Hotel Mashabrum Skardu

I booked a room at the hotel via Lokal.PK (I believe that Lokal are going to hotels and taking some of the rooms, redesigning them and then renting them out). The room I booked may have been a Lokal room, however I feel that the review should be left for this hotel. The hotel is located in a good location, east to the Skardu airport, a short drive away with smooth roads on the way from the airport. The hotel is based in the main town area and so close to amenities such as shopping needs, food, fuel, etc. The hotel has parking space for approx 10 cars inside their parking area. Checked in nicely and was given a room on the second floor at the rear of the property that boasted beautiful mountain, forrest and village views. A brilliant way to start my tour of the Northern areas of Pakistan. I did however see some of the other rooms which looked like non-Lokal rooms which seemed very outdated, dirty and not nice at all. The communal areas of the hotel were rather tired and dated, but it is understandable that with the location of Skardu and the route to the area, it is difficult and costly to get goods into the area. The breakfast served was decent, the dining area had nice views as did the room. The breakfast menu was the same every day at the hotel. Buffet service and tea served. During the evening when we wanted to get the children showered and washed, there was no hot water. The power points display a small red light when switched on as did the water heater in the bathroom, however these were not on at the time. We informed room service who came and checked it, I told him about the lights but he put his hand under the tap/shower and said it is warm - He works here, I am just a visitor so I am sure he knows better than I do. HOWEVER! The next evening, the lights were on as I thought and we also had warm water! What sort of tomfoolery were these guys trying to play! Wifi was poor - at times the routers were switched off, at times it would not let me connect at all and at times I could connect without Internet access. When I could connect, I could only use it for very minimal use. The member of staff at the desk stated that their wifi is only provided to be able to send messages. They blamed the Internet infrastructure into the region, but funnily enough when I stayed at the hotel opposite (Sadpara which was nowhere near as nice for less than 1/4 of the price, I had a very good Internet connection where I was able to stream YouTube videos on two separate devices at once!). On one day, the electricity went off for 3 hours. This is fine for the room as we had natural lighting, however we had no Internet access and more so no light in the bathroom as there was no natural light into it and therefore struggled to use the bathroom for the adults and children. When I made the staff aware of this, they claimed there is no electricity in the area, it is a whole city issue, etc. My argument is that I was sold the service where these things will be p

The electricity and the WiFi works for a couple of hours a day. The rooms are filthy. Coffees take about 45 mins. The staff dont have change so forget trying to buy water, soft drinks etc (they’re also half the price in the shops outside). Half the food menu is not available and the service is very rude/slow. All this and for 75 USD a night! It’s worth 35 USD at best.