Majestic Palace Hotel

A neat and comfortable place to stay. I’d highly recommend the rooms.

Fair.

I was disappointed from the moment I arrived. I’d booked a double bed, but was given two twin beds. After a long discussion at reception, they said they’d push them together, then moved me to a different room. The whole process took over half an hour. The rooms were dirty and disgusting, with hair in the bathroom and toilet and a bad smell. The Wi-Fi kept cutting out. I wouldn’t recommend this hotel. The bargain price doesn’t make up for quality that falls below even basic expectations.

The breakfast was supposed to run until 10 am, but by 9 the food looked like leftovers from the day before, if there was any food at all. We could find no staff and had to make do with the bread and sausage. There were no eggs or other hot dishes. When we eventually tracked someone down and asked about the food, they made scrambled eggs. The next morning, they called at 8:30 to say breakfast was ready, seemingly so we wouldn’t come later. It’s hard to see the point of advertising breakfast until 10. Our room was dirty, with huge cockroaches, stained towels that needed replacing, and items left behind by previous guests, including cigarettes, used toothpaste, hairpins, and bottle caps. After cleaning, brown stains appeared on the sheets. We had to leave our keys at reception for cleaning and collect them in the evening, but they were left where anyone could reach them, with no check on who took which key. In theory, someone could walk in from the street and get into any room. Even after we asked only for fresh towels and the trash to be taken out, the cleaners moved our things around, put items in closets, and shifted our jars. After that cleaning, a piece of jewelry was missing. We searched our suitcase and couldn’t find it. At reception, a man ran to the cleaning staff, then both came to our room. One spoke in Uzbek while the other said in Russian that they hadn’t taken or touched anything. Still, where did the jewelry go after that cleaning? The reception manager was rude and answered questions with an annoyed “What?” before replying reluctantly and angrily. They seemed to understand Russian when it suited them, but not when it didn’t. The manager was asleep when we checked in. The next morning, staff said our reservation wasn’t there and demanded another payment. They gave us a number for someone claiming we had booked through a scam website and had no reservation, though we had booked through Yandex Travel. Once we said we had all the receipts and the site wasn’t fake, they left us alone. The manager was usually absent, too, and we couldn’t check out for an hour and a half while looking for him. I absolutely don’t recommend staying here. The whole experience could ruin your time in Samarkand.