We are no exception and once again heading to this wonderful city for the holidays on June 12-14.
As a refuge for a few days, we chose the Asteria Hotel, which opened its doors in 2006 on the Fontanka embankment.
After submitting an application on the hotel website, I received a confirmation of the reservation in a few days.
We didn't need much - a DBL room with a large matrimonial bed and serviceable equipment. It should be noted that when I called the hotel reservation department, I specified the availability of a room with a large matrimonial bed, and not with two separate ones.
Upon arrival at the hotel, we were quickly handed the keys to the room where we found two twin beds standing at the corners of the room.
It must be emphasized that the declared 14-17 square meters of the room was clearly different from the actual one - there was not even a place in the room to move the beds together...
Returning to the reception, we very calmly explained that we had booked the DBL room, and not the TWIN, to which we heard that “there are no such rooms now and it doesn’t matter what they booked for you... ”
After 45 minutes of negotiations, the number was nevertheless found, but we were offered to wait only one hour for it to be put in order. Being quite reasonable and sane people, of course, we agreed and went to dine in the city. At 19-50 we finally moved in! It should be emphasized that check-in at the hotel from 14-00 hours. We haven't received an apology for the delay. . .
The hotel room differed from the description on the hotel website not for the better….
The front door of the room, despite its new appearance, was skewed and could only be closed by slamming hard.
Bare wires dangled from under the air conditioner.
The heated towel rail did not work, the toilet bowl was broken in which the feces of apparently past guests were floating...
The promised Internet access was missing.
The only thing that did not differ from the description was the price of the room 4800 rubles per day.
Having gone down to the reception, we asked to repair the most important and urgently needed toilet, to which we received a completely logical answer that “now the holidays are resting, we will fix it later. ” They also refused to change our number. 15 minutes of negotiations did not lead to anything - the girl at the reception, switching to the monitor screen, lost her hearing. Being quite sane people, we filed a complaint in writing addressed to the general director of the hotel and succeeded. With three reminders, by 9 pm the next day, the toilet was fixed for us.
On the morning of the first day, we woke up to the sound of drilling in the wall, the next room was being renovated... and as it later turned out to be the floor above, too - a team of Tajik workers was hard at work redevelopment of the attic, trying to push partitions into it for the next "classic" room interiors.
Having gone down to the restaurant for breakfast, we found 13 tables for almost 100 hotel rooms, some of the tables were littered with dishes in two rows... Already not surprised at anything, we headed to the buffet where we found: rice, eggs, fried bacon, tomatoes and cucumbers. An omelette, a curd casserole, a cut of one type of sausage and cheese were taken out later, after 20 minutes... In 40 minutes of our stay in the restaurant there were only 2 waiters... Nescafe coffee in bags against this background looked, I would say chic.
Of course, you can try to find several reasons why this happened, appeal to the low price of the room, the high season or the human factor.
One thing is obvious - the management of the hotel "Asteria" is extremely weak to provide you with a comfortable stay in the cultural capital of Russia.