A very clean and tidy hotel/hostel which is located across from the bus station. Big rooms with clean new bathrooms. Owner is a charming character! Broken English but the communication was never an issue! Plus you'll be given a cheese pie within the first 15 minutes of arriving made by his wife. Free WiFi. I do absolutely recommend.
The room was clean and comfortable, although i found a small cockroach in the bathroom, the owner is friendly but does not speak English, which could have been a big problem if we didn't have our local tour guide with us on check-in, breakfast was very good, and the Wifi was fast and signal was strong.
The hotel itself is in the very center of Akhaltsikhe, right across the road from the bus and train station. The rooms are okay for this price and clean, the manager is helpful and nice but the best was the restaurant under the place. It was so incredibly cheap for big portions that it made our stay memorable. This is a good place as a base to explore the town from since its vicinity to the castle, shops and transportation.
The Worst Hotel Ever I was absolutely shocked after we arrived here. I had read amazing reviews and this hotel has a 9.2 rating on Booking.com. HOWEVER... As many guests had said the owner was friendly, welcoming and offering snacks upon arrival, we came in, waited, passed a man sitting in a guest room with the door open watching TV. We looked around for any kind of reception desk, but there was none. The man barged out of the room with an attitude and yelled a poor version of the pronunciation of my husband's name over and over until we understood what he was trying to say. We agreed that yes, whatever it was, that was us. We were speaking in English but he kept answering us in Russian as if we had never said a word. He didn't even say he couldn't speak English, and we were expecting him to because the hotel information online says... ENGLISH. He waved his arms, trying to herd us like cattle to room 1. We were told in a loud voice still, TV! Air Conditioner! Bed! Bathroom! Breakfast! Time! 9! I said no, 10, please. Then he just walked out. We were not even given a key, but we found it in the door. So much for a hospitable welcome. He genuinely acted like he hated us. We also wondered, when the hotel was empty—every other door was open for airinng—why he was determined to put us in room 1 when he was chilling in room 2, TV blaring. We were right next to the entrance door and right across from where the cleaning lady was doing laundry, too. We had no privacy. Every time we walked in or out, he was sitting there like a guard, his back to the same wall where our bed was. Interestingly, booking.com said we had reserved the last room. Our room looked like it had been robbed. There was the promised desk but no chair. No night stands, not one decoration to be found. Just empty walls and some wood panel across the back of our bed like there once was some kind of suite but it had been pilfered. It was voted very highly for cleanliness, but when I took off my shoes, the floor was obviously uncleaned and I had to go wash my feet and wear the complimentary slippers which had our advertised “toiletries” on top—a tiny bar of soap. The drain in the bathroom was clogged, the trash can was dirty, there were some rusted vanity lights with broken (physically broken with holes in them) bulbs inside. I looked out the window to see how far the castle was. On booking.com, the owners say it's a 5 min walk. Well, there is absolutely no way there is a view of the castle from this hotel, and certainly not from our room. There is no view, period, except of the main road, which is noisy late into the night, and the run-down bus station. The castle takes about 30 mins to walk to. Far off from 5 mins. I specifically got this hotel because I believed they had told the truth about distance, view, etc. I would never have chosen it if I had known it was in a run-down dump. The garden that was also advertised failed to materialize. We left for a while and came back hours later to find... the gremlin was still there, basically on top of us, and the TV was still blaring. No good evening, no acknowledgement of our presence, and no common sense to tell him a young couple might not feel all too comfortable getting up to much with someone literally sitting on the other side of the wall. In retrospect, he might not have heard a thing because the mysterious restaurant downstairs with no sign, no menu, no customers, suddenly began blaring base music which did not cease until 11pm. We walked outside to have a cigarette at about midnight since we were forced to stay awake almost as long, and found the man had moved to an armchair almost right in front of our door, sleeping. Of course, we woke him up opening our room door, and he acted like we had inconvenienced him, but did not say a word. We felt completely trapped and unwelcome and if we had known there was going to be a disco party directly below us... again, why on earth put us in a room right over a rave when all other rooms are empty?!... I would have just left that night and gone somewhere else, but by then it was too late. Our vegetarian breakfast consisted of among other things, sausages. 10 laris each for this breakfast which was some kind of attempt, but just no good and definitely not worth 20 laris in a small town like that. We had eaten a huge dinner the night before in another restaurant for 20 laris, so even this wasn't redemption. The owner and other people who had not said a word of welcome at all to us, just pointed to our table, which was the only set table in there, and directly behind where they were sitting, laughing, screaming and hanging out. WHY did they sit us right.on.top of them again, giving us absolutely no privacy or even the ability to hear each other speak? We felt like prisoners, closely guarded and watched, but never spoken to. After breakfast, we got our stuff, paid, and then... amazingly, the man said, “thank you for staying at my hotel”. I said nothing. This man was completely capable of not yelling, able to speak politely, yet for nearly 24 hours ignored us, yelled at us and sat guard with a blaring TV. I came home and re-read all of the wonderful experiences other people have shared, despite the obvious errors in the hotel description, like no view of the castle and charmless, messy building, and wondered why we were so unlucky. I am American and my husband is Turkish. He reserved the room. We wonder if it was one of our ethnicities which caused this, but we have no idea. Anyway, the hotel was horrible, see photos, and seriously base your reviews not on someone smiling and giving you a free khachapuri. Base it on the accuracy of the description and normal hotel standards in that price range. Look over the photos I have posted and please tell me if this qulifies as “superb” 9.2.…
For a long time thinking about where it is better to live in Akhaltsikhe or vardzia. I think in Akhaltsikhe and there is also a 3D Hotel, which is great! Super the owner, walk to the castle, walk to the city center and cheap taxi to Vardzia. The hotel's ground floor restaurant is a great place not to miss it!
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