A driver can find a Tbilisi hotel by its name. The time is lost at the door: two hotels that share one street number, a front entrance closed for roadworks, a hotel named after a square with its street address on a different street. Most of it is published by the hotels themselves, and it belongs in the booking.
Below are eight central hotels, street by street, with what each hotel or a published source says about where it is and how a car reaches it, then the questions worth putting to a front desk before the car arrives.
One line through the centre
Six of the hotels below sit along one route. Rustaveli Avenue starts at Freedom Square and runs for about 1.5 kilometres before it continues as Kostava Street. The square at its western end is First Republic Square: built in 1983 as Republic Square, renamed Rose Revolution Square in 2005 and First Republic Square in 2018. Older maps may still show the earlier names, so give the street address in the form the hotel itself uses.
From the airport, the transfer is a fixed fare per car: 350 ₾ in the V-Class, 500 ₾ in the S-Class and 750 ₾ in either Maybach. The Tbilisi airport transfer playbook covers the arrival itself.
Freedom Square and Rustaveli Avenue
Paragraph Freedom Square. The Luxury Collection hotel opened in November 2023 with 220 rooms and suites, in a contemporary building with a double-curved glass facade on Freedom Square. The name gives the square; the Michelin Guide’s listing gives the street address as 2 Lado Gudiashvili Street. Send both.
Tbilisi Marriott. At 13 Rustaveli Avenue, in a building that opened in 1915 as the Hotel Majestic and has housed the Marriott since 2002.
The Biltmore Tbilisi. At 29 Rustaveli Avenue: a glass tower with the Soviet-era IMELI building at its front. It is the clearest case for reading a hotel’s own page before arrival. At the time of writing, the Biltmore’s page asks guests to use the Tabukashvili Street entrance while works continue on Rustaveli Avenue. It also says self-parking in the underground car park is free for hotel guests, and that valet parking is currently unavailable. Put the side-street entrance in the booking, not just the avenue.
Radisson Blu Iveria. The tower at the south corner of First Republic Square went up in 1967 as the Hotel Iveria, then the tallest building in Soviet Georgia. It was gutted to its steel frame and reopened as the Radisson Blu Iveria in 2009.
Kostava Street: two hotels, one complex
Stamba and Rooms Hotel Tbilisi share one former publishing-house complex. Stamba gives its address as 14 Kostava Street, and Rooms Hotel Tbilisi describes its home as the complex of a former publishing house in the Vera district, and lists complimentary parking for hotel guests.
One street number, two hotels: the hotel’s name has to travel with the address. If the guest is staying at one and meeting someone at the other, say so in the booking.
The old town, and across the river
The smaller hotels in the old districts sit on older streets, some of them cobbled. Ask each one where a car can stop to unload, and how far that is from the door. A group with luggage in the seven-seat V-Class needs that answer more than a couple in a saloon does.
Communal Hotel Sololaki. At 6 Kojori Street in Sololaki: the group’s first hotel, in a restored 19th-century townhouse. For walking from here, where Tbilisi’s old town actually starts sets out the route.
Vinotel. At 4 Elene Akhvlediani Ascent, on the left bank of the Mtkvari. The hotel’s own site places its historic building on a cobblestone street at the edge of the old Avlabari district, near the presidential residence, with 13 rooms and an arched brick wine cellar. “Old town” covers both banks of the river here, so a booking that names the street saves a crossing in the wrong direction.
What to ask the front desk before the car arrives
Which entrance cars use this week. Works move entrances, as the Biltmore’s notice shows, and the front desk knows the current one.
Where a car can stop to unload, and for how long. Then ask whether someone can meet the car there at the arrival time to take the bags.
For an early departure, settle the bill the night before. A five o’clock airport run should not start with a queue at the desk.
For a group, one meeting point and one time. Four rooms heading out to dinner should gather in one place at one time, not assemble in the lobby one by one.
What to send with the booking
The hotel’s name and its street address, the entrance if there is more than one, the time, the number of guests and the number of large bags. The booking brief sets out the rest, and the fleet page gives what each car seats: seven in the V-Class, three in the S-Class or either Maybach. Every fare is confirmed in writing before the car is dispatched.
For a business trip with several addresses a day, see corporate and multi-day chauffeur hire; where the stay runs several days, the multi-day brief is the one to read next. Email booking@soitblack.com or send the hotel and the time.