When I grow up I want to be a Marriott!
Written: Mar 16 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very Central. Good restaurant. Busy meeting place in summer.
Cons: Old, moving on slowly from traditional Soviet.
The Bottom Line: Once grand hotel awaiting a complete makeover. Great location and good restaurants.
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| vodkaboy's Full Review: Hotel Armenia |
The Hotel Armenia sits right on Republic Square (formerly Lenin Square), the other three sides taken by the National Gallery, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and another Ministry. In other words it was one of four important buildings sharing pride of place in the heart of the city.
From the outside it looks very grand, impressive, imposing in a Soviet kind of a way. Inside it looks equally Soviet, once grand, now badly in need of major rennovation. It is not dirty or especially tatty, just very 50s Soviet!
The Hotel Armenia actually consists of two hotels - the Armenia One, the flagship, facing the square, then round the back, accessed up a side street, the Armenia Two, a fraction of the price, linked by a walkway and sharing a restaurant.
Marriott took over management of the hotels a few years ago and chose to keep the Armenia One open and rennovate the Armenia Two first. It kept overrunning, which meant that the larger and more important Armenia One is still awaiting any real rennovation and update.
I last stayed there two years ago so I have not seen the rooms recently but have used the restaurants and cafe so have seen some improvements.
RECEPTION
Walk in the main entrance and you have the once-grand staircase in front of yu going up to the restaurant. Reception is to the right, and beyond that a corridor to another restautant. On the left of the staircase is a cafe then a corridor leading to toilets, a gift shop and a downstairs wine bar which is used for special events only. The cafe serves good snacks. If you use the toilets you see that the hot air hand dryer doesn't have an automatic cut out; it has a switch to turn it on and off and a paper notice taped above saying "please remember to switch the dryer off after using it", an indication of how modern and up to date the facilities are.....
Check in is okay, but once I arrived at night and the night staff really didn't seem to care. There was someone at the desk making an international call (it was not possible to dial international from the rooms but that might have been fixed now).
ROOMS
The room I got was supposed to be a double but was small and had two single beds. The minibar was empty. However I saw another guest's room and it was large, spacious and very comfortable, so there is a real difference. The rooms have been improved but with a major overhaul coming soon it is unlikely that they will bother doing too much at this point.
FACILITIES
The hotel does have a business center and fitness centre but I have not used them so cannot comment. There is no pool.
There is a gift shop which offers typical hotel giftshop stuff, nothing very inspiring, if you want souvenirs you're better off going to one of the shops up Abovian or the nearby street market open at weekends.
RESTAURANTS
The hotel has two main restaurants, the grand restaurant upstairs which is used for special functions. Downstairs there is "Ginger" which offers international food - Indian, Chinese and some Thai. The Indian is usually very good, the Thai can be slow to arrive.
The cafe offers light meals and snacks and has a daily special for lunch, mostly quick and good. In the warmer months a cafe called "Meeting Point" is set up outside the front of the hotel and the cafe menu is available there. It is a great place for lunch or for a summer evening.
SERVICE
Most of the waiters and waitresses are pleasant and helpful, and speak reasonable English. The restaurant is genereally very good. Overall the people tend to be willing and eager to help and try to fix any mistakes or shortcomings.
LOCATION
As I said earlier, right on Republic Square so extremely central. Across the square is the National Gallery and Abovian Street, with numerous shops and restaurants. To the left of the hotel is another street full of restaurants, shops and cafes. To the right is "Exchange Street", so known because of the dozens of Money changers. Behind the hotel is Sarkisian Street with HSBC bank, an international medical centre and some more restaurants.
The only drawback of the location is that Republic Square is used on special events so you can find concerts or gatherings taking place. At weekends it gets noisy as it is a tradition for newly married couples to drive round the square three times, followed by every other car in the wedding party all blowing their horns!
In summary a once-grand hotel, once the best, badly in need of a make over! The staff have been better trained and make an effort but it looks grey and drab. Once Marriot have done the rennovation it should be fantastic, but not yet!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
vodkaboy
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Location: Somewhere over here
Reviews written: 168
Trusted by: 72 members
About Me:
I've been thinking. That's an improvement.
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