My friends chose this hotel for our week stay in Sochi this summer. It was just OK. I liked the location- on the outskirts of the city, rooms were a little tired. The aircon worked, but it was fairly loud. You have to pay for food (breakfast & lunch), but even taking this into account the hotel is still not very expensive. The single room at hight of the season costs around $US80. The food looked bad, so I did not eat there. The pool was nice, but with constant entertainment, it was not quite possible to relax. If it was left up to me, I would have moved to Radisson SAS Lazurnaya or the newly refurbished Radisson SAS Park Hotel and paid more money for better facilities.

Hotel aside, Sochi is not the place I would normally go for when choosing a beach holiday. It's slightly tackier than necessary; the beaches are shingle and expect to pay $15-$20 for the place on the nicer beach (with beach equipment that is). I went to Aqua Park Mayak twice, it was good and clean, but maybe slightly overpriced at $27 per day.

The scenery is wonderful; you can also take excellent trips out of Sochi (including driving military vehicles through Mountain Rivers). I probably will not go there again, but it was an interesting alternative to either Krim (which I like) or Greek Islands (where I normally go for my summer week on the beach).

The only real problem I had with the place is that it is virtually impossible to have a quiet dinner in the evening. It seems that restaurants in Sochi compete on who is going to play the loudest music.