Hotel Granit

A word of warning Let me warn you about a few important major things first: - there is no health and safety in Macedonia. Infrastructure is both basic and dangerous. - There is a complete lack of customer service and non existent customer care - Ohrid is their main holiday destination and it’s mega crowded in July and August - SMOKING IS ALLOWED EVERYWHERE; inside and outside. Over 90% of the population are smokers. There is no escaping the smell of smoke, it’s everywhere you go. - There are no quality standards; if you live and mainly travel in western or high developed economic countries, you might be in for a bit of a shock. - It’s cheap for a reason - Ohrid lake is a natural lake, the water is clean, fairly cold and there are water snakes. It’s safe to swim in but keep close to the shore. - The facilities and equipment are of extremely poor quality and often dangerous Location Hotel Granit is approx. 5km from the airport. Transfer by taxi is 20 euros and takes about 20min. If you have an organised TUI coach, then expect 1-2hrs transfer time, depending on the number of hotel stops they have. It’s along the lake shore and 10min by taxi to Ohrid city centre, taxi was 300 denari. There is nothing around the hotel, it’s on a main busy road, one shop half a km away but getting there is quite tricky (dangerous) walking on the main busy road with no pavements. Rooms facing the ‘park’ are north facing, sunless and get the road noise. Room facing the lake is a must. The Hotel This is not a Spanish type AI mini disco style hotel. It’s chilled, quiet, mostly older kids, there’s no one here to entertain you or your kids. It’s an old style hotel, nothing’s modern about it. The building is an old communist style building. The reception area is quite grim. It’s poorly maintained, hygiene standards are very low. Old tatty furniture, broken, frayed seats, old and tired, dusty surfaces and furniture. There are a lot of steps in and around the hotel. No walker/wheelchair access. Main restaurant is in the basement. Although there is a lift, it’s very slow so would say it’s not designed or adapted for people with mobility difficulty. July and August are the high season and Ohrid itself will be busy. Rooms Are tiny by any standards, no room to swing a cat. Getting a twin room is a big problem. It’s not guaranteed you will get the type of room you’ve booked. The rooms are not clean, carpets in dire need of a proper hoover, there were some remnants of nail cuttings on the carpet in our room. Towels were not changed every day and they were stained. Minimal cleaning and sporadic. Bed sheets are not changed daily. AC works well but the unit is filthy and mouldy. The double beds are the size of a small double. The shower room is nothing impressive. Gets smelly, mouldy and stuffy. Wobbly wc seat, leaky shower, shower holder broken. They supply some basic toiletries. They only allow one towel per person. Also the one key per room only is very inconvenient. The

The location is 1st Class, the staff are helpful, the food is good but beware of the lifts. We had all inclusive, there was enough menu variety for the week but I wouldn’t recommend for vegetarians. The free bar was okay for endless lager, wine and brandy but pretty limited apart from that. The pool areas large enough to cope with the people that put towels on beds early morning ready for their afternoon siestas. The short walk to the lake makes up for all shortcomings.

We booked through Tui all inclusive as we have 2 small kids so easier for drinks snacks ect. Get a call 2 weeks before we go no longer doing all inclusive, get a refund, get there and they do offer all inclusive just not to British people as all we do is moan and all they have had is complaints since the start of the summer. (The Tui rep told us this). So that instantly annoyed us, hotel was nice very basic but clean but our room drainage system was shocking it absolutely stunk we bought 2 cans of glade air freshener and bleach but it didn’t even touch it, we left the door open one night to allow some fresh air in and we got bit like mad and room was covered in flies. The food in the restraunt was good and a lot of it, our kids could share one portion of the chicken fingers it was that big. The breakfast was ok too hot and a bit of variety. The staff were all nice but not a lot of them you could be sat in restraunt for ages before anyone comes over to take your order. It is meant to be non smoking hotel but at the end of floor 3 the cleaners all sit in a room smoking so all the towels and bedding stinks of cigs. There’s bottles full of cig ends it’s not nice. Really easy to get in to Ohrid by taxi and there’s a few restraunts either side of the hotel if you want a bit of variety. We liked Ohrid but we wouldn’t come back as nothing to do for children.