Best_Eastern_Vizit Hotel Vladivostok, 4th_floor of a gloomy Soviet skyscraper, Unarguably the best bed in town!
Written: May 20 '09 (Updated May 22 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Rare English speaking staff, reasonable furnished rooms at attractive prices with nice views.
Cons: Rude_staff, cigarette_smoke covered hallways, noisy from other hotel downstairs. Difficult security_guards outside.
The Bottom Line: Fairly safe accommodations in a rough city in Russia"s Far-East offering descent beds at good prices in a noisy surrounding.
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| amsterdam1970's Full Review: Best Eastern Vizit Vladivostok |
An afternoon taxi ride through Vladivostok,
A lovely late spring sun shines over the picturesque Amurskii bay as my taxi speeds along the busy LugovayaStreet in downtown Vladivostok. Pretty slender Russian girls are wearing high heeled boots and colorful miniskirts while the men have taken the relatively warm weather of today as an opportunity to open their closets and take out their shorts and T-shirts. Crowded slow moving Soviet styled trams and trolleybuses are the favorite forms of public transport here. It really is not a bad time to be in Vladivostok I consider, a large, historic, crime ridden and extremely rough town in the Russian Far East, the administrative center of the Primorsky Krai region close to the borders of China and Democratic People's Republic of North Korea.
A hotel in a hotel, having to go through The Vladivostok hotel to get into the Vizit Hotel.
My taxi brakes with exaggerated violence at the front door of the gloomy grey Vladivostok hotel located in a Stalinist skyscraper on top of a hill on Naberezhnaya street. As strange as it may sound The Best Eastern Vizit Vladivostok hotel is a hotel in a hotel. The Vizit hotel is located on the fourth floor of the Vladivostok Hotel. In order to reach the hotel's reception you need to take the elevator from the reception of the Vladivostok hotel. A couple of tall muscular pale skinned security guards with shaved heads and tattooed arms that make Mike Tyson look small examine my passport with scrutiny at the entrance of the hotel, a serious vodka odor coming from their mouth. My passport changes hands several times before I am allowed in. The dark crowded lobby of the mother hotel is full of chain smoking Chinese traders who are unsuccessfully trying to get the attention of some intoxicated blond prostitutes parading through the lobby.I get into the elevator to access my hotel on the fourth floor.
Check-in,"Do I not dare to make any requests" yells the aggressive receptionist!
The quietness and complete emptiness of the Vizit Hotel's dark red and brown colored reception on the fourth floor of The Vladivostok Hotel is a welcome change to the madness of the hotel downstairs. Obviously this hotel caters more towards the few western business men visiting this city. At the small wooden desk, a woman is eying me with sharp suspicion when I disembark from the elevator. "What is your problem" she demands to know in Russian language. "I would like to check in" I answer in English. The tone of her voice changes slightly; "your passport" . She snatches it out of my hand. When I request a room with a large king sized bed the receptionist abruptly starts yelling at me, rudely informing me that I booked a single room; so what I will get is a single room with a small single bed and do I not dare to make requests that are not paid for. Wisely I do not make any more requests and reside to my room down the hallway quietly.
The Room,
My room is rather pleasantly furnished in semi-modern Russian style so often in the west considered outdated. A tiny room with thick whitestructured wallpaper on the walls, a clean light blue dotted carpet on the floor with an extremely narrow well used bed with some light bloodstains from previous guests still visible on the sheets, a large white empty refrigerator placed almost in the center of the room right in front of the window. A little dark wooden table with matching chair looking like it was picked up from a second hand market ages ago stands in the corner. The standard beige flowered curtain always seen in Russian hotel rooms is hung in front of the window. A highly unmemorable framed painting pretending to be art is shown on the wall. The room has a white, blue and brown tone. Not bad at all I conclude.
The bathroom,
The adjacent small well lit bathroom is spotlessly clean. The dark dramatic and wild patterned tiles could be considered a psychologists dream as in the strange patterns different things can be seen depending on your mood. A nice shower offering some serious well pressured hot water, a colorful plastic shower curtain in yellow and blue. and a white sink. Little in the form of amenities are offered but the standard refillable shower and soap bottle is provided.
The restaurant/ bar,
The Best Eastern Vizit Hotel on the fourth floor of the Hotel Vladivostok does not offer any of their own restaurants apart from the small breakfast lounge with tiny little brown tables located straight next to the reception desk. The area is turned into a sleepy bar at night. The breakfast which is generally included in the room rate is basically fine consisting of cold cut meats, breads, eggs and some sort of a porridge. The mother hotel downstairs boosts several restaurants who are often occupied by loud chain smoking groups of drunk Chinese and Korean men eating noodle dishes. My advise is find another place to have dinner in Vladivostok. As the city holds a large minority of Armenians there are some fantastic Armenian restaurants in the city where for descent prices you can have fabulous well cooked food prepared by highly capable authentic chefs.
The casino,
The mother hotel (Vladivostok hotel) downstairs offers a small loud unattractive casino. This particular outlet wins the price of the world's most unsophisticated casino. In other words it is not much else than a gambling hall where the owners try to serve as much pure alcohol as possible in order to turn its mostly Asian clientele into reckless loud spoken intoxicated money losing human wallets. All this under the seedy decoration of heavily under-dressed business girls doing an occasional freelance striptease to defer the attention of the unsuspecting gamblers in favour of the management's profits.
The deals at the Best Eastern Vizit Hotel Vladivotok,
The prices here seem to be pretty standard. With an on line travel-agent a single room on pre-paid basis goes for about $100 American Dollars. Walk-in rack rates are about 50 percent higher. For Russian hotels a good booking site is http://www.findrussiahotel.com/Vladivostok/vizit/ The Mother hotel downstairs named The Vladivostok is considerably cheaper.
The Overall verdict of The Best eastern Vizit Hotel Vladivostok,
The Best Eastern Vizit Hotel Vladivostok located a the fourth floor of a grey Soviet skyscraper is much better than it's mother hotel, The Vladivostok, downstairs. Small but for local standards offering attractive rooms with much more peace and quiet than the one downstairs. Expect lots of cigarette smoke around, an occasional solicitating working girl walking in the hallways and hotel staff from hell who were obviously hand-picked and selected on their previous work experience as a warden in the local Gulag. Otherwise overall a rather pleasant experience considering where we are. Most probably one of the better hotels in town, comes definitely recommended.
Recommended:
Yes
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amsterdam1970
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Member: amsterdam 1970
Location: KouRou, GuianaSpaceCentre, FrenchGuiana
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