Flamingo Hotel

We spent three nights here and had a good stay overall. The hotel is quiet, the staff are very friendly, and it’s near the metro and airport. Breakfast was average. The city center and the party and casino spots are a bit farther away.

I decided not to stay here. It was advertised as a 3-star hotel, but the building seemed very old and didn’t feel worthy of that rating. The rooms are small, and the corridors have very dim lighting. You also have to pay for entertainment like billiards. The pool is small, and the charges seem high for the location and the quality of the building.

After the long trip from Chicago and that awful flight from Munich, all I wanted was sleep. At 5:30 in the morning, the taxi driver couldn’t find the Hotel Gloria I’d booked, and the fare had already reached three times what it should have been. The little creep took me to his “friend’s hotel,” Flamingo, on a dodgy street, and had also mentioned knowing “girl’s really clean, no smells, and not expensive.” The woman on duty said there was a three-day minimum and it cost $60 a night. I asked if she meant Georgian money. She said no, and I paid $180 in US dollars when it should have been 180 Georgian. Service was nonexistent, breakfast was over by the time I came down, and nobody seemed friendly or concerned. They had the money, and that was all that mattered. The next night, techno from a club across the street blared from 9 PM until 4 AM. Disgusting.

Some rooms look out over the old Town, and the friendly staff will do their best to help with anything. It’s a family-run hotel with excellent service.