Dom Chaykovskogo — Hotel in округ № 78

Do not stay here if there’s any chance you will be late for check in! I knew the check in time was no later than 10:00pm and unfortunately our flight was delayed so we arrived about 10:35. We rang the doorbell many times and got no answer. We called and left messages on WhatsApp many times and got no answer. We were forced to wander around with our bags late at night and find another room, which we finally did at about midnight. I would think if you had a guest booked for three nights that didn’t show up you would at least answer the phone!||||The next morning we went and explained the situation to Zvetkova, the general manager, and she said she would cancel my booking and not charge me for the one night we didn’t stay there. We thought wow that’s great, we will only pay for two nights there. She suggested we come check in now, about 8:30 am, and even have breakfast. We went to our other room checked out, got our bags and came over.||||Our booking for three nights was 13,500 rubles so I’m thinking I owe her 9000 rubles, or about $140 for two nights. We had to go to the bank and exchange money as they wouldn’t take cards or dollars. When we came back that afternoon to pay our bill she gave me a bill for 11,000 rubles or about $170 for two nights! I explained to her that I booked the room months prior and had all my paperwork stating the room was 4500 rubles a night. She told me we had to pay extra as we had an early check in. ||||The only reason we left the room we found after not being let into her hotel was that she invited us to come right away. We very easily could have stayed at the other room that I had paid 5500 rubles for until noon. I tried to reason with her and explain that she had suggested we check in right away. I’ve never been treated so RUDELY in my life! I’m a veteran traveler and have stayed in over a thousand hotels/guesthouses and have never been treated so terribly as I was by her! She was raising her voice and just evil.||||Long story short I just paid the money as we only had three days and I wanted to see the town and not waste time looking for hotel rooms. ||||If you do stay there you better not lose your key and try to come in after ten pm. There are quite a few rooms, maybe thirty, and the fact that there’s zero employees there after ten seems like a bit of a safety...

Please avoid this place if possible. The only good thing is the location but definitely not worth it. ||Firstly the manager over charged us for early check in even without telling us that we are being over charged. We were tired so let it pass. Next they don't accept card or any other currency except rubles so hubby had to walk back to station to find an ATM again we let it pass... ||The morning the cleaning lady walked into us changing clothes even though we had switched on the DO NOT DISTURB sign. Apparently seems like they can walk in or out of the room whenever they want even when guests are in the room and DND switch is on. When we complained to the manager she rudely started blaming us that we didnt put the DND sign outside the door, when i explained to her that the sign wasn't in our room and thats the reason we used the switch, she shrugs her shoulder as though she expected us to carry DND sign with us from our house. Additional they didn't clean our room the entire day... we requested them to atleast to provide us with water bottles but the manager (one in the night) says that we need to buy the bottles from the supermarket as the fridge where they store the water bottle is locked. Next morning the rude one says that they give free bottled water only on the first day of the stay, remaining days we need to buy the water bottles. I don't understand the logic as we pay same daily price on each day of stay... overall...

I would give this hotel a 3.5 if possible. It was a great location in the heart of St Petersburg, the balcony doors were quadruple glazed so it was quiet when the doors were shut and the bed was really comfortable. However, the service was not great (apart from the breakfast staff!) and anything we asked for was met with resistance. The rooms were so hot (it was 25 degrees outside and hotter inside) but the blonde girl on reception wouldn’t turn up the air-con, even though I could barely sleep for 5 nights, and opening up the balcony doors meant you were listening to beeping and loud cars all night. Same girl I asked for some milk to make a tea in my room but that was a no as well because it wasn’t breakfast time - it seriously would have been so easy to get some from the fridge and put it in a glass! Just made us feel uncomfortable asking for anything - the TV didn’t work but we didn’t want to ask about that! Also we had a king room with balcony but there was no table and chairs out there, like in the pictures, and it had a slant to it so felt kind of unstable!! Just a note that they make you pay with cash so we used most of ours up that first day which was annoying. I’d recommend the hotel for location but don’t expect five...