Polyana 1389 Hotel and SPA

This is truly a world-class resort. I'll try to break it down to Pros and Cons, but the Pros qualitatively outweigh the Cons to a stunning degree. Pros: - Swimming and spa facilities! After a day of skiing, jumping into the pool with my daughter felt fantastic. It's a great way to continue being active, but relax at the same time. The pool is WAY better than I expected. There is an indoor, heated pool shaped in an elliptical "donut" way - fun for chasing your kid around and around - with waterfall devices and an underwater tunnel through the wall of the building, which you swim through to get to an outdoor heated pool with a STUNNING view of the Caucauses. The view is breathtakingly epic - and romantic! Add to that THREE outdoor hot tubs (well, one is cold, one is warm, and one is hot), plus an indoor Jacuzzi, plus four or five differently-styled saunas, a well-heated kiddie pool, two mini-Jacuzzis for feet, a "shock" shower (pull on a rope, and a bucket of cold water falls on your head), a full-body all-direction hot shower, and more... I was totally surprised by the swimming facilities. - clean, ship-shape room, hallways, etc. - modern bed and furniture, with full, large, puffy, strong mattress and lots of crisp sheets and pillowy comforters you just want to hide under forever - sleek, high-quality and large TV (that we never used!) - SERVICE - apart from the lack of leniency on late checkout (see Cons), the people are ridiculously nice, especially compared to, say, Moscow (Moscow vs. Sochi is like Night vs. Day) - one lady was very patient with us, helping to explain ticket prices and package options, and telling us about the surrounding area and certain details about Sochi - classic wooden balcony - wide and with a view right next to the trail (we were even tempted to go straight from our room to the trail!) - bathroom is huge and has lots of heated dry racks - perfect for your wet clothing after skiing - and a large, fully-enclosed shower with good water pressure and quick heating - locker room for skies is very convenient, and very close the trails, and the lockers themselves have heating racks that you can slide your boots onto, so that the next day your boots (and your skies, etc.) are dry and warm - FOOD IS AMAZING. The meals are each a buffet and they have so many choices of so much good stuff! Russian pancakes (like crepes), sirniki, fruit salads (kiwi, pineapple, strawberries, oranges, apples, pears...), borscht, ministrone, other soups, various salads (romaine, arugula, beetroot, tomatoes, yellow and red peppers...), main dishes that wish I knew the Russian names of - too many of them too list, but lots of delicious meats and fish... freshly baked cakes and Russian desserts I wish I knew the names of! There was so much, and it was so good, and you need the calories because you'll be skiing and swimming! Also, the buffet food is often included with your stay! This is huge savings compared to resorts in the U.S., which basically force you to pay megabucks for horrible food, and to wait in long lines, wasting your time... This resort is so much better as far as food is concerned, and I hope it stays that way. - children's play center, which turned out to be a lot of fun and more than just a boring baby-sitting place - New! The trails and lifts, in particular, were mostly completed for the 2014 winter Olympics. Everything seems to be in excellent, modern condition. - Irish-themed bar-restaurant, if you want it (I tried it and still thought the standard buffet was better!) - spacious! Not only are the rooms spacious (we fit an extra child bed with no problem), but the hallways, elevators, and other rooms are also spacious - again a testament to new construction. (Other places in Russia are often extremely cramped, Soviet-style or older.) - the snow itself is a Pro - there is a lot of it (over my head on the street!) and it is the fluffy, clean, Christmas-book kind - good heat, lighting, etc. - no problems with any of what we spoiled Americans were normally consider basic - extras! These include: bathrobes, slippers, bottled water fresh every day, minty chocolates (or maybe my wife brought those?), a safe, and some other tidbits I forget - you can walk pretty much anywhere in the hotel with your slippers and bathrobe! Perfect for getting to the pool with a bathing suit already on underneath - VIEWS. I remember staring out one deck-area of the hotel trying to permanently burn the image before me into my brain. I wanted to remember the majesty of what I was witnessing, as a life experience to recall when I'm 80 years old. The mountain views from the hotel, and from the trails of course, are literally awesome. - Visa support! We didn't need this during our visit, but now that I know about this place, I am seriously considering returning from my home country in future years, now that I know they have visa support readily available. - Many languages spoken, including English. - Small medical department on site! Hopefully, you won't need it... Oh, but it also includes an (overpriced) massage parlor. - Close to two other resorts, notably the higher, more difficult/intense, and more crowded Rosa Huter. If you do want to venture out, to another resort or other parts of Sochi, I suggest taking the big gondala down and getting a taxi below, as opposed to getting a taxi right at the hotel - not so much to save money, but to experience that gondala ride! I visited Rosa Huter for a day, for the experience, but was quite happy to remain at our own resort thereafter. - surprisingly good music in the hotel and on the trails (especially compared to resorts in the U.S.!) - resort has certain stores on site that are quite convenient (although expensive), including a clothing and gear store near the ski rental shop - only about 1.5 hrs from the airport, including the security checkpoint (have proof of your reservation with you!) Cons - expensive, even by international standards - but after you've paid for the flight and the stay (if you can afford them!), other items like lift tickets and local food and transportation are reasonable (by international standards... by Russian domestic standards, they are still expensive) - On line for chairlifts, people push and shove a lot, and ski over each others' skis... and there is only a semblance of a line or any organization... I think this is just a Russian thing, as I've experienced the same shoving and squashing and sheer disorganization in just about every crowd I've entered in various parts of Russia. It's just "cultural," I guess, but it really is a big negative for me, for this resort. It's such a beautiful place that to have its beauty tarnished by rude words, line-cutting, and ski-trampling is a shame. In the States, people will (usually) form a real line and alternate who goes first - giving people space and simply being kind. - The chairlifts use an automated entry system, which causes a HUGE bottleneck and slows everybody down. A person will swipe his or her card but not walk quickly enough through the machine, and then the machine will refuse to recognize the card (presumably "thinking" the person is trying to use the card twice consecutively to let a friend through). This results in the person's fiddling with the card or asking the standby staff member for help, meaning NOBODY is getting through while empty chairs go up the mountain.... It's really frustrating to watch (or experience!), while people are continuing to squash forward anyway... - no leniency on late checkout - if you want to check out at, say, 2:30pm, you're probably going to have to pay for another half-day, at least (around $200)... I wish they would change this - it goes contrary to their friendly service attitude. I tried to negotiate politely, since we weren't going to need much more time and would be happy to pay a proportional amount or a "late checkout fee" (like some other places have) before a different deadline, but they were more stubborn than I'd expected, especially since they had been so pleasant up until that point. It left a bad aftertaste. Tips: - Get a room in the main hotel itself. This way, you don't have to leave the hotel to visit the pools/saunas/hot tubs area! You can go down and up in your bathrobe! We had friends who - to save money, I imagine - decided to rent out suites in a condo/cottage/villa house-like structure in the resort. They were a bit envious, as they had to put full winter gear on to go to the hotel and the pool and change there. The way back was even more time-consuming for them because they wanted to take showers and be fully clean and dry again before re-gearing to head back to the house, where they'd take everything off again - and after getting a letting sweaty and snow-covered after just having showered. (I imagine it felt like an annoying commute, and they ended up skipping several swimming sessions that we had.) My wife, daughter, I - we'd just throw our bathrobes on and run upstairs! We swam every day. ... Also, having a room at the hotel means you can actually ski right to the hotel from the trail - the trail continues right ONTO the deck of the hotel! You take off your skis and it's a 20-second walk to the ski locker inside. - To avoid the Cons about the crowds, simply avoid the chairlifts at the bottom of the mountain, closest to the hotel. You have to go up them at least once to get to the other chairlifts, but the other chairlifts always have fewer people clogging up the system. If you are a good skier, you can stick to the lifts that service the difficult trails, and you'll fly right through the system - many fewer people, and the people there know what to do when.