Guest House at the Polytechnic Institute

I paid everything during my first stay, then asked to extend. She said I had to pay another 100 grovna for some reason. I was willing to pay, but Airbnb had a payment issue and couldn’t process the transaction, even though the problem wasn’t with my bank. Instead of letting me pay later, she put me out on the street. I wasn’t planning to stay without paying. I would’ve liked a bit more consideration and professionalism, but there wasn’t any.

The room was perfect for us: a large double in the basement, which I think is the best of the five, and the Wi-Fi worked well. The hot tub and steam room were off limits, but everything else was available. Getting to the place was a headache. It took us 45 minutes to find it in the dark. The building is easy to spot next to Kiev Zoo, but it has hundreds of front doors and no signs or information. Once inside, it becomes clear this isn’t a hotel, but an apartment split into five rooms with a shared bathroom and kitchen. You sign a temporary tenancy agreement, called 'on licence' in the UK. Payment is upfront on arrival, plus a 300uah cash deposit, and they don’t take credit or debit cards. I’d read reviews saying the staff were rude, but I think that may have been the language barrier. Nobody speaks English, so conversations were interesting, but the staff did their best to make our stay pleasant. Takeaways are within a three-minute walk, and a large shopping centre with a very good supermarket is about ten minutes away. Uber, Uber Eats, and Deliveroo are available. Uber taxis were very cheap, so using Uber instead of Kiev taxis saves a lot. Taxi drivers don’t know the guest house and it doesn’t seem to be a well-known landmark. To get back, we asked them to go to Kiev Zoo, then walked two minutes. For Uber pickups, we used the restaurant next door as the pickup point.

Terrible, really bad!

The hallway smelled so bad it made us gag when we left the room. Even worse, the management changed our arrangement after check-in. We’d agreed on a late checkout until 5:00 PM because our train left at 6:00 PM, and when booking they said it would cost an extra 500 UAH. We accepted, but they eventually told us checkout had to be at 12:00 PM because other guests were arriving. If they’d said from the start that late checkout wasn’t possible, we’d have picked another hotel. Changing the terms after we checked in was extremely unprofessional. It left us facing 4-5 hours with our luggage, just wandering around despite the clear agreement. I can’t recommend the hotel because of that attitude.