Grand Hotel Tien-Shan — Hotel in Almaty

Positives: the location is prime. The pool and spa are really nice. The buffet breakfast is great with a variety of foods to choose from except for bread which was limited. Staffs were polite. The taxi to the airport was on time and the ride was very smooth. Negatives: the tap water is NOT potable, yet they leave a 0,5l bottle of water as complementary every day, clearly not sufficient. There is no tea kettle or coffee machine in the rooms. The rooms are dark and don't have good lighting. The beds are not super comfortable and are old. The AC makes noise and is not effective at all. Some rooms facing the street are very noisy in the morning. The rooms are not noise isolated and this you even hear people walking in the corridors. The electric plugs do not work when the lights are off and this is the strangest thing in this hotel. So I had to leave the light in the bathroom on to keep charging my phone over night. I worked all day and had no chance to charge my electric devices except overnight when I came back to my room. The curtains do not block the light. I arrived at 4 a.m. and needed to get some sleep but the room was bright as sun was already out and even with curtains closed, the room was fully bright. I had to change rooms after the first night bc the first room was very noisy. Overall, the rooms don't deserve a 4 star hotel rating. Yet, the breakfast and spa center are good to get a 4 star ratings. The reception tried to charge me for a Heineken which I hadn't drunk!!! I had to say twice that I didn't drink that to avoid extra charges. Finally, if I go to Almaty again, will I stay at this hotel? No, unfortunately not. Although I also have no experience with other hotels in Almaty. Who knows, maybe they are even worse...

We recently stayed in Grand Hotel Tien Shan, Almaty. It is a great place to stay with all facilities available in the hotel and located in the heart of the city. There is a 24/7 shop near the hotel and ATM is available at walkable distance. The accommodation is specious. The breakfast spread is good though there is very few vegetarian option. You can have dinner in the hotel restaurant or order it in the room.||||It is worth mentioning here that we took airport taxi and got almost scammed by the driver. We refused the driver initially. Another man closely watching us took us to official airport taxi service. Upon enquiry, the man at the counter informed us the man is working in the company and he will inform applicable rates. The man then took us to the same driver and the driver assured us that he would charge meter rates.||||On reaching the hotel, the driver told us to pay roughly 46000 KZT, which is about 87 USD. Since it is a an exorbitant charge, we refused and sought the intervention of hotel reception. The fare from the airport to the hotel varies from 3 to 7 USD maximum. Finally, at the intervention of hotel management, the man left threatening us and I paid him 10 USD before he left, which he had torn off in my presence before he drove off. It seems that there is a racket existing at Almaty airport to rip off unsuspecting tourists. One should book hotel car in advance or use Yandex Go app to reach destination.||||Thank you hotel management for your intervention. They informed us that this was the second such incident in the hotel.||Overall, our stay was nice and we highly...

Rooms are okay, the beds kinda old so if you have a bad back pain it will become worst, the interiors kinda old which will make you feel odd the moment you step in the room. Their breakfast has nothing special and has less option.

Our worst experience was on our last day. We checked in late around 8pm as we came from Bishkek so we’ve requested if we could check out late, the lady in the reception says she will check and get back to us however we waited til morning no one called so before we left for our tour the next day we asked the guy in the reception if there any update with our request he said yes you can until 6pm so we’re relax and went on with our day then the check out day came we packed our bags and ready to leave, while waiting in the reception they asked us to stay after sometime not sure if its the manager or a security guard he called me to come in the counter so i spoke to the ladt she said “You need to pay 27,500 tengge for your late check out” I got shocked and felt bad, i told her that it was a requests since we checked in super late she said no its our policy blah blah so i told her i asked your colleague the other day he didnt tell me anything except that we can check out late til 6pm. I hold my guard told her fine if we can pay half of the price she said no, I reviewed their policy in booking.com but nothing is mentioned for such. It was disappointing and they’re...