Not in the city but on walking distance it's huge but the rooms and food are good

My friend and I spend a marvelous week in Yalta.
Oh, what a beautiful place! We’ll come back there after our wedding.
We staid in Standard room, not very big but cozy and comfortable: big bed, fridge, TV, safe, bathroom with shower, air-condition, central heating, balcony. The view from our balcony was magnificent: Crimean Mountains, Yalta bay, velvet Black Sea.
F&B there are many restaurants and cafes in and around the Hotel, but the best one is a small Italian restaurant A Tavola, everything was so delicious, especially desserts.
We celebrated St. Valentine’s Day there: the song of violin created romantic atmosphere, complements from the chef made us feel welcome visitors- excellent!
Yes! Will come back to “Yalta-Intourist” hotel !!!!

Last December, we stayed in Hotel “Yalta", Crimea, Ukraine delivering professional development programmes.

The hotel we stayed in is the biggest in Crimea with stunning views from the rooms to the mountains & Black sea!

I wish to say special thanks to the hotel Chef, as all food we tried was amazing! Starting from breakfast in Marble, lunch in Italian Restaurant and dinner in Last Chance.

Hotel staff is friendly and polite at all times. I wish to Hotel Yalta success and growth in the future!

Hotel very nice for what we paid, most reviews i read gave 3/5 so i was very pleasantly suprised to find the hotel so much better.

Right from the approach to the hotel you get an idea of the hotel's size, its huge as is the lobby, which has a nice indoor and outdoor seated bar we spent after evenings in.

The service is slightly better than typical ukrainian service, the staff spoke broken but fairly good english, luckily my girlfriend is fluent in russian so i let her do alot of the talking. Staff were efficient and busy, sometimes to the point of being oblivious to waiting customers, but not intentionally ignoring them...

The room we stayed in was the lowest price they offered, though im sure availability for all room types is good all season, the place really is massive. The room itself was fairly basic, bed was king sized, but very low with uncomfortable wooden edges for your feet if your over 6ft 3 as i am. Rooms were fairly basic, no iron, kettle, complimentary tea/coffee as you might find in alot of other european hotels. TV was small and basic, a good number of channels all ukrainian and russian. Shower was good, powerful and easy to use, bathroom however quite small and the bulb went (but was fixed as cleaners spotted it without being told about it) Balcony had amazing view of Yalta town, the sea and hills.
Breakfast is buffet, food is good (no toast!!!!) regularly had 3 courses, offered most of what you would expect, something for everyone, though sausage and mash at breakfast felt a little odd, maybe just me.
Pool was very large, quiet deep, and salt water, not clorine cleaned i believe. You will often be asked by staff to attend almost daily games of water polo, they play for about an hour and it doesnt really affect the use of the pool, they also offered water aerobics (this you could just join in while they are doing it) Pool had a nice bar at one end and outdoor and indoor showers (in changing rooms)
The diving area of the Pool had been sealed off, you could tell it was once part of the pool area, and converted into a 3 times daily (i think) dolphin and seal show. Seemed quite professional, your supposed to pay to film/take pictures of it, 10uah i think but we were never asked to when the camera was pulled out. Good show, worth seeing.
The Hotel has plenty of restaurants 5 in all. We tried only two however, Ai Petri on the 16th floor (ukrainian cuisine), i can recommend going up there in the day and taking some pictures, but please dont go there for the food, both mine and my girlfriends meals were terrible and over priced. Goto 44th Parallel on the ground floor (en route to the beach) the menu is very european friendly, great quality and well priced, not to mention good atmosphere and daily local singer (the same every night) who sang popular russian and ukrainian music so i am told :)
There is also an italien restaurant, german styled beer restaurant "oktoberfest" an outdoor restaurant and an english pub style restaurant.

Hotel Yalta boasts their own private beach, which is the only one worth visiting really. You leave the hotel walking directly towards the sea until you find an elevator that takes u down 3 stories to a tunnel that leads to the beach, you will get a very familiar metro/underground feel and smell about it :)
A short walk and you will need to show your hotel cards and your on the beach.
I advise heading left for the best sun beds. The beach as you should know is pebble, i strongly advise if your quite heavy or have blisters or sensitive feet to buy jelly sandals as walking on these pebbles in the sea can be quite painful. Honestly, the sandy beaches of Europe (and Turkey and Egypt) are much more enjoyable than this beach, but it in no way spoiled my enjoyment, the sea was warm, and quite clear (though some small harmless jellyfish to be aware of). Many beach cafe's and restaurants, and alot of the usual ukrainian style beer/ice cream vendors.

Yalta town was very busy, you can walk down a road to the town from the hotel in about 15 minutes, as you get closer watch for cars/mopeds as they pay no attention to pedestrians and drive dangerously fast. Don't be too put off by the shanty style back road your walking on, the view gets better as you get into town.
The main boardwalk is filled with expensive shops and restaurants, find yourself the tour guides for the boat trips and plan your day trips from there, i advise it them. The boats are efficient and cheap and take you to some good picture opportunities that are far from action packed and exciting but i was just there to spend time with my girlfriend and relax so this was a nice opportunity to sun myself and take some nice pictures.
Watch out on the boat trip for the wild dolphins! i got some great snaps as they follow the boats quite closely.

Yalta is a very nice romantic break and i'm glad its a part of Ukraine i have seen, i doubt i would go back as its not my thing to visit a place twice. If your like me, looking to take your girlfriend on holiday, and you only speak english, i would advise that you should pluck up the extra cash and goto Turkey or Egypt. The weather will be better, the beaches are nicer, and english is more widely spoken, but if your set on Crimea then definitely come here and stay at the Hotel Yalta.