Rixos Borovoe

This was my second long (9 days) stay at Rixos Borovoe. I was happy to see that the hotel and the grounds are (still) maintained impeccably, with some great improvements. It’s a beautiful place overall; the grounds, the lakeside promenade, the little lake beach, are all perfect. I really enjoyed the gorgeous yet still natural garden feel. All of the restaurants are beautiful, and the spa is the best I have seen. I loved the Hammam and the relaxation areas with the delicious tea service. My 4 year old loved the playground and the kids club. Absolutely everything is child friendly and wheelchair friendly. The service is outstanding. It really could be the perfect family vacation spot. But for a couple of things. The first one is the food. The breakfast has great variety and is good because of that. Not great, but good. The problem is that a lot of the things that are prepared don’t taste all that good. I was really happy to see that the shakshuka and country fried potatoes station was there every day, which was not the case during my previous stay 2 years ago. This was my go to, but even that was not consistent. Some days, the potatoes looked and tasted way too overcooked, almost like they were saved from the day before. All of the many pastries were almost never fresh. The crepes were too sweet with not enough salt, which could work ok for plain crepes, but when you use the same crepes to stuff them with beef… well that really doesn’t work. The pelmeni/hinkali/manti all tasted the same and basically the beef just tastes a bit off of in all of those. None of that is bad per se, it’s just not 5 stars, or 10 out of 10. If I were a foreigner not familiar with what any of the above should taste like, I probably wouldn’t notice, but I wouldn’t be impressed either, and probably would not eat it again. Which is a shame. The lunch and dinner food at the restaurants was, unfortunately, much worse. Literally nothing (either traditional or international items) I tried in 3 different restaurants plus room service tasted good. It was ok, not completely unpalatable, but it just wasn’t good. Even some staples like Ceasar salad. That would be a 3 star experience in my book. I could probably deal with the food for a long weekend, given the restaurants themselves are beautifully designed and the service was top notch. But after 8 days of eating substandard restaurant food.. it becomes really frustrating. So I took 2 stars off for the food. The remaining star is due to my early arrival experience, which was, frankly, infuriating, and possibly worth a LOT more than one star deduction. I needed to check in early in the morning (around 6 am) and was initially told it would cost 50% of my first night and will be subject to availability. Fair enough. Yes, Marriot was able to do this for me free of charge when I called them the night before, but I had a platinum status with them at some point, and maybe they just weren’t as booked. Totally understandable I’d get charged as a regular member and maybe not have the option available because the hotel is fully booked. I get it. But no. When I followed up a couple of days before arrival, it turned out that the charge would actually be 50% of whatever the “dynamic” rate for my room happened to be. And the availability of the early check in could not be confirmed at ANY time before my actual physical arrival at the hotel at 6 am. I had a 3 hour ride from Astana airport, which I booked through the hotel, but I could not find out if I’d have a room available to me at Rixos if I called during my ride. I had to actually get there and then be told the availability. So, I was strongly advised to book a room for the full daily rate, which at that point was more than 2 times of what my actual booking price was. And even 50% this rate (which would make my early check in cost more than a full day of my actual booking) could not be “guaranteed” to me if a room were to be actually available for early check in. The hotel management wanted their “right” to apply some other “market” rate to calculate how much they’d charge me for this early check in. Anyway, I booked a room at a different hotel, and there are plenty available in the area. It worked out fine for me, but the approach taken by Rixos left the most horrible aftertaste. Yes, I get that if you have people wanting to pay you the full market rate for the room, it doesn’t make sense to keep that room available for my early check in. But at 3/6 am the following morning, if you still have rooms available, I highly doubt there would be a line of customers wanting to book your rooms for the remainder of the day at full price. Why not give those rooms to your actual existing, repeat customers, for the rate that economically makes sense? And my guess is if my booking made sense to them to begin with, surely paying 50% of the same rate for 9 out of 24 hours wouldn’t be economically ruinous. But no. They prefer to keep you guessing so you pay whatever they ask when you get there, because they know YOU have no other choice. As much as I loved all of my other interactions with the hotel staff, this is really BAD customer care.

Отличный отель, все понрпвилось!

Как всегда отличный экспириенс в риксос боровое

Чистый и просторный номер, удобные подушки и матрасы. Гулять по территории отеля одно удовольствие. Много дополнительных услуг и развлечений. Очень вкусная еда