Felt weird to read all those comments about bad breakfast in this hotel. We arrived there after a week of driving through Lapland. After the chemical ham, bread and youghurts you get in Finnish hotels, breakfast here seemed pure luxury - dozens of hot dishes, pancakes, various species of fish, cakes, vegetables, you name it. The only problem was overeating as I wanted to try everything.

When we wanted to get dinner at midnight, the staff apologized that the restarurant was closed but the bar was still open and all the cuisine is available there. We had a great meal, and the most expensive item, shrimp on avocado from the chef, costs 10 dollars.

The only unreasonable thing about this hotel is that you can only book the sauna for three hours, no less.

Will definitely choose this hotel when I'm in Murmansk next time.

Rooms were OK, with a pretty dismal view of the slums across the street. Food was bad, wake up call and room alarm did not work, waitress and bartender were not apologetic about the fact they they got every drink order wrong. All that said, it is Murmansk and our expectations were pretty low.

Stayed here 2 days in May, and the hotel is fairly new, with clean and nice rooms. However, the breakfast was not up to standards....

The service from the staff was excellent.

Taken you've got not too much choice in Murmansk, this is relatively nice. Its a standard russian hotel, presumably transformed from a former Soviet architecture Hotel in what russian thought is modern in the late 90ies. I never found a refurbished hotel in the forner Soviet Union which was well done. This is really sad as I believe some of them were better and more unique before (Best example here: Hotel Viru, a former gem, now standard).

The service and the quality was o.k. The bar was extremely expensive – but I'm not sure who it caters for exactly. Not me definitely. Nevertheless The Poliarnie Zori is a good place if you want to explore the icecold and dark strangeness of north north-western Russia in Winter…