Pretty good if you don't expect too much

Written: 12 july 2009
Travel time: 20 june — 11 july 2009
Who does the author recommend the hotel to?: For a relaxing holiday; For families with children
Your rating of this hotel:
8.0
from 10
Hotel ratings by criteria:
Rooms: 8.0
Service: 8.0
Cleanliness: 8.0
Food: 9.0
Amenities: 8.0
I stayed at the hotel "Elephant" from 20.06 to 11.07. 2009. the hotel does not have a reception as such, they bring you to the Kuchera hotel, which is located approximately 60-70 meters from the Elefant. In the same place, in the "Kuchera" and breakfasts from 8-00 to 10-00. For us, as for visitors to the hotel, there was no fundamental difference where to return after the “watering hole” - to our hotel or to the neighboring one, especially since the “Kuchera” is a little closer to the sources than the “Elephant”. I will describe breakfast in detail, maybe this information will be important to someone, how important it was to me, but I couldn’t read anything about their buffet anywhere. So, 3-4 varieties of boiled and smoked sausages, almost every day quite decent ham, 2 varieties of cheese, melted cheese, jam, butter, cream for coffee, gray + white bread, soft cottage cheese, milk + tea + coffee + drink in jugs and thermoses (there are no vending machines at all), 1 cereal, 1 muesli, often with large bowls - something like thick fruit yogurt and almost always vegetable salad, in which leaf lettuce prevails with a small number of tomatoes and cucumbers. About once every 3-4 days, sausages are boiled, although most often they run out quickly, and eggs. For 3 weeks they made fish salad 1 time and meat salad 2 times. Two types of rich rolls: with poppy seeds and with cottage cheese (tastier). That's the whole menu (no fruit). In principle, given the price category of the hotel, it is quite worthy, but for 3 weeks it got sick to the point of nausea. In addition, it so happened that we were leaving for 2 days in Prague, where we booked the Vitkov hotel for quite ridiculous money (double room 29.90 Euro per night with breakfast) and had the opportunity to compare one buffet (3 *) with another (3*). "Vitkov" won by a significant margin - here you have 5 types of tea and coffee from the machine and drinks and 3-4 types of salads and more delicious pastries, etc.
The location of "Elefant" is good: a minute walk from the source "Vrzhidlo" + (in common speech - Geyser) and 5-7 minutes from the rest. 20 minutes from the shopping center and the main shopping street Thomas Masaryk. Come to Thomas Masaryk Street. To your left will be the main post office and start climbing up 80-100 meters. On the right you will see a modern building with green tinted windows. In the basement of this house you will find the closest supermarket to the resort area "Billa" - I bought food there - not cheap, but close. And on the first floor there is an exchanger, on the glass of the exchanger it says "vary. ru" - you need to point your finger at this inscription and then you will be offered a more favorable rate (than almost everyone has it). So the rate was 25.2 crowns for 1 Euro, and when pointing to the "password" - the man in the booth (not at all Slavic in appearance) changed to 25.5, which you agree is a trifle, but nice.
About the room - exactly the same as on their website, but not big. Everything functions, only the shower stall is the cheapest, and therefore the doors do not close well, but these are all trifles. We were put in a room with a view of the "Stara Louka" - this is the main street, with a balcony, large enough, which is rare for Karlovy Vary houses. When the weather did not please us (and it was, if not every day, then every other day - that's for sure), the child and I breathed fresh air on the balcony. I want to warn lovers of daytime sleep and silence - right in front of the hotel, 60 meters, adjacent to the Central Hotel, there is construction going on. Work starts around 7 am and ends in different ways - at 5-6-7 pm. And no days off. We didn’t sleep during the day, we didn’t bother with the view, and therefore the construction didn’t bother us at all.

There is no air conditioning in the room. It is not needed, since there is not much heat, and at night they are completely cool. They even turned on the heating at night and the guests, if necessary, could turn the knob on the radiator and slightly reduce or add heating. The same is true in the bathroom. This helped a lot when drying clothes, otherwise it would never dry.
About cleaning, they cleaned it quite tolerably, that is, they threw out the garbage every day, for 21 days they changed linen 3 times and towels once. There it is customary to change them not every day, but at the request of the guests, one shift was enough for us. . A couple of times I gave them a tip - 20 crowns each (which is approximately equal to 35 rubles) - they became more complacent. And so there are always some zatyukannye and not very friendly.
About the treatment: -we did not include it in the price. We went to Lazne 5 and Lazne 3 (pediatrician). Everything is not very cheap - a doctor's appointment from 960 to 1100 kroons. Consider for yourself: 1 kroon is about 1.8 rubles. The procedures were also not weak - they made the child dirty on his feet - 1 session in the region of 900 rubles. But on the other hand, you are assigned exactly what you need, and not what is free. In addition, there is one more move: go to Eusenius (20 meters to the right of Elephant) for an appointment with a doctor (it is cheaper), listen to what he recommends and buy one procedure at a time. After that, you are already trying to negotiate with a nurse 2 times cheaper (for example, instead of 400 kroons for a bath - 200) Of course, in the Soviet way, but if the finances are not great, then this is the way out.
To be honest, I did not feel any special result from the treatment, but I have too many contraindications, and the child does not have too serious problems with the gastrointestinal tract. The problem of rest, not treatment, came to the fore for us.

Summing up, I want to say that the hotel is quite decent, given that of all the hotels offered in the resort area, "Elephant" is the cheapest, at least here in St. Petersburg. That is why we did not understand the grumbling of many neighbors (mainly residents of Israel). How much you spent, how much you got. If you are not expecting 40 meter rooms in gilding and with candelabra, then you will be satisfied with the time spent here.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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