Name: B&B Emir
Address: Oksaroi Street 142 Samarkand 140104,Oksaroi Street, Samarkand, Samarkand, Samarkand, 140104, Uzbekistan
Rating: 8

Air conditioning

24-hour reception

Smoking areas

Smoke-free property

Heating

Terrace

Private check-in/check-out

No elevators

General

Non-smoking rooms

Family room

Shower/Bathtub

Shower

Rooms

Ironing

Laundry

Safe-deposit box

Luggage storage

Services and amenities

Bottled water (at extra charge)

Meals

Free Wi-Fi

Internet

Airport transportation

Transfer services

Transfer

Russian

English

Languages Spoken

Library

Recreation

Offsite parking reservations required

Parking

Beach/pool towels

Pool and beach

Event facilities

Business

Family/Kid Friendly

Kids

Pets Not Allowed

Pets

Location

At the hotel

Room amenities

Samarkand Airport

B&B Emir

Samarkand

During my recent trip to Uzbekistan, I chose this cozy B&B with a colleague of mine to spend the entire stay of two and a half weeks. Even when we stayed one or more nights outside Samarkand (it happened four times) we preferred to keep occupied (and pay for) our room, rather than go out and back.
What we liked most about the stay was:
- The location, literally fifty steps from Amir Temur's mausoleum, and yet within a traditional Samarkand neighborhood, free from the nefarious demolitions that have "restored" the historic center
- The cool and shady inner courtyard, with outdoor tables, where we always ate a delicious breakfast (which is paid for separately) and often entertained ourselves in the afternoon
The rooms are basic but clean and comfortable, as are the bathrooms. Bad smell tended to come up from the drains in my bathroom: it is necessary to ask the staff to intervene every two or three days.
A stay in this B&B - even as the owners' home is part of the complex and therefore you have the feeling of living like a local - gives a sense of intimacy that certainly could not give top-of-the-range hotels; and therefore it was an essential pillar of the success of our travel.

You have the feeling of living like a local, also because the managers' home is part of the complex

We had 3 nights in our own room with an en-suite bathroom. The room was small but clean and perfect for the price. We were lucky enough to spend some time getting to know the manager Aziz and his father. They were really helpful and very nice people. The father provided pickup and drop off at the train station, taxis into town and a day trip to Urgut all at reasonable prices, a family run business. We looked forward to the nice breakfasts in the morning and walked to the major sites. Well recommended hostel. Best of luck Aziz!

Warm family run hostel

Samarkand is a wonderful city and the location on BB Emir is great. However, everything else is 2nd rate from the wifi, meagre breakfast to the plumbing.
All that may be looked over if the staff were even a little bit friendly.

Black hole of Samarkand

There are better options nearby, but for the price (which should be $10 per night for the dorm- don’t let them tell you $12), Emir is a good stay.  I stayed in the 6-bed dorm (even though I had been promised the 4-bed dorm) and it was comfortable and clean.  Breakfast was so-so.  The staff are extremely unorganized and have poor communication amongst each other.. but at least they’re friendly and it is clear they mean well.  The manager especially is a very nice and helpful guy.  So just be patient.  And when you check in, make sure you request eggs with your breakfast or you’ll have to survive on only porridge!

Passable for a couple of nights 

Let me start by saying I have traveled to at least 30 countries and stayed in different hostels, hotels, family-run b&bs, guesthouses. I know how to manage my expectations. This is the worst experience in my entire traveling life. I tried to come with no judgement, but it is very hard in the end when almost everything was a mess. 

1. They forgot to do my laundry. It was no problem as I had time to wait for them to do it. My friends’ laundry got done on time
2. When you enter, you need to take off your shoes. One morning, my sandals got stolen. It was upsetting, but wasnt a big problem too because they were found in the evening 
3. Their breakfast menu is quite the same every day and we stayed for 4 nights, so it got quite boring. But, again, it wasnt a huge problem for us
4. No shower curtain. No problem, I used the extra towel to dry the floors off
5. The reception guy ordered pizza for us and CHARGED US DOUBLE what the pizza cost is. How do we know? There is the original pizza receipt inside the pizza box. Again, we tried to not make a big deal out of it. 
6. Here comes the biggest problem of all! Our last night, we told the reception guy to check us out and we finalize payment that night, because we need to catch the 6.30am train to tashkent. That means we need to be ready the next morning by 5am. At 10pm that night, he said no problem, he insisted that registrations cards will be ready in the morning along with our passports (yes, they keep our passports the entire time we were there) and arranged taxi for us to go to the station. At 5am, there is no reception guy, no taxi waiting, no passports ready, nobody we can ask, basically no one in the entire vicinity who can help us. My friend tried to make noises by banging on the doors so anyone working there would wake up, but to no avail. Finally around 5.30am, there was a mam (a cook?) who barely spoke english and she hesitantly opened the door to the reception where our passports were. Bad news, no stamped registration cards to be found inside our passports or anywhere (people traveling to uzbekistan know how important these registrations cards are. You cant go through immigration without them). We went out with our passports and decided to deal with registration cards later, as we were afraid to be late to the station. 

The hotel said sorry through booking.com and said they will send registration card through telegram app. But it has been more than 12 hours, and surprise surprise, no more contacts from them whatsoever. We finally made a call to the hotel and another reception guy scrambled to write down the registration cards and send us through whatsapp. So they just did it at the very last minute??? How attentive, considering 12 hours ago, they were reaching out to me through booking.com asking for my whatsapp number to send the registration cards to. 

Please reconsider staying at this place. It does not worth your time or money. It is also located in the bad neighborhood (2 taxi drivers told us).

B&B Emir

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