Sunkar Hotel

Lack of staff interest. Lack of help. Food. Dark corridors and darkness everywhere.

There was no rooms available once confirmed on booking

The description of the breakfast is not correct. Not recommend eating there. It is expensive & not good.
They also have in cages lot of birds (eagles, owls, etc ...) which is not human for them.

The hotel failed to provide hot water after 10 o'clock evening (kettle wasn't available too) and there was no fridge in the room. Next time I will warn them in advance to have those items. These are only problems why I wasn't completely satisfied with the stay.

The woman in charge of the reception was rude. No smile, no please, no thank you ... She kept on complaining while she had to review all the passport (we were a group of 16 persons). Then we discovered that to use the swimming pool we had to pay an extra 18 euros per person for one day ! We checked their website and the booking.com description and found no information about it.
Which we consider as fraud ! So take care if you want to stay at this place. The room price seems correct for Almaty, but nothing is included.
Furthermore, we asked for laundry and were said it was possible. Then while we brought our laundry, the women changed her mind and said no more possible. Still with no smile, no sorry no kindness.
It's sad, because the hotel is in a nice area of Almaty, near the mountains. But the service is not here.

The only suggestion would be to give an electric kettle and water bottles in the room. Noise coming from the cars sometimes disturbs the peaceful atmosphere, car parking should be away from the rooms.

Although the rooms are quite inexpensive for what you get, the extra activities and food prices are quite high on the property. We had to pay weekend prices on a Monday for the pool (Saturday was a holiday so the observed holiday was on Monday I guess). We paid much more for food, the swimming pools, and the falcon show than for the room, but the room itself is good value for money. It took about 30 mins to get a Yandex to go back to the city although it was no problem getting one to go up to the resort. Still, we had a great 2 day getaway and would return.

We didn't like everything. The staff were so rude and they don't have 24 hours reception it was so hard to even pay. It was so far from the city center but close to the national parks. It's so overpriced as the interior is bad, bed was uncomfortable, and the shower head was broken.

This is probably the worst hotel I ever been in the world. Such a shame as Kazakhstan is so beautiful.

Property is very small and congested bathroom and toilet are very tiny without tissue paper and basic hygiene. There is no restaurant near by and in house restaurant is expensive and money making. I won’t recommend anyone to stay there with family. They had swimming pool which is again a paid one.

The location provided in Booking leads to the wrong address. We wandered around the area for 2 hours. We were directed by GPS to the wrong place twice. One was, as it later turned out, an hour's drive from the real location of the hotel. Finally, after wasting two hours and spending that time in traffic jams, we managed to reach the hotel. While looking for a hotel, we paid to enter the park twice because that was what the GPS indicated. After reporting this fact at the reception, the employee shrugged his shoulders and said that this was indeed the case. There was also another lady at the reception who was very surprised that we reported a location error and said "you finally found it, so what's the problem?" We didn't expect any compensation, they just said they were aware of the issue or thanked us for reporting it. In return, we were criticized for reporting a problem. Reception service is very poor. For this reason, I do not recommend the hotel. The room was as described, but the overall impression was very poor.

We were traveling with my friends all the way from Abu Dhabi, we were here for a tour and we booked everything beforehand.

We provided the card while booking but there was no advice that the booking will be "pay at the property" it was very inconvenient to pay the hotel when we arrived because the reception is not 24/7! They are just open from 9am which obviously we will leave the hotel early morning to do our booked tours, reception is only open till 9pm which we haven't arrived yet we were not allowed to enter on our 2nd night because they need the payment in cash they even leave a letter in the security saying they want us to "leave your passports or pay" this is really inconvenient as we have tours everyday, so we postponed our tour in day 2 to pay them even though they have our card numbers! One of my friends, were locked out of their room and cannot enter when we arrived at 1am so they cannot rest and had to be transferred to a different room after the security tried to open their room but no luck, when we asked the reception the next day they said that is not their problem, which I think is not acceptable its their property and they've been locked out while we are away!

Outside was very noisy at night especially on weekends!

They don't make up the room and they don't replenish the toiletries, not even complimentary water as well upon our arrival!

I won't recommend this hotel as we were supposed to relax that time but we were stressed out and my friends had to check out and transfer to a different hotel so we were not together! The people at the reception are not nice and not professional.

The most inconvenient was that the address provided isn't correct (and it's the same on Google Maps), which led us a half hour out of the way. The place smells strongly because of the bird cages right next to the rooms. The stairs leading up to the upstairs rooms are slippery and I slid down them. The rooms are very tight and barely fit all the furniture they put in them. The restaurant forgot about my order.

*Warning Long Detailed Post*

Booking Cancellation (Probably Due to Overbooking, Mismanagement of 3rd Party Partners)

- We initially Booked 3 Nights but for some reason, they cancelled our booking thru Booking.com without notice. Our friends booked for 3 Nights so we had no choice but to rebook so that we can be close to our Friends. But all the slots were taken and we were only able to book 2 Nights


No 24 Hours Reception

- We arrived at the Airport at 9PM Due to the Delay. The Hotel owner/Representative said they cannot wait for us and they will leave the key of our room to the security.

Not Enough Staff to assist, no service elevator

- We arrived around 11 PM and As mentioned, Most of the employees or owner doesn't stay in the hotel. No one assisted us to bring our luggages in our Room. We choose mountain view and it was 3 floors up. The security just gave us the key. Showed us our room and left.

Disrespectful Owner / Employee/ Reception

- Since there is no one else except the security and the waiter/room key keeper, we cannot proceed into paying. We initially use our credit card to book but they didn't charge us. Our tour starts at 5AM in the Morning and the reception will open at 9 AM. We sent them message where to leave the payment but didn't get a reply. when we return around 10PM the same day. They locked us out and the security did not allow us to enter without paying full for the room. Most of our stuff are inside and those are way valuable than the full price of our stay.

The owner/reception left a note to the security saying in capital letters with exclamation point "You need to pay these amounts... or leave your passport to the security otherwise, you will not be allowed to go inside"

Poor Utilities and Room Accessories

- So we did pay it to the security and he allowed us to enter. but when we arrived at the room. the room key is no longer working.