If the sea, then the Black, if the resort – then Gelendzhik, accessible, not ennosited and understandable for most Russians. Due to the successful position inside a large almost closed bay, the sea off the coast of the resort is a couple of degrees warmer than that of competitors along the coast. Yes, and it warms up a couple of weeks earlier, and cools down a little later, so the season is longer, there are more tourists. The beaches of Gelendzhik will give an unsurpassed tan, and the Marine Palace hotel will be an excellent refuge for an overnight stay, albeit with minor shortcomings.
It’s Gelendzhik
Gelendzhik, aka Big Gelendzhik,aka the center of the Mo “resort city of Gelendzhik” is a completely legendary place on the map of the Black Sea coast. And it’s not so much in the history of the former Genoese colony, and not even in the expository materials about the local palace architecture: for many decades in Gelendzhik, people came for happiness to plunge into the gentle sea, hear the waves, for the first time in their lives try mussels and rapans, see dolphins.
The city was saturated with emotions and turned into a true place of pilgrimage for those who were unlucky enough to live on the sea. People go to an amazing seaside town with some incomprehensible-fabulous name to touch the magic of the Black Sea and langiant southern summer, to eat peaches, walk along the long, long embankment of Gelendzhik, stretched for 8 kilometers from thin to Thick Cape. And the Marine Palace Hotel is a great place to moor, drop things and come only to sleep in a comfortable and calm environment.
The hotel perfectly understands the resting soul of a classic vacationer – after all, the hotel employs those who themselves live in Gelendzhik and have seen many generations of tourists. Therefore, no one will impose anything, only the necessary minimum: the hotel is an application to the sea, and not vice versa.
Attention! The Marine Palace Hotel provides a shuttle service – free delivery to guests from the airport and bus station. There is free parking on site, but it is very small, only 20 places.
Room stock
Hotel Marine Palace in Gelendzhik is two buildings and a total of 60 comfortable modern rooms, decorated simply, but elegantly and without unnecessary taste. In total, the hotel has three types of rooms – standard, studio and deluxe. The furniture in the rooms is new, the bed linen is clean and of high quality.
The rooms have a single set of equipment and amenities, which are only slightly different:
- air conditioning (split system);
- TV;
- tea set (kettle, cups-spoons);
- hair dryer in the bathroom.
High-speed Wi-Fi is available, each room has a paid and quite expensive mini-bar and an electronically controlled safe. There are no refrigerators in the rooms. Cleaning is promised daily, but in fact they spend 4-5 times a week, but very decently, do not find fault.
Standard, 18 square meters
Small but cozy room with a double bed (orthopedic mattress), a little cramped for two adults. This room can not be added extra space, and a cot if you can squeeze, then with difficulty.
The bathroom is combined with a bathroom. Shower cubicle, a set of disposable cosmetics, bathrobes and hot water without interruption.
Importantly! It is better to book Standard with a balcony, as there is no place in the bathroom where you can dry beach towels or swimsuits.
Studio, 26 square meters
Excellent room of optimal size with a beautiful balcony (there are outdoor chairs and a table) and the ability to organize an extra bed for a teenage child. The bathroom is combined, but neat and thoughtful, with a full set of everything you need from toiletries to bathrobes, slippers and a good cosmetic mirror.
To the standard set of services added free bottled water, which is delivered daily.
Deluxe, 35 square meters
Features a seating area with a soft sofa bed with pillows and a foot pouf. In the Deluxe room, everything is a little more: a mattress (King Size), and a TV (42 inches), and even a bathroom. In it, by the way, there is a bath – not a jacuzzi, ordinary, but of sufficient size for an adult. Complete set of toiletries and all necessary cosmetics is similar to other categories.
Note! For the birthday of the guest, the hotel offers a very appetizing program of discounts: 15% for accommodation and all services 3 days before and after the holiday.
Where to eat (spoiler: it’s complicated)
Right on the territory of the hotel Marine Palace there is a restaurant of Black Sea cuisine “Aquarium”, in which guests have a 20% discount until 17.00. Buffet breakfast is served from 7.30 to 10.30. Despite the protracted, in comparison with other hotels, the time, in fact, after 9.30 the main dishes – cheesecakes, cereals and casseroles – are already ending.
Expensive and tasteless: most visitors do not like common breakfasts, they prefer to eat elsewhere or order something à la carte in the restaurant. It is the main menu of the restaurant “Aquarium” that most visitors are happy to recommend, paying attention to special festive events and tasting parties with partner wineries.
Be sure to try:
- Kuban delicacies – cheeses of local production with grapes, nuts and honey, meat slices with basturma, raw beef, tongue and carpaccio, fried Adyghe cheese with tomato juice.
- Black Sea hamsa in different interpretations – with bruschetta and potatoes.
- Local small, hard and indescribably delicious mussels in white wine or with cheese sauce (and, of course, rapans with cream and cheese croquettes).
- Fish of local catch – mullet, sargan, mackerel, cooked on an open fire.
The pride of the “Aquarium” is the Crimean oysters, which are served here with a sauce of raspberry vinegar and shallots and a grenka of black bread.
Tip: Come to the restaurant for dinner when discounts are not available. At this time, you can find not only the freshest pike cutlets, but also meet smiling waitresses.
“Aquarium” leads a colorful Instagram, where you can admire almost all the dishes, and then try it live in the restaurant. From May 12 to the end of October, the restaurant organizes a Pool Bar by the pool, which offers all the famous cocktails for adults and many milk for children.
Holidays with children
Hotel Marine Palace in Gelendzhik is positioned as a place of family holidays and invites you to come with children, on request offers cots. However, there are nuances that you need to know before you book a room:
- children over 4 years old are considered adults at the hotel;
- for breakfast do not offer individual children’s dishes, but you can choose classic porridge, cottage cheese casserole or cheesecakes;
- in the restaurant “Aquarium” there is no children’s menu, you will have to choose something suitable from an adult;
- on the territory there is a tiny children’s playground (on the lawn, but not in the shade!);
- the pool is heated, but small, and usually filled with adult companies.
Even in high season, the hotel does not consider it necessary to invite animators or open a game room. That is, there will be no opportunity to leave the child even for a couple of hours – rest should be planned based on the fact that the child will have to deal with independently.
According to reviews, some rooms have very poor sound insulation. External sounds can be a problem for children with sleep disorders. And, in fact, a small child will be heard by all the neighbors on the floor.
Irina, Chelyabinsk: “We were in November 2019. Everything is fine, the hotel is new and clean, only the walls are cardboard and you can hear what the next room is talking about. Two nights later, a cheerful company settled into the room on the other side, which had been hanging out all night. Appeals to the reception did not help, only angered the already order of subordinate neighbors. In general, I am glad that this time we were without a child, and then the horror of the situation would only double. “
What to do in the hotel and abroad
People come to Gelendzhik for the sea, so the Marine Palace hotel is not too concerned with the leisure of guests: most return to the room only for the night. Cheerful companies can spend the daytime at the hotel pool – very decent, heated and clean, but there is little space, and there are no more than twenty sun loungers.
In the room you can watch cable, scroll through the tape of your favorite social networks, drink tea and go to bed to move back to the beaches in the morning. The hotel has a bicycle rental, so that the distant beaches and attractions can be reached sporty and environmentally friendly.
By the way! Gelendzhik is a city of bicycles (and scooters): since it is very long, stretched along the bay, it is most convenient to move around it by two-wheeled transport. You can not drive by car everywhere, and there is trouble with parking.
Beaches of the Thin Cape
From the Marine Palace Hotel, the nearest beach is a narrow, well-trodden alley. Walk to the Thin Cape no more than 20 minutes, there tourists are waiting:
- pebble semi-odic beach of car pumping;
- sand boarding house “Thin Cape”;
- two-level “Sunny”.
These are mid-range beaches, with minimal service, but in a good location. Of the minuses, from the end of June they are crowded, of the pluses – a convenient entrance to the water for children.
Blue Bay
There are many different bays in Gelendzhik. So the beach “Blue Bay” is located in the Bay of Fisherman, a little further than the Thin Cape – 10 kilometers from the city center, you can perfectly reach by bicycle or by the new highway.
The beach is pebbly, overlooks the open sea, so the water is much cleaner than in Gelendzhik itself. The place is wild, without amenities and even rescue services, but the city authorities threaten to organize everything necessary from day to day.
It’s interesting! Those who wish can take a short walk in the direction of Kabardinka – there is a stunning forest with relict vegetation.
Central Beach
The main beach of Gelendzhik is a legendary place. Not only is it a huge, more than 10 kilometers long, strip of sand, interspersed with small pebbles, so it is here that the best corn and baklava in the country are sold. Since mid-July, you should not even turn towards the Central – there are sun loungers occupied not in the morning, but in April.
It is better to try your luck on the neighboring Central beaches – they are also free, but for some reason less popular with the resting people.
Must visit:
- large-sand beach of the sanatorium “Dolphin” with comfortable drinking fountains;
- “Sporty”, but not for swimming, but to ride on yachts and boats;
- wide children’s beach “Niva”;
- Prokhorovsky beach (from Norilsk Nickel) with changing cabins and paid parking.
In general, almost all beaches in Gelendzhik are free, the fee is charged only for additional services.
Beaches of The Thick Cape
The thick cape is known in Gelendzhik as a refuge for nudists. It is here, on the Steep, at the lighthouse and Divnodiky (closer to Divnomorsky) that connoisseurs of tanning without stripes from swimsuits gather.
Free from prejudice, people are not afraid of slippery stones (they generally sin all the beaches of the Thick Cape), nor a sufficiently dangerous bottom, nor a sharply increasing depth. With children in this direction for obvious reasons it is better not to get out.
Things to do in the city
It is impossible to count all the entertainment that Gelendzhik offers in the high season: from concerts of celebrities not the first freshness to the local history museum with a really rare exposition.
With children it is a good idea to visit:
- tunnel oceanarium, which is located near the Central beach;
- dolphinarium with fur seals;
- water park “Golden Bay”, one of the largest in Russia;
- show on Mount Olympus with a high-altitude Ferris wheel.
If after swimming on the sea there is strength to dance and walk all night, in Gelendzhik there is a night club “Formula” with a swimming pool. There are really tear-off parties.
Activities outside the city and attractions nearby
Most of the popular attractions near Gelendzhik are remakes of the last ten years, except for the lighthouse, which is more than a hundred years old. Of course, this does not make them worse:
- Rio de Gelendzhik, an Orthodox cross on the Markotha Range with a particle of the relics of Seraphim of Sarov (2019);
- St. Andrew’s Park (2017);
- scenery for the film “Storm Gate” for the v. Revival.
Everyone just needs to visit the dolmens – mysterious stone structures of incomprehensible purpose, waterfalls, Mount Parus and neighboring resort villages – Divnomorskoye and Arkhipo-Osipovka.
