PROMENADE HOTEL — Hotel in Baku City

I am currently staying at Promenade Hotel in Baku, and this is my last night in a suite. It’s my first time ever staying in a 5-star hotel, but it feels more like a 1-star motel — or worse. I’m extremely disappointed with everything.

The suite: everything is either broken or dirty. The furniture is from the early 2000s and hasn't been updated, the remote controls are broken or have dead batteries, the trash bins are in terrible condition, and there’s only one broken nightlight. The fridge was completely empty and smelled awful. The balcony clearly hadn’t been cleaned in a long time… There are so many issues — it honestly felt like staying in a cheap motel.

Now let’s talk about the breakfast — it’s the final blow. A 5-star hotel without a coffee machine?! The breakfast is absolutely mediocre and nothing meets expectations. The breakfast room is tiny, with old broken tables and outdated decor. The food selection is extremely poor: one kind of shakshouka, already-cooked eggs, and if you're lucky, you might find some bread. No real variety — nothing sweet or savory worth mentioning.

Today at 9:30 AM, we entered the breakfast room to find all the tables dirty and nobody there to clean them. All the food was gone — no hot milk, no bread, no pastries, no eggs. Not a single staff member in sight. I knocked on the kitchen door, someone came out, and I asked him to clean and bring out more food. He went back inside… and never came out again.

The entire station was empty, including the dishes and cutlery. Everyone was just waiting. Finally, I saw someone from the staff coming in from outside. I asked him to clean the tables and bring food, as my kids were starting to get hungry. Then the staff slowly started showing up, one by one, and every single time we had to ask them for each item individually: milk, cutlery, eggs, etc.

Then the chef came out, angrily slammed a dish down on the table while shouting, and deliberately dropped the two or three yogurts they usually offer — with no manners or respect.

To be fair, the young servers in the breakfast room seem willing to help, but the real problem is clearly in the kitchen. Honestly, this hotel does not deserve its 5-star rating. Everything is a disaster.

And to make matters worse: the photos on their official website and on Booking.com are clearly edited and fake — completely misleading. The reality is nothing like what’s shown online. As for the positive reviews, I strongly suspect that many of them are fake or paid for.

The only good thing about this hotel is its location. Apart from that, it’s absolutely not worth the price. I strongly advise against staying...

We stayed a total of 4 nights and this has been the most horrible experience for me and I’ll tell you why. On day one I had just landed after a long flight and was eager to sleep but due to the very hard bed and hard pillows I was awake all night tossing and turning. The bed sheets wasn’t sanitized and I woke up with bed bug bites everywhere. When I asked them to change my rooms the only available room was opposite a corridor with construction ( pictured attached below) The hotel is understaffed and overworked. You can tell the toiletries are cheap and don’t function properly. The drapes are designed in a way that light keeps coming in. The worst part of this hotel is the keycard system. It doesn’t function properly and you need to keep going to the front desk to program your card again. This can be very frustrating after a long day. I was one amongst the other guests complaining about the same issues. This hotel looks good in pictures but you can tell the management hasn’t been doing their job of maintaining this hotel and is finding cheap ways of fooling the customers by making it seem like a 5 star hotel. On a better note the staff is doing everything they can to accommodate every guest. I would suggest there are better hotels along this strip with a more reasonable price and a better...

The most remarkable thing about this hotel is it’s location. The entire Old town and Nizami street, Maiden tower and the Boulevard are all walkable and with in 5-10 mins of walk. You will not need a taxi at all. All the recommended restaurants and eating points were also walkable. If you are someone who loves to explore new cities on foot and is interested in all tourist activities. This is the place to stay!!

The staff was excellent. They were polite and helpful. Always ready to make it good for the guests.

The food, specially the breakfast spread was excellent and had many varieties in all categories. There were a good mix of local dishes and continental stuff . Do try the local dishes.

The rooms had very high ceilings and were also quite big in size. They were neat and clean and well decorated . The only challenge was that the carpets did have some stains and there were some small teething issues in the room. While we opted for no smoking rooms there was the smell of smoke through the AC vent one of the days.

There is coffee and tea making facility and a fridge in the rooms. There is hair dryer in the bathroom and other essentials too. There is a fitness center with basic amenities and a roof top restaurant as well...