Volga Rika Hotel

We paid for a three-night stay, but on arrival the hotel said there was “a problem” and no room for us, despite our booking a few days earlier. They sent us to Fide Hotel, about three minutes away, which was nowhere near the standard we’d paid for. Our ground-floor room faced the street, was shabby and noisy, and gave us no privacy. Staff brushed it off as something that often happens at small hotels and spoke to us as though we were naive. Construction work inside the hotel added to the noise, and nobody offered compensation. Looking at Google reviews, we saw that other guests had reported similar experiences. After checkout, our Booking reservation was canceled with the claim that my card was invalid, even though we’d paid in person. It feels like a way to keep guests from leaving negative reviews. Behind the smiles and apologies, this seems like a scam: they take more bookings than they have rooms and move people to lower-quality places without compensation. Avoid it.

The apartment they moved us to was dirty, smelly, and in terrible shape. We had cold water, then no water at all, broken things, no soap, and WiFi that often disappeared. The service felt like nobody was there, and breakfast was a joke. The neighborhood looked unsafe when we first arrived, though nothing odd happened there. We only booked because we didn’t want to carry cash around, but after the woman running the place greeted us, we paid in cash. They immediately canceled our Booking.com reservation, saying we’d be moved to a better building for better service. That left us unable to contact or review the place on the platform, and they took payment without registering it. We realized too late what had happened and just waited for the worst. The stay turned into one bizarre mess after another. Worst experience ever. Don’t choose this place, it’s too risky to end up with nowhere to sleep.

They wanted cash, canceled our booking as if it had been canceled, then moved us a few blocks away to another building they said belonged to the same hotel. We had no idea whether we even had a reservation after they refused our card payment, and we felt stuck. The place they took us to was really dirty, bad, and sketchy. Avoid it. The price is low for a reason.

The air conditioning didn’t work, and the electrical outlets felt loose. After we’d paid and checked in, the manager canceled our Booking.com reservation without asking whether we agreed.