Macedonia (A) - accommodation

[pineapple stu]

Post any info on accommodation in Macedonia in here. I'll try keep a summary of the main links in this thread.

Other links -

Flights (or other means of getting there) (http://foot.ie/threads/131603-Macedonia-(A)-flights)
Charter travel (incl tour operator bookings, charter buses, taxis, etc) (http://foot.ie/threads/131604-Macedonia-(A)-charter-travel)
The game (match tickets, kick off time, directions to the ground, etc) (http://foot.ie/threads/131605-Macedonia-(A)-the-game)
Places (towns, internal travel, reccies, etc) (http://foot.ie/threads/131606-Macedonia-(A)-places)
Pubs (things to do, other chat) (http://foot.ie/threads/131607-Macedonia-(A)-pubs)
General (things to do, other chat) (http://foot.ie/threads/131608-Macedonia-(A)-general)

[paul_oshea]

Where are people staying?

[Junior]

Have a couple of places on hold. VIP Hotel and Hotel Ani.

From what I was reading on ybig it looks like hotels are a little more difficult to come by now due to a conference also being held at the same time. I will be releasing one or other of these hotels nearer the time, if you are struggling just PM me.

EDIT: I used booking.com if you are looking. Can reserve without paying in advance.

[paul_oshea]

Ah ok thanks junior. What prices were you looking at?

naively i left it a little longer, as prices seemed to be ok at the holiday inn but are now over £100 a night. Im going on my own by the looks of it too, so I don't want to paying too much for a room on my own.

[Junior]

working out at £23 pp pn.

[Kingdom]

I booked through the hotel ani's website myself and got email confirmation of the stay. No cc details taken. Surely that should be enough eh?

[Junior]

Couldnt say tbh. However, if hotels rooms are getting scarce which they appear to be and there are occurences of overbooking etc.. dont' be surprised if the booking with no cc details is the one that gets shunted out to the nice hotel 10km from the city centre!!!!

Only messing with you but you probably want to consider whether its worth some form of additional confirmation.

[paul_oshea]

whats the link for the ybig accommodation?

[Junior]

Not sure there is one, but this is the thread where they are posting travel details etc...

http://www.ybig.ie/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=19258

[brendy_éire]

We're hostelling it. Staying in 'Nice Hostel', 550m from Macedonia Square, €10 a night.

[Paulie]

We're staying in the Hotel Victoria. It's central, has air conditioning which will be vital if it's even nearly as hot as expected, has good reviews on Tripadvisor, and at €60 a night for your own room, is quite reasonable.

http://hotelvictoria.com.mk/en/

http://www.tripadvisor.ie/Hotel_Review-g295110-d602942-Reviews-Hotel_Victoria-Skopje.html

[Claret Murph]

We're hostelling it. Staying in 'Nice Hostel', 550m from Macedonia Square, €10 a night.

Hummmmm a bit of a trek there for you brendy after a night out I mean 550 miles you may not even be in the same country ..........

[Junior]

Just FYI - One of the hotels I booked on booking.com (I have had reserved a couple of different ones depending on final numbers) has debited my credit card for the booking which was not supposed to happen, as you should be able to cancel up to 24hrs before without penalty. However after a few emails back and forth, they are well aware of the football match and are asking for pre-payment for any rooms booked. The feckers should have communicated this first but just thought I'd bang it up here in case anyone else is in the same boat.

[paul_oshea]

Getting expensive, this is going to be an expensive enough trip i fear. These former communist bloc states always seem to try and rip you off. I know thats a wide remark, a generalisation, but on my few trips to these places thats what ive found!!

Anyway I went with hotel victoria, it seems equ-distance from the centre as VIP and got slightly better reviews for around the same price(now 177 euro for 3 nights).

My mate says he is coming but i think when he sees the price of it all he wont(junior he still hasn't booked). So if anyone has a spare room going or anything at a cheaper rate in any of the hotels please do contact me.

[mypost]

The expensive bit is the flights. Accommodation can be found relatively cheap, depending on what you look for. Cost of living is laughably cheap by our standards.

Alternatively, you could go with Abbey, where everything is twice as expensive than it needs to be.

[paul_oshea]

My post 50 euro each a night is not cheap for a bog standard hotel that is.its still months away and i don't believe a conference is going to have that big effect.the d4 hotel in Dublin lovely hotel is half the price sharing

[Paulie]

Mypost is right. The main expense of this trip is the flight. I think that 50 or 60 quid a night for your own room, in a fairly central hotel with good reviews is decent enough. There will obviously be cheaper if you're prepared to share a room in a kip, which we did in years gone by. When you're at this gig long enough though, you just need your own space!

[Kingdom]

Just FYI - One of the hotels I booked on booking.com (I have had reserved a couple of different ones depending on final numbers) has debited my credit card for the booking which was not supposed to happen, as you should be able to cancel up to 24hrs before without penalty. However after a few emails back and forth, they are well aware of the football match and are asking for pre-payment for any rooms booked. The feckers should have communicated this first but just thought I'd bang it up here in case anyone else is in the same boat.

Junior, was this the Ani? I sent them an email last week and they returned a form to fill out for booking.

[paul_oshea]

I think its the VIP kingdom

[paul_oshea]

Mypost is right. The main expense of this trip is the flight. I think that 50 or 60 quid a night for your own room, in a fairly central hotel with good reviews is decent enough. There will obviously be cheaper if you're prepared to share a room in a kip, which we did in years gone by. When you're at this gig long enough though, you just need your own space!

ya decent in dublin price terms. Flights are expensive, these are 3 star hotels at most with basic facilities from all reviews ive read. Its the equivalent of accor hotels/etap/formule1 whatever in western continental europe and you'd get a room there (which could fit 2 even 3 if you wanted) for around 40 euro or under. Now do you honestly think the capital of a poor country like macedonia compared with this is worth 25%-35% more?

And the centre itself looks very small, so the likes of VIP/victoria are a good 1- 1.5km away.

£400-£450 3 nights flights and accomodation, flights booked well in advance, accomodation(basic no decent facilities) booked 3 months in advance, is a lot of money for a relatively poor country.

[Paulie]

I think that we're just looking at this in two different ways. You're right in that I'm comparing prices to here, but that's what I always do when abroad. The point of reference I use with regard to pricing in general is Ireland. Hence, to me 50 or 60 quid a night is fine. To be honest, I reckon you'd be doing well to get your own room for much less in a similar type of hotel in the vast majority of European Capital cities, including Eastern Europe (especially taking in a Friday and Saturday night).

By the way, you must have gotten your flights at a very good price if the whole trip has cost you €450. Our flights alone were that much. Having said that, there were cheaper routes available. We just took the one that was the most convenient.

[paul_oshea]

What ones did you take? Thats pounds paulie.

Flying thursday out sunday. 272 i think exactly.

[Paulie]

Ah right. That explains it. We're flying with Malev, out Wednesday and back Sunday. Decent flight times and short stop-overs. That's the shot!

[Junior]

Junior, was this the Ani? I sent them an email last week and they returned a form to fill out for booking.


I think its the VIP kingdom

Correctamundo......

I have now cancelled VIP and requested the refund.

We are booked in the Hotel Ani via booking.com but Ive not heard anything direct from them.

[mypost]

My post 50 euro each a night is not cheap for a bog standard hotel that is.its still months away and i don't believe a conference is going to have that big effect.the d4 hotel in Dublin lovely hotel is half the price sharing

Why you have to pay 50? I've seen decent central accommodation for the weekend around, for half that per night.

It's Skopje, not Paris, all you need are the basics for a couple of nights, leave the likes of the Radisson to the conference heads who aren't paying for it.

Once you get past the flights, everything gets cheaper after that

[Kingdom]

So, did anyone here stay in the hotel Ani?

[Junior]

Yeah our little group did. Decent enough hotel, got a treble room, clean, decent size. Spent next to no time in it though! :-)