Magic Fly

An odd place, but it worked out fine for a one-night stay. The brothel-style decorations can get on your nerves, though.

For the price, the bed is a steal, and there's hot water, working air conditioning and TV, plus Wi-Fi. But the cigarette smell is awful, like being on a train and stepping into the vestibule, and it clung to all our clothes. The bathroom needs work, and even at 600 UAH the smell in the room and bathroom should be better. PS, slippers are sold at the hotel for 25 UAH, and shoe covers are 2.5 at the pharmacy across the street.

We only saw photos of the outside before our stay, and later, when I saw the room photos posted here, I was shocked by how different they were from what we got. The woman who greeted us reeked of smoke and wasn't especially friendly, though she didn't get rude right away. They hadn't told us which room we'd booked. We were given room 3, and had to haul our bags up a spiral staircase, even though one was carry-on size and the other medium. There was a spider in the corner that looked like it had lived there for weeks or months. Worse, the room stank of tobacco so badly it was hard to breathe. A gray piece of tulle hung over the bed like a canopy, with only traces of its former orange color showing. The bathroom was old, dirty, and had mold. When we asked to switch rooms, the administrator agreed, but came upstairs and asked, “What does it smell like in here? I don't smell any tobacco,” then looked annoyed. She meant to show us two rooms, but could only open the first. For some reason she couldn't get the fourth door open, despite pulling hard, and we didn't want to spend ages forcing it, so we took the first room. It had a broken bed and a child-sized toilet, very low and narrow, with a worn old child's seat decorated with cartoon pictures. At least it didn't smell. There was no hairdryer in the rooms, so you had to ask for one. It was only a little bigger than my palm and barely dried anything, but that wasn't the worst part. When we asked for our money back and canceled the booking, the woman argued, then returned it and was rude to us. I would give it zero stars if I could.

We had to stop here because of curfew. The room was small, basically just enough space for a bed, but that wasn't a problem for us. It looked clean, but the heating came from an air conditioner that couldn't keep up. Every door creaked, and the sheets must once have been good, but time has taken its toll and stains remained after washing. There was a strong cigarette smell. At first I thought it had gone away, but it hadn't. The bathroom needs everything replaced, cleaning won't fix it. The aquarium on the first floor gets two stars from me.