The Gintama Hotel in Kiev is the great advantage of being one of the few nice places to stay in the city. Unfortunately it's way overpriced for what you get. Strengths . . . rooms are clean, well-equipped and up-to-date. Solid 4-star European quality. But things go down hill from there. Weaknesses . . . after communicating my desire to pay with MasterCard via email and telephone, I arrived at the Gintama to discover that they preferred I pay with cash (pointing me to the large ATM machine a few feet away from the front desk). When I mentioned my strong desire to pay with credit card (as agreed via email), they backed down . . . for the first night. The second night (they moved me to a different room unexpectedly), they gave me a line about their credit card terminal being down, which though possible is unlikely.
Next weakness . . . breakfast is terrible! The cheese is dried on the edges, the coffee tastes like mud, etc. I passed the second morning.
Bottom line . . . avoid the Gintama. Other places are just as nice and more reasonably priced.
- Gintama Hotel Kiev
