yellow colour scheme, the beds were very hard and low… There was a TV, a phone, I don't think there was a point for Internet connection. The bathroom was very old, towels not exactly clean, and neither was the bath… The furniture was far from new… In fact, the hotel is part of the Olympic village complex built in 1980. I don’t think the hotel has been refurbished since then… Looking at the pictures on the website, lux rooms should be much better.

The breakfast the next morning was scanty. Instant coffee from a sachet, which you make yourself, tea with a bag in the cup, two pieces of ham, cheese, tomatoes and cucumbers. That was it.

There are several Izmailovo hotels in that complex – Vega, Gamma, Alpha… I don’t think I’ll be going back to Beta!