Ялта - сказочный город Yalta - a fabulous city

Advantages:
Polite service staff, comfortable rooms, own beach, own Olympic-sized swimming pool with heated sea water, beautiful view from the window (at least in our room - the sea and Yalta), far from the noisy center, AIR CONDITIONER (not everywhere in Yalta hotels / boarding houses, it turns out), a safe in the room is free, there is an exchanger, ATMs, a pharmacy, etc. etc. I didn't find any unfiltered beer there))) And yet the main thing is the people. . . Very nice. . .
Disadvantages:

The only drawback that personally bothered me was the travel company at the hotel. No, the girls there are attentive and polite. But here are the excursions and the boss... I have something to compare with - at first we picked up excursions on the street and made an incomparable one-day excursion to Sevastopol with a wonderful guide Sveta... And then we drove from the hotel... To Ai-Petri. Yes, the bus is tricky. Guide - no-ka-ku-shchy. Confusing words and cases, stammering, he somehow tried to tell us something. I took the cable car to the barrier and put me in a trailer. And we never saw him again. This young man simply forgot to take half the bus back. . . And we paid 150 hryvnia per person for the tour, which is 30 hryvnia more than on the street. . . We, a group of "forgotten" went to the director of the travel agency. . . Hmmm. . . This aunt (and there is no other way to call it) apparently is not at all concerned about the good name of the hotel... The answer to the claims was in the style of "the fool himself"...
Therefore, I categorically do not advise buying excursions at the hotel.
Further.
Rested from 30.06 to 13.07. 2008. A ticket to the hotel was bought through the Orient company (I did not find it in the offered ones). Through the same company, they ordered a transfer from Simferopol / At prices - for two, the ticket itself came out exactly thirty thousand rubles (my son is already considered as an adult... ). Transfer 1650 rubles. The cost of the tour included accommodation in a standard room, breakfast, use of the beach / sunbeds (if someone from outside - 50 hryvnia), use of the pool / sunbeds (if anything - the same 50 hryvnia from the nose), one visit to the dolphinarium.
We arrived at about five in the evening, we did not wait for check-in, we received the room immediately, cleaned, and were satisfied with the room. I asked at the reception to be higher and to have a view of Yalta. The result was the 10th floor. The room is renovated, the furniture is new, bright. The pillows are kind of flat, I stuffed the blankets into pillowcases, and covered myself with duvet covers. There is no hair dryer or kettle in the room. I brought a hair dryer with me, but we somehow managed without a kettle. There is a small refrigerator. Large loggia. TV has 50 channels. The cleaning lady was very nice. She settled us in, and then, meeting us in the corridors, she always said hello. Cleaned clean every day. Linen is changed there twice a week, towels - if you throw them on the floor. If hanging = not touched - the rule is there and the poster hangs. I left a tip on the bed once - I didn’t take it... I didn’t leave it later...
Based on previous reviews:
1. Three-star rooms are quite pulling. The "Soviet" shower did not bother me personally, since it worked quite well, and I don't care about the beauty of the toilet bowl.
2. As far as I know, the rooms above the fifth are renovated. Below - partially. You need to ask higher.

Beach. The hotel itself is on the mountain, and the beach is below. Near the hotel there is an elevator room, there are three elevators, you need to go down to them, walk a little (15-20 meters) through the tunnel and get to the beach. There are several sections near the beach / we always stayed in the non-smoking section, there were a lot of kids. They say that last year the sunbeds on the beach were paid, now they are free. And there, in addition to the usual white ones, there were very comfortable yellow sunbeds with such a... small roof. I'll post a photo. The sea was clean. Lots of jellyfish. I read when jellyfish means the sea is dirty. But the bottom was visible even if you swim. . . The first week the water was warm, the second - +16 degrees. It seems like some kind of cyclone there... We saved ourselves by the pool. In principle, there were always enough sun loungers, once we arrived at 11 o'clock and nothing. Only the yellow ones were quickly taken apart. Along the beaches - a bunch of all sorts of cafes.
Swimming pool. Large, comfortable, there are gates for volleyball and basketball. On the one hand 1m. 30 cm, on the other 1m. 90cm. Where it is shallow, water aerobics classes were held every day at 11 am. The girl is so interesting - a real Natalka-Poltavka, a student of a physical transport from Kharkov. The water in the pool was heated. For the little ones - a separate small pool with a small slide. For some reason I didn't take a picture. . .
Nutrition. Buffet. I'm not too lazy, I'll post a list...
Juices: apple, multifruit, orange, tomato. Tea bags of several types. Thermos coffee. To him hot milk in a jug. Kashi - rice and oatmeal. Jams: cherry, apricot, strawberry, something else. Honey. So... Pancakes, boiled eggs, rolled scrambled eggs, cottage cheese casserole, steamed vegetables, boiled potatoes, sausages. More... Cottage cheese, sour cream, yogurt in jugs, several types of vegetable salads. Sausages are two types of semi-smoked, several types of boiled, several types of ham. Cheese of several varieties - not cheap, for example, marble. Sauces: mayonnaise, tomato, mustard, olive oil. In jugs of cold milk and types of five crispy breakfasts. And a fruit table. Always bananas and oranges, the first week cherries, the second apricots and grapes. Uff... The main difference from the Turkish "buffet" is that all products are fresh, not weathered. Although we had very good food in Turkey... There are many restaurants on the territory of the hotel.
From uninteresting to us - two casinos and a variety show.
So, there is also a tennis court, there are tables for small tennis. There is a gym on the beach. Bicycle rental is almost next to the entrance - just go down the stairs. Masseurs work next to the pool. Hairdresser's. Comedy.
And a business center. A very nice girl works there - Marina. She helped me with transferring photos to flash drives - we filled all the camera flash drives... But I didn’t take the wire. So she found me the wiring to the camera.

Of the interesting - the dolphinarium. We went to the performance, my son swam with dolphins. But, to be honest, I liked the Aquatoria theater with white whales more. Although both shows for me are so much better than the concert of the phonogram Kirkorov, which we also got to in Yalta))) I apologize in advance to his fans, but he didn’t kindle emotions in me such as whales and dolphins caused...
Well, in terms of location.
Yalta-Intourist is located in Massandra Park. It's very green there. Squirrels run along the branches !! ! A seagull flew to our balcony every day for bread... There is a strange, round fountain there. At first the water in it was green, then it suddenly turned blue!!!
The air there is so. . . Unusual. . .
Getting to the center: three times a day there is a free bus from the hotel to the bus station. It is difficult to get into lunch - there are many people who want to, and there are only sitting places. You can go down a little from the hotel and there will be a bus stop 34. This is the type of pocket where the minibus enters, turns around and leaves again. Therefore, you need to look at the plate - where it goes. Well, or ask. If Yalta is written, it is in the center. If the Nikitsky Botanical Garden is, accordingly, the wrong place))) But it’s worth a trip to Nikita, one mammoth tree deserves to look at it. They also built a vegetable labyrinth in Nikita - the kids like to run there. Take a minibus to the center of Yalta for 10-15 minutes, it goes along the top, through Massandra. Drazhinsky Street, on which the hotel stands and which goes almost to the center, is closed by a barrier in the summer, it is impossible to drive there. And you can walk - 15-20-30 minutes to the center, depending on how you go. It's more difficult to go back on foot - uphill.
Food in Yalta.
In Yalta itself, prices at catering points are higher than in the small towns of Big Yalta.

We had lunch / dinner in the dining room Violet. Not far from the same Lilac, next to the clothing market. Why there: clean, air-conditioned and quite edible. On the dispenser you can see the kitchen - also clean. In Lilac, the prices are the same, but, in my opinion, a little dirty. I highly recommend Violet. Only I advise you to take pastries there - not very... We took khachapuriki right at the bus stop - delicious. Actually, after a hearty morning buffet, I didn’t feel like eating at lunch... I also liked the cafe next to the cable car to Darsan Hill.
Since my son and I are lovers of Italian and Japanese cuisines, of course we went to an Italian restaurant at the hotel - expensive and tasteless pizza, then to Pasta - carbonara is very tasty there, and we also found a pizzeria in Nekrasov Square near Sadovaya Street - very tasty pizza. And, since we didn’t master everything, they packed the rest for us with us without any problems. About sushi - we found inexpensive and very tasty sushi in a restaurant on the Massandra beach - almost at its very end from our hotel. By the way, there was also unfiltered German beer - the only type of alcohol that I love. And there was also Thai cuisine in this restaurant - I didn’t try it, I don’t know.
Bottom line: a lot of money is spent on food. Lunch for two (considering the appetite of my 13-year-old son's growing body) came out to 70-100-120 hryvnia.
But, since there was a refrigerator in the room, we often just bought sausages, cheese, bread, etc. and made do with sandwiches.
About excursions and other entertainment. Crimea itself is interesting. I especially liked the rest in the Crimea with the opportunity to combine our interests with my son. My boy loves to swim, swims like a dolphin. I prefer educational rest. Therefore, before lunch we were at the sea or in the pool, after lunch we went on excursions. As I already wrote, I do not advise buying excursions at the hotel - expensive and of poor quality. Personally, I took all the excursions from a pleasant aunt standing approximately in the middle of the way from the bus station to the center, not far from the vegetable market. I liked the fact that she even ran to the landing, checked if they had forgotten about us, how we got settled on the bus... I did not expect...

1. Sevastopol. Emotions - mass. Two excursions are offered. One is focused on temples (not my version). The second - in places of military glory + Chersonese. We went to the second one. 160 hryvnia per person. We left at 9 am and returned at 7 pm. The tour guide's name was Sveta, the bus driver's name was Lena. Very nice women. Light incomparably talked about Big Yalta, about Sevastopol. And then Lena dropped us off from Sadovaya to our stop. Stops: Sapun Mountain, Panorama, a walk along the embankment, a monument to the scuttled ships, free time, Chersonese. In his free time, it was proposed either to visit the Aquarium museum or to take a boat ride along the bay along the Russian fleet. Naturally, the son chose the Navy. The ships are huge, I would even say majestic. The price of the tour is 30 hryvnia per person, the story about the ships is interesting. I was scared))) The boat was rocking so… In Sevastopol, the turquoise sea is not the same as in Yalta. In general, Sevastopol is a very beautiful city, everything is saturated with history there. I'm glad my son was there. Children should know about the heroic past of their country.
Chersonese. . . I will try to describe the emotions that I experienced there. You see, here you will visit some places, yes, historical ones, it seems that a lot has been preserved, but there is no contact with HISTORY. Chersonese is breathtaking - not at the beginning, but already when you go out to the sea. There, indeed, every pebble breathes antiquity. You can really imagine how it all used to be. . . About the same feeling was in the Nikitsky Garden next to the Mammoth Tree - contact with the old times, a kind of time machine. . . In Chersonese, photo and video shooting is paid. But! We did not pay, no one on the territory checks.
If you are traveling to the Crimea with children aged 8-16, you simply need to go to Sevastopol... We were very tired that day, but it was worth it.
2. Alupka Palace. Of the proposed "palace" excursions, I chose Livadia because of the unusualness of the palace itself. On the one hand, it looks like a medieval castle, on the other, like an oriental palace. The palace has an absolutely wonderful winter garden and a marble figurine of a girl (just in the garden), the only one in the world - marble does not make it possible to convey small details and emotions, but not in this case. The girl is alive. I don’t remember the sculptor’s last name, I remember that he is Italian. The park there is also very interesting, with several lakes. Swans live on the lakes all year round. And then there is the Great Chaos - a mountain of huge stones... uh... diaBAZ! Exactly! This is when magma escaped from the earth, and then froze. By the way, the palace there is built of diabase. This stone is super strong and difficult to process. In general, you need to go there, it's really interesting there))) The guide's name was Albina. She spoke very interestingly.

3. Boat trip to the Swallow's Nest. 30 UAH per person¸ The tour is sold right on the embankment. For an additional fee, they are allowed on the upper deck. While we were sailing, we listened to the story of the great Yalta. On the way back they did the same. But interesting. As far as the Swallow's Nest, I, I confess, did not reach... It was hot... I did not master it. My son went upstairs alone.
4. Zoo - Glade of fairy tales - Aquarium. Didn't take the tour. From the bus station we took a minibus to the turn to the Glade of Fairy Tales, then we still walked. We went back by minibus directly from Polyana to Spartak.
Liked the zoo. Usually in zoos it is forbidden to feed the animals. And there special pipes were made to throw food and food is sold everywhere in the territory - “for lions”, “for monkeys”, etc. The parrots are loud there))) It's definitely worth going there. I don't remember the cost of a ticket to the zoo.
Glade of fairy tales, in principle, entertainment for small children. But there is "Crooked Mirrors". Do you remember when there used to be such an attraction everywhere? Now somehow does not meet.
With a ticket to the zoo, you can get a discount when visiting the aquarium. The aquarium is located behind the cafes. There are sharks, piranhas and all sorts of other fish.
5. Nikitsky Botanical Garden. We took a minibus from the hotel. I have already written about the Mammoth tree. In Alupka, this is also there, but in Nikita it is much more. Strawberry tree - the bark peels off from it. It does not need to be touched, touches burn the tree and dark spots remain on it - burns. If you see a laurel, don't taste the leaves - they are poisonous at times. We did not take a tour, we walked on our own and read the explanations on the signs. We went to the Labyrinth for a fee. So. . . It seems like a ticket to the garden is 30 hryvnia, and to the Labyrinth. . . like 50. . . Maybe I'm lying. . . I don't remember exactly. I specifically try to indicate prices so that you can roughly plan the excursion budget. But my memory fails. . . There are also large cacti and agaves in Nikita - next to the exit, below. There is also a palm avenue. In addition, there is an orchid gallery and a butterfly gallery. They didn’t go to orchids, they went to butterflies. It's very hot there. . .

6. Ai-Petri. Our only unsuccessful excursion... There was a group from Koktebel, where their guide took them along Ai-Petri, told and showed them everything, even took them to the Three-Eyed Cave... And they paid 120 hryvnias. And we are 150 each... Well... But nevertheless, you need to go to Ai-Petri. I think it's better on your own... You can also drive up to Miskhor, and there private traders suggest taking a bus to Ai-Petri, and from there take the cable car. True, it seems like it’s impossible to go there by car, but they still go.
The peak of Ai-Petri is the “land of the Crimean Tatars”. There is a real oriental bazaar. And a whole street of restaurants with oriental cuisine. Pilaf - I liked it, shish kebab - not very much for me personally. We dined in room 21. There are all restaurants by numbers. We bought oriental sweets and Crimean teas there. My son went to the Exotarium, admired all sorts of snakes, owls and cats without hair... There is also a bells and whistles - for 10 hryvnias, it is called a type of torture room. They fenced off a small courtyard and put up medieval torture devices there. And a bunch of different costumes. We went there, took a lot of staged photos))) We didn’t climb the very top. But the son rode a camel. More entertainment on Ai-Petri: horseback riding to the Three-Eyed Cave and the cave itself (the air temperature in the cave is about zero), riding on... damn it, well? On four-wheeled motorcycles in general, shooting galleries. The very ascent / descent on the cable car is quite extreme entertainment... High... Scary... The son said that he realized that he was afraid of heights. 40 people fit into the trailer, there are no seats. One transplant.
7. Cable car to Darsan hill. Approximately in the middle of the Yalta embankment. Small trailers for two people. You have to jump on the go. The view of Yalta from above is awesome.
8. So, I already wrote about the dolphinarium. Water area!! ! Theater of marine animals on the way to Sevastopol. A ticket for a person is 50 hryvnia, for a "drive" another 12 hryvnia. We got a cool driver who also gave a tour along the way))) In Aquatria they show a walrus, a fur seal Vanya, a sea lion Mitya, two white whales and a dolphin. The impression is extremely positive. There is an “aquarium” near the Aquatoria, we didn’t go there anymore. And a life-size dinosaur exhibit. Ticket - 30 hryvnia. You can press the switch and the dinosaur moves a little - it will wave its tail or “chew”. The pavilion itself is decorated well and the sounds are appropriate.

9. Concert hall "Jubilee". Open. We went to Kirkorov... One ticket - 80 hryvnia. There are many singers on tour in Yalta. Opposite the hall is the Chekhov Theatre. Between them, in the square, there are monuments to Kobzon's muse, Zhvanetsky's briefcase, Arkanov's waistcoat and Shirvindt's pipe. There is also a local "Avenue of Stars". There is also a wax museum in the hall building.
And the last. What to bring from the Crimea.
1. You need to bring wine from Crimea. buy better in branded stores. I took three bottles of Massandra - a shop near the center - such a fancy piece of glass. I took Pinot Gris of the gift version and a couple of white semi-sweet ones. The price of a bottle is about 30 hryvnia - from inexpensive, young ones. If it's more sophisticated, you can buy wine from the Magarach factory - it will be more expensive. There is a new feature, as a gift to the hero of the day, you can take the wine of the year of issue = the year of birth of the birthday man. The prices are high.
2. Crimean herbs. I bought from Ai-Petri. Package - 8 hryvnia. Mom took a hearty collection, to her and fraternal families to collect "Health" to strengthen immunity, to dad - "For a bath", he is my lover of both baths and bath herbal teas.
3. Teas of the Crimea. The choice is very large, I took two packs (4 packs each) of black and green teas with stevia. Stevia is such a Crimean herb, it is sweet in itself, tea does not need to be sweetened. In addition, it normalizes blood pressure, improves immunity, improves digestion. 1 pack - 40 hryvnia.
There is also Crimean honey and Crimean spices. I didn't take. . .
Something like that…
We did not go to Balaklava - to the underground submarine factory, to Bakhchisaray... We did not go for a ride on the sea at night. We did not reach Chekhov's house. Didn't go to the theatre. Much has been accomplished, but much has not been accomplished. So you have to go next year, catch up...
Perhaps I forgot about something... I really hope that my review will be useful to someone, it will help someone decide on a vacation spot. Ready to answer questions.

I met different people there - well, we rested on the beach or in the pool nearby. Mostly from Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kharkov. There are many more Muscovites. Here, the people of Kiev and Kharkov said that they go every year, and in winter too. There, this pool works in winter, although it is open - the water is heated up harder, they make you wear hats and there is a special exit - like diving...
The son said that we were saving money and the next year we were going there again)))