Rocco Forte Astoria Hotel

This is a 5 star hotel and it lives up to that standard most of the time. Certainly there are a lot of staff visible on the ground floor and the house-keepers visit the bedrooms at least twice a day. It is also very well located for visiting the palaces and churches in central St Petersburg.

The bedroom we were allocated was supposed to be Superior but the decor was rather ordinary. Also the heating was inadequate when we arrived and we had to call down to get someone to fix the problem: it appeared from his phone contact with someone in the boiler room that they had to turn up the boiler temperature....

The staff were generally very helpful. There were plenty of staff about downstairs to open doors and answer queries. the hotel is right opposite St Isaac's cathedral - one of the amazing places to see in St Petersburg, and quite close to th Hermitage.

It claims to be a 5 star hotel but the decor in our "superior" room was rather ordinary. The heating was not adequate on one day and we had to have a visit from an engineer who basically got hid colleague downstairs to turn up the temperature! The hot water in the shower was also sometimes less than hot, even when turned to max.