nigelmhealey
November 4, 2024
I stayed in the Sadu Hotel Almaty to attend a conference hosted by nearby Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. A number of the international delegates were based at the Sadu Hotel, which has recently joined the Radisson Group according to staff at reception. The hotel staff at reception are welcoming and multilingual. The rooms were large and comfortable, with most the usual amenities. There was no iron or ironing board, but one appeared quickly when I called reception. My biggest gripe was the AC. The instructions were completely incomprehensible, even when I used Google to translate all the Russian text to English, and the hotel staff had no idea how to turn it on. As a result, the room temperature was too hot in the day and cold at night. The bar and restaurant would not allow guests to charge bills to their rooms, which was fiddly. There was QR code on the table to order, but instead of going through the kitchen, you had to show your order to the waiter on your phone, they changed the language to Russian, and then went off to place your order. It was an amusingly pointless use of technology - a paper menu with pictures would have been much quicker - but it got the job done. The meals were pricey though - £25-30 for a main plus a drink. The hotel is in a development area with nothing much around it. There is a very upscale mall about 15-20 minutes' walk away. Most of the stores sell designer clothes that cost more than my car. There is a supermarket in the basement, which seemed to stock implausibly expensive imported food items, but had a few basics like Diet Coke. As a business hotel, it works fine. The wifi was fast, the service good and I enjoyed my stay. There is a Russian-style sauna in the basement for guests, which would probably be fun, but unfortunately I didn't get time to try it.