By which I mean that I can definitely state that I have stayed in hotels in four different countries: the US (of course), Canada (Victoria, Timmins and Hearst), England (London) and Ukraine (Mariupol). I couldn’t make that claim last year because I rented apartments for that visit (which you can read about in my blog posts from last year).
When I had looked last year, hotel rooms — at least those hotels in Odessa and Mariupol that I could find online — ran about twice the price of the rental apartments I was finding. This kind of makes sense; no hotel staff means lower overhead, so a prospective landlord could charge far less. While the apartment route was fine and I actually had some nice places to stay on my last trip, I still really wanted to see what a hotel in Ukraine would be like. (My travel guides gave mixed opinions, but as I found out last year, their advice was only half-right anyway.)
You’ve no doubt heard of Hyatt and Marriott and even Motel 6, but I’ll bet cash money you haven’t heard of Reikartz. To be fair, until this year I hadn’t either, but they are the largest hotel chain in Ukraine. By chance, this past spring they opened a new hotel in Mariupol — in fact, I remember walking by the construction site when I was there last year and wondering what was being built. Now I know. I checked them out online, and the prices were right in line with apartments, so I figured why not?
The next obvious question is, “how was it?”, which I will take in the context of “how was it in comparison to American hotels?” Actually, it was pretty good. The staff was really nice, and most of them spoke English to some degree — at least enough to say hi and such. Room-wise (I think I have a picture or two, which I will add if I can find), it was pretty much like a normal hotel room. Not huge, but certainly enough space for me to stretch out. I’ve stayed in somewhat better and/or larger rooms, sure, but this was pretty comparable to most any lower-cost US hotel. Perhaps a slight step above a Motel 6, and actually a bit better than a “nice” place I had stayed one time when in Boulder.
Reikartz, being the largest hotel chain over there, obviously has a bit of pull. Just about everything in the room was branded with the Reikartz name — the TV, the mini-fridge/honor bar, even the air conditioning unit. I guess when you order a hundred of anything, the manufacturer will usually throw in a perk or two. They even have their own line of wines, although sadly they weren’t available in Mariupol.
The only real down side is that the elevator wasn’t working, but that wasn’t an issue for me since I was only on the 2nd floor. Other than that, it’s a great hotel. Right near downtown, but on a quiet street (not that Mariupol is that noisy after dark anyway). It was a very nice stay.
If life happens to take me back to Mariupol, I will definitely look into staying there again. But honestly, I wouldn’t mind going to Crimea as a next trip, and by chance there’s a Reikartz hotel down thataway too.
Cat Naps
Just a couple quick notes:
- While I was there, I met or interacted with three different women named Olga and two named Anna. I don’t have any real facts to back this up, but those two names (plus Natalia) seem to be really common, way more than the traditional Slavic names of Lyudmila or Svetlana.
- One of the Olgas (the was who was a server – “официантка” – in the restaurant) was originally from Russia, but grew up in Mariupol, was now going to school in Russia, and spending the summers down in Mariupol. English has been one of her study subjects and, although she stumbled a couple of times, did really well. It took almost 25 minutes to order lunch because we were just talking. I think she liked the practice, but I also think she got into a little trouble with her boss for talking to me for so long. (There wasn’t anyone else in the restaurant at the time, so Olga said she wasn’t really in trouble.)
- I give the Reikartz high marks for their pillows. I know, kind of crazy thing to notice, right? Well, given the number of places I’ve stayed where the pillows were ridiculously thin affairs — not much thicker than a sheet folded three or four times — it was a real treat to lay my head on some thick, fluffy and yet still appropriately resistant pillows. Not quite as good as home, but darn close.