Mountain View Residence Hotel

We had early morning checkin because of our inbound flight timing (prior information was left with hotel via email on the same). Checkin was smooth and within 10 minutes we were allotted the rooms. The apartment was big and spacious with one sitting room and open dinning area & kitchen area. Kitchen area had one fridge, micro oven, hotplates, basic cutleries one may need for cooking and one tea coffee maker. The bed room had one queen bed and the room was quite spacious with an attached powder room and a double wardrobe. The sitting room and the bed rooms were not only spacious but having ample number of windows with mountain views from almost all the windows. Bathroom was spacious with bathtub and good water pressure (hot & cold) and enough supplies of daily amenities. Breakfast was good with enough spread and they keep on changing the items. Only drawback is that enough heating option is not there hence the food gets cold if you come after 9 AM to eat. Front office staff were very helpful and can speak and understand English that was enough to communicate. They even helped us in arranging a car for our Charyn Canyon & Kolsai lake one day trip, where the driver and the car were good. Overall very satisfied with the hotel, its location and the staff behavior.

I'll start with the good: the location is quite nice, easy walking distance to several attractions, and a fairly good supermarket (Magnum) is just across the street. The people working here are also mostly friendly and well-intentioned. The suites are spacious. And the breakfast spread is quite nice for a small hotel like this. Now the not-so-good: The suites are rather poorly and sparsely furnished--it's all very spartan, really. The kitchen and bathroom are also less than basic. Lots os scuffs, scratches, chips, dings and dents everywhere. Apart from the space, the rooms are two-star quality at best. Now here's what put me over the edge: One day, there was no water on the third and fourth floors of the hotel. Apparently, that was due to some water pressure issues in the city. I won't fault the hotel for that. What I fault them for is their response (or, more accurately, the lack thereof). When I called the reception after returning from breakfast and noticing that we had no water, the response was something along the lines "yes, we know. It's an issue with the city and might be fixed later today." Well, ok then. Some proactive communication and remedial action might have been nice (you know, some people like to brush their teeth or take a shower...). Anyway, stuff happens. So, we went out and about all day and returned to the hotel at around 5pm in the afternoon. No, the water was not back (again, not the hotel's fault). Our room had not been cleaned (remember that the hotel did have water, just not on the top two floors). And management had done nothing to help out their guests in the affected rooms. Here are some ideas of good responses: Make some unoccupied rooms (in this hotel or nearby hotels) available for people to take a shower, etc.; provide a sufficient supply of water in the affected rooms so people can at least take care of some basic hygiene needs. So, since management was content just shrugging and doing nothing (they said it might be fixed by 10pm), I asked if there was anywhere we could take a shower. The receptionist came up with the most glorious idea (sarcasm alert!): take a shower in the spa. Sounds good, but please let me give you the picture. The spa consists of a small pool in the basement with two shower stalls directly opposite the pool (and a sauna/steam room). Minor detail. There are no shower curtains, and there is no way to have any sort of privacy. So, to suggest that my wife, for example, wash up in said stall while the folks lounging in the pool enjoy the show is so wildly inappropriate and naive that it's almost comical. Hotel staff is in urgent need of some customer service training. I will say this, though: When I complained (forcefully but politely), they agreed to refund us for the night, apologized, and sent a fruit platter to our room. Nice recovery, for sure. But it's clear that hotel management was completely ill-equipped to deal with an extraordinary situation and really did not bother taking care of