Russia - Novotel MOW Centre - some amazing rates to be had!

For my upcoming visit to Russia, I was planning to stay in MOW over two weekends and visit LED in the working week so as to avoid having to pay 200ish Euros a night for a standard room in a normal upscale hotel.

Trying to see whether I can save any money anywhere, I went to a number of websites, including the Accor one. There, I found a rate of 100 Euros a night for the Novotel Moscow Centre, which I thought was a fabulous deal for the weekend dates I was looking at.

Then I played around with res dates and saw that this was also available during business days (however, it wasn't available for every single one of the days I checked). I managed to reserve it for 6 consecutive nights for just 31800 RUR. Which I think is pretty impressive, especially considering it includes breakfast as well as wi-fi. The tripadvisor reviews are positive, too.

Marvellous!

(please note that the rate is fully prepaid and totally inflexible)

Stayed there last week. The hotel isn't in the "city center" by any means and kind of felt like it was in the middle of nowhere, but the good thing is that it's right above a Metro station. And the Metro comes every minute and can take you everywhere. All of the other hotels I found good rates for seemed not only to be in the middle of nowhere, but also a sizable walk from the nearest Metro station.

Cleanliness was decent enough. The service / front desk / concierge was ruder and a bit more more useless than what I experienced in my Petersburg hotel (Petro Palace). The breakfast was okay -- you can find some things edible (cf. the blinis were ice cold every morning), but it's by no means good.

$1500forGLD, while I agree with you on your assessment of the quality of the property (rooms spacious and clean if not lavishly decorated, staff a bit out of their depth, breakfast range excellent but quality poor), I think you're a bit too harsh on the location. The Red Square/0km point is about 2.5km (25 minutes on foot) from here, which IMHO is acceptably central for a city the size of Moscow.

In any event, this place is definitely not in the middle of nowhere- it's just one stop from the city terminus of the SVO Aeroexpress, and an easy walk to the Soviet Army Theatre and Museum. The way I see it, it's better to stay here than right next to the Red Square- the choice of supermarkets, restaurants and other establishments catering to locals is far greater than in the old town, giving a more authentic experience of Moscow life.

I love the location, am generally indifferent about the property, but I'm confident that I couldn't do much better for the price I'm paying...

$1500forGLD, while I agree with you on your assessment of the quality of the property (rooms spacious and clean if not lavishly decorated, staff a bit out of their depth, breakfast range excellent but quality poor), I think you're a bit too harsh on the location. The Red Square/0km point is about 2.5km (25 minutes on foot) from here, which IMHO is acceptably central for a city the size of Moscow.

In any event, this place is definitely not in the middle of nowhere- it's just one stop from the city terminus of the SVO Aeroexpress, and an easy walk to the Soviet Army Theatre and Museum. The way I see it, it's better to stay here than right next to the Red Square- the choice of supermarkets, restaurants and other establishments catering to locals is far greater than in the old town, giving a more authentic experience of Moscow life.

I love the location, am generally indifferent about the property, but I'm confident that I couldn't do much better for the price I'm paying...

I think we're saying largely the same thing -- and I'm very confident I did as well as I could for the price I paid. I just don't think anything outside the Garden Ring is "central" but I'm not Moscow expert. It's not within walking distance to any of the major tourist sights, but it's quite nice to be right on a subway line given that Moscow subways are so far apart. The other hotels that had similar prices were both outside the Garden Ring and hikes to the subway.