There were a few questions concerning my thoughts on this hotel in my comments, so thought I'd answer them now.

We liked the Ukraina. It was, however, expensive to eat in the restaurants in the hotel. The Breakfast buffet came with the room cost and we ate quite well at the buffet. Many of the things were unusual according to American breakfast standards, but we always found plenty to get full. There were pancakes (with honey to put on top - no syrup); yogurt; lunch meats; cheese; weiners; fruit; eggs; ham; oatmeal; pastries; lots of other things I didn't recognize.

When you enter the hotel, you put your things through an x-ray machine. Then you enter into a fairly grand lobby. To the left are the registration desks, but our coordinator/translator took care of all that for us, we just sat on the couch and waited for her to return. We stayed in a room with two twin beds that we scooched together and we had a roll away bed brought in for D. There was a refrigerator in the room. The hotel is huge, like 31 stories I think. It is one of the Seven Sisters http://architecture.about.com/library/weekly/aa090501k.htm buildings and right on the Moscow River. It is a few blocks away from the US Embassy. There were people staying there from all over the world. We saw several adoptive families eating in the Breakfast restaurant.

Playground in the courtyard area of Ukraina Hotel.

The hotel encompasses a huge block of land and at the base of the hotel are businesses. We took a walk around the hotel and went to a little grocery store and got some things to eat in our room. I have heard that there are other restaurants within walking distance farther away, but we didn't venture any further than the perimeter of the hotel since it was so snowy and since we had other plans with our translator for the other meals.

D and Hubby eating lunch at the Jazz Bar Restaurant at the Ukraina Hotel $$

There are lots of little shops in the hotel. We were just "looking" in one jewelry shop right outside of the Breakfast restaurant and I found a dainty Amber necklace, just what I was looking for and it was only $31 which we thought was reasonable. Their Matryoshkas are more expensive than at the markets, but we did buy a few things in the gift shops.

The Internet Suite was very easy to manage, it was a little expensive - $3 for 10 minutes. But we were able to get done what we needed. Since we didn't take a laptop it was just fine. On the 2nd floor (I think) there is a lounge area with wi-fi and lots of people were using their laptops out there. I guess it was free.

All the hotels were much more expensive than we had anticipated. There are very few Russian hotels left. Our coordinator always tries to book our agency's families in the Russian ones because they are less expensive than the International chains.

All the staff we came in contact with were very friendly. We had D with us, but not a baby/toddler, so I don't know if there would have been a difference with their attitudes. Our room was very clean and well appointed. Not fancy but quite adequate.

You can go to the very top of the hotel and there is a lookout. We didn't realize it would be completely outdoors, so it was cold and we had D with us and hubby was afraid she'd go over the rail! You can take the elevator up most of the way, then you'll climb about 5 flights of stairs to get to the very top. If it weren't so cold (we didn't have our coats on!) we would have stayed longer, but it was neat. We went up at night too, so my pictures are very dark, or I'd share them.

The Ukraina has a website www.ukraina-hotel.ru with pictures of different types of rooms and the restaurants. In the upper right hand corner is a box to click to see it in English. The red and gold restaurant - The Ukraina Restaurant is where you'll go for the Breakfast bar.

I hope this answers some questions you had. I'd be happy to answer more!

Till later . . .