Royal Park Hotel & Spa

Run away! I stayed for several weeks, so I can tell you quite a bit about this hotel. The quality, price and service are an extremely bad combination. It feels like everything is set up to take your money, from the linen to access to the wellness area, offered at 15,000 KZT / hour, the price of half a day at a 5 stars. Staff don't speak a word of English, and I found them negligent, with service practically nonexistent. The rooms aren't anything special, with vague, bad-taste decor and gold plastic ornaments. The bathrooms are uninspiring, cold and not very functional, and sometimes there are plumbing problems too. My room wasn't ready at first. They put me in one without heat or a window, and it took a bitter fight just to get a towel and a roll of toilet paper, which I had to pay for.

The staff were kind and helpful, and the location worked well. There’s even a spa open around the clock. But the inside feels old, and the rooms are dated. The worst part for me was the noise: the doors have a big gap underneath, so hallway sounds came straight in and kept waking me through the night. I also couldn’t set the room temperature to what I wanted.

I spent most of my time in the spa alone, which was really nice. The hotel itself is good, and the location is decent, with restaurants nearby. If you’re staying on an upper floor, be sure to ask for a heater.

The rooms showed the same poor management as the restaurant. They were badly finished and weren’t properly made up each day. We had to ask twice for a third towel for our son, and the suite we’d been promised with a large and a small double bed turned out to have just a mattress. The spa and pool also weren’t available to guests because they were always booked out externally. We were six people arriving at 8:30pm after a long trip, and eventually went to the restaurant for food. It was around 10pm by the time anything came, in dribs and drabs. The food was stone cold, several orders including mine never arrived, and the third steak was literally inedible. We were too hungry and it was too late to go elsewhere, so we shared what we had: a bowl of spaghetti carbonarra, the nicest thing we ate, one portion of cold onion rings instead of the two we ordered, cold garlic bread, cold lamb chops and two cold steaks. When we complained, the waiter lied and said there was no manager to speak to. Asked for the manager’s number, he then claimed the phones were broken. We refused to pay until we could talk to someone. The next day a duty manager agreed we’d only pay for drinks. About an hour later reception called to say the manager wanted to see me. She insisted we pay for everything and asked why we wouldn’t pay for food we’d eaten. We explained what happened and showed her photos of the inedible food. Her answer was, ‘we've sacked the waiter and said sorry, that should be enough’. After nearly an hour trying in vain to explain customer service and basic management responsibilities, we paid just to end the pointless discussion. I’ve never stayed in a worse hotel, and the manager’s attitude made an already awful experience even worse.