Review: Crowne Plaza Borjomi [Georgia]

After visiting Batumi, I intended to make way for Tbilisi. But, as I was looking at the map of Georgia, the town of Borjomi caught my eye. I first knew of Borjomi from the Borjomi water that I had during my travels to Kazakhstan. It’s a mineral water brand with a unique taste that’s sold around from the Caucasus all the way to Central Asia.

To my surprise, Borjomi has a western chain hotel bookable on points! It is the Crowne Plaza, and from the pictures I saw, it looks really good for a Crowne Plaza, so I was very interested in checking it out. Borjomi was one of the go-to towns for vacation during the Soviet Union days. It is known for its mineral water, which many believe have properties that can improve your digestive system (unsure if true or not).

I tried Borjomi water straight from the source and I found the taste to be terrible, but the bottled Borjomi water are much more palatable.

Crowne Plaza Borjomi- Booking

I booked a 2-night stay for a total of 36,000 IHG points. Cash price can cost at ~$120, so it was more or less at a typical value for IHG points redemption.

Crowne Plaza Borjomi- Location

The Crowne Plaza is located right along the Borjomi Gorge, and right next to Borjomi Central Park. Crowne Plaza guests will have free entry to the Central Park by just showing their keycards. But, tickets only cost 5 GEL anyway. There are also a well nearby where you can fill an empty bottle with unfiltered Borjomi water, if you dare to try.

Getting to Borjomi depends on where you’re from. The most convenient, but expensive, option is by booking a private driver at a fixed price through gotrip.ge. With Gotrip, you can add stops before your destination without additional charge. What I did was stopping at Kutaisi for a brief visit from Batumi before heading to Borjomi.

If you’re coming from Tbilisi, then a train runs daily twice from/to Borjomi. But, the train will run either way early in the morning, or during the evening where you’ll arrive late to either destinations, since the journey with train will take roughly 5 hours.

Crowne Plaza Borjomi- Check-in

I arrived some time around 4pm from Batumi. The lobby is beautiful, and there are many comfortable chairs inside.

Around a week ago, I was upgraded to a duplex suite as shown on the reservation, but a day before check-in, the upgrade changed to Premium Room with a balcony that’s around half the size of the duplex suite just the day before check-in.

It was a bit disappointing to see it happen as I was very much looking forward to the big upgrade, but I guess it was bad luck that someone bought the suite just before I arrived.

Otherwise, check-in was smooth, and the Diamond Elite recognition was excellent. They referred to us as VIP guests which made me wonder if we were the only Diamond guests staying for the few days we’re staying at.

A staff also helped with our luggage which would never happen at other Crowne Plazas.

Crowne Plaza Borjomi- Premium Room River View Balcony

The Premium Room I was assigned to was at the 4th floor. The elevator only goes up to 3rd floor, so we then had to take a set of stairs after to get to the top floor.

The Premium Room was only 32 sqm in size, which wasn’t bad, but the disappointment from not getting a suite still lingered.

The room still attains the Crowne Plaza feel with heavy use of varying wood colors.

Bathrobes and slippers are provided, along with a safe and ironing board.

The main table holds a TV and the pantry.

There’s a minibar, but everything is additional charge.

Though the snacks and water are complimentary, and they’re replenished everyday!

The bed has thin bedding, but it was still decent to sleep on.

Of course, the balcony was the highlight of the room with amazing views of Borjomi full of lush green trees.

An ash tray is provided, so smoking is allowed on the balcony. But, inside the room is non-smoking so beware.

There’s also an awkwardly placed lounge chair that doesn’t really work with the slab of concrete installed on the balcony railings. Lower floored rooms have wooden infills where you can see below you easier, and would capture the sun better. That’s probably my only complaint about the balcony on the 4th floor.

Backtracking to the right of the entrance is where the bathroom is. It comes with a separate shower and toilet (with European-style bidet) rooms behind glass doors.

Moments later after checking in to the room, we were brought a bottle of wine and chocolates as welcome gifts. We planned to drink it during our last night of the stay, but we were not provided a corkscrew, and we thought it would be provided in the pantry!

So I asked on the phone twice to have someone bring a corkscrew, but it never came! So I decided to just gift the wine to our next Gotrip driver to Tbilisi.

Overall, the room is decent, but it still maintains the Crown Plaza feel and there are signs of wear and tear shown. I understood that I am in a Crowne Plaza, but I guess I had a higher expectation with how nice the outside looks.

Also, I wish that the balcony on the 4th floor wasn’t slabbed with concrete and they should just follow the trend from the lower floors.

Crowne Plaza Borjomi- Breakfast

Breakfast is located at the All Day Dining Restaurant, and it’s served from 7:30am to 11:30am. It’s a buffet with standard Western offerings with few Georgian hot items like khachapuri (Georgian cheese bread).

Overall, the quality was decent, but nothing particularly stood out.

Crowne Plaza Borjomi- A La Carte Restaurant Dinner

After our day trip to Vardzia, we decided to go to one of the hotel’s restaurant, A La Carte, for dinner since we arrived back to the hotel at 9pm.

A La Carte served international cuisine with mostly Georgian on the menu. Below, we ordered kubdari (bread with meat fillings and spices), ojakhuri (roasted pork with potatoes and spices), and shkmeruli (chicken with garlic sauce), and of course, a bottle of Borjomi water.

All the items were delicious and we both left pretty full. But the kubdari was a tad bit too salty. The prices for all were 110 GEL or ~$40.

Crowne Plaza Borjomi- Pool & Spa

The hotel’s pool and spa facilities are located in the basement floor. The pool is decently sized and have two waterfalls on the side. There’s also a sunroof where balconies of guest rooms can be seen.

Pool

There’s many different kinds of lounge chairs set by the pool and two pressurized showers.

The showers by the pool have some of the strongest pressures I’ve experienced! They’re equipped with shower head along with multiple jets aimed at the body. But, it was hard to operate due to it just being reliant on the four buttons with no words on them. Regardless, they felt really good.

Sauna

Perhaps, the highlight of this hotel is the impressive sauna facilities, and they exceed my expectations on what a Crowne Plaza has.

There’s different types of sauna rooms like steam room, Finnish sauna, and cold sauna room.

Then, there’s a room where you can relax on water beds while staring at ceilings that look like stars. I’m not too sure what it’s exactly for, but it was cool!

Spa

By the spa reception, there’s a room for tranquility pods. But, you’d need to pay somewhere around 30 GEL per 25 minute use. While they look cool, I didn’t think I had any meaningful use for them to justify paying. Though, the hotel’s spa offer classic services like massages and hammam, alongside some interesting ones like hydrocolonic therapy.

The spa menu can be found on the hotel’s site.

Crowne Plaza Borjomi- Fitness Center

The fitness center runs 24/7 on the ground floor near the Wine Bar. It’s decently sized and equipped with strength training and cardio machines.

Crowne Plaza Borjomi- Property Front

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Crowne Plaza’s property front is very nice to look at, from the architecture and the nature surrounding it.

Conclusion

Crowne Plaza Borjomi is overall a nice hotel surrounded by the beautiful setting of Borjomi. It’s a good spot to take it slow when you’re in Georgia and bask in the nature or enjoy the great spa facilities.

You could also take some of the more interesting day trips like Vardzia, an ancient cave monastery or Stalin’s hometown, Gori, from Borjomi.

The property does show wear and tear in the rooms, and the service was inconsistent in some areas, but for the low price it charges both in cash and points, I can’t really complain.