Samir Hotel

Very well located in the city center, 45 mins from the airport with a bit of traffic, with some fast food on the street. I was looking for a restaurant but couldn't find any except kebbabs, pizza etc... The hotel is in a building, there is no elevator so be aware if you have a room on the top floor (up to 5 stories) and have to carry a big suitcase upstairs. The hotel is old and the rooms are basic but have very hot showers and heat. They have free breakfast but was not good.

The Samir hotel is just dirty, old rooms not confortable no any tidiness no hygiene rooms are dirty pillowd dirty, towels dirty all and everything is dirty ac not working wifi as well it is a big nightmare you can catch few minutes in 24hours. Personnel very very ugly and unpleasant persons. Breakfast a big disaster with a jiuce which most likely a chemical than a juice. To be really avoided. Only one positive thing is the location in Algiers center nothing else.

I was looking for a good mid-range hotel in center-city Algiers, and hoped I had found one in the Samir, which has Lonely Planet’s seal of approval. The exterior of the building seems to promise a French colonial-era hotel of perhaps a somewhat dated grandeur; the interior reality proved a bit less than met the exterior eye. The front-desk staff was eager to engage with a visiting American who speaks grammatically serviceable Arabic, so despite the claustrophobic character of the lobby and its tired, faded look, I was hopeful that the colonial-era hotel could be a comfortable place to stay. But as I trudged up three flights of stairs with my luggage (there is no elevator), I felt mounting dismay. Yes, the room did have a balcony of sorts, as promised, and behind a curtain were a shower on one side and a toilet on another. But the door to the room would not close, except when you turned the key to lock it, and the room had a vaguely dingy feel to match the public spaces of the hotel. On the plus side, I did have all the basics. Much to the hotel’s credit, it offers a strong Wi-Fi connection (at no extra charge). The breakfast service, included in the room rate, was quite adequate and cheerfully delivered. I rather enjoyed being the only guest in the hotel tracing origins back to the north side of the Mediterranean for most of my 3-day stay. And the hotel’s location is convenient to the center of Algiers and life as Algerians, rather than foreign diplomats and visitors, experience it. But I must also advise that there is an issue with the front-desk staff. While Ali and Yussuf, who manned the desk the evening I arrived, were quite friendly and welcoming, the day-time staff—one man and one woman--were persistently surly and unpleasant, and determinedly unhelpful when asked for information about getting about. So if you’re on your own in Algiers, expect that the Hotel Samir’s staff will leave you on your own.

THE PHOTOS USED FOR THIS HOTEL ARE FAKE - THEY ARE FROM THE SAMIR HOTEL IN ISTANBUL. I booked this hotel through Hotelopia, based on the pictures they have on their website (http://www.hotelopia.com/h/hotel-samir-hotel_algiers_164008/). However, the hotel is NOTHING like this, so I did a Google Image Search and found that the hotel had ripped the photos off the website of the Samir Hotel - in Istanbul (http://www.samirhotel.com/). I've made Hotelopia aware of this and they refuse to accept any responsibility and they are refusing to remove the pictures - despite using the same pictures for the Samir Hotel Istanbul ON THEIR WEBSITE! (http://www.hotelopia.com/h/hotel-samir-hotel_istanbul_132511/). The fact that they're fraudulently advertising the hotel doesn't interest them. It's a disgrace and the company should be avoided. As for the hotel itself..... I can forgive a hotel for being run-down; you get what you pay for - particularly it seems in Algiers - but the Samir Hotel was dirty, the air conditioning didn't work at all (despite numerous promises that they would fix it), the doors lock but are opened with a gentle pull/push of the handle, the floors are dirty, the bathrooms are dirty, there's litter under the beds, the staff largely can't be bothered to help, it's noisy well into the early hours.... I could go on. We had to sleep with the door and shutter to the balcony wide open as the aircon was broken (despite the 'maintenance' man trying to fix it by using several different remote controls) so we were sweltering hot all night, kept awake by the noise of the road (it's busy all night) and covered in mosquito bites. We couldn't leave anything of value in the room as although the door locked, it is so old that it would open if you gave it a slight (and I mean slight) push from the outside. We asked the staff to order us a taxi to the airport, so one of them phoned his friend. They'd already told us that the price should be no more than 800 Dinar, but they couldn't guarantee a price with their mate! He was due in 15 minutes but hadn't arrived in 30, so we hailed a taxi in the street (for 800 Dinar). There was dirt and dust all over the floor and tops, there was hair everywhere in the bathroom, there was a nearly-finished toilet roll on the toilet, the towels were stained..... I often stay in hostels when I travel, so I'm used to the grimier end of accommodation - and I'm no complainer..... but this place was poor. It wasn't awful, but it really should only be an option if you can't afford anywhere else. There are lots of budget options in Algiers, but they don't have much of an online presence. This is reflected in the level of tourism there, which is minimal.