Starting at the beginning... Location - When the cabbie drops you off at your hotel and says in his broken English, "Ummmm, this is not a beautiful part of town. Don't walk anywhere. Be careful", you know there's a problem. The wall you see in the photo around the front of the building is a security wall. Access - there was no elevator to our floor and no doorman, so we had to haul our luggage up the stairs (3.5 week vacation involves some heavy luggage). Room - As you'll see in the attached photos, the room was actually rather large, but very sparse and plain. The wallpaper was coming off the wall around the window. The walls were very thin and it was easy to hear people in the hall and other rooms. Experience - At about 12:30am, a series of about 20-30 pops went off that were either gunshots or fireworks. When I called the front desk to ask if everything was okay, the person spoke no English and couldn't communicate anything about the situation. I ended up barricading the front door just in case. The front desk agent in the morning did speak English and said a party in the hotel restaurant had set off some fireworks. Shuttle - The hotel said there was a shuttle to the airport. Their definition of a shuttle was a tiny old beat up car that literally looked like it had been in a demolition derby. I don't know what the criteria is that made this place a 4 star hotel, but I'd give it 1.5 stars. Definitely NOT upscale.
