We chose this hotel carefully based mainly on reviews from Trip Advisor. We were totally surprised by the poor quality of the stay we experienced and the many problems.
We arrived at midnight after a late flight and were looking forward to the hotel. The hotel chauffeur drove us at high speeds, dangerously and we were pleased to arrive in one piece. We then were annoyed to find that, instead of the family triple room we had booked we were put in a twin room with an extra bed for our son. As our son is 14 he is rather big for a camp bed and I spent the night putting his arms and legs back in to stop him rolling out. We were charged extortionately for 2 bottles of water before settling down for the night. Washing wasn't easy as there was only the tiniest little 2cm bottle of complimentary hair/body/hand wash all-in-one. The bathroom had an equally minute sliver of soap. All night we lay awake - kept up by the continual howling and braying of what sounded like all the dogs in the country just below our window and endless, noisy traffic. When the traffic slowed a bit the hotel started to have visitors - whether this was deliveries for the kitchen or guests I don't know but they started banging doors and talking loudly from 4am.
In the morning we were disappointed to find we only had the option of eggs, omelette or toast for breakfast and after this we voiced our desire to be transferred to a suitable room and one which faced away from the road.
The hotel were very nice about this, although the waitress/customer service lady was quite derisive from the start. We came home from the day out (the drive to Tirana city is well over half an hour) to find ourselves in a tiny triple room with no balcony and no bath. The shower was horrible, dirty and mouldy and we felt annoyed to again not receive the type of room we had been promised over the phone prior to arriving. I broke down in tears and the hotel kindly moved us again - scolding us all the while. This time we lumped for a double room with a balcony and cleaner shower-room with a camp bed - but the room was too small to swing a cat. The balcony was full up with massive, sweaty plants and the floor was flooded. In all three rooms that we tried the air conditioning and TV did not work. For the next two whole nights we were kept awake by endless, competing, all-night weddings. The music was so loud we had to wear ear-plugs and lasted until 4am. The noise was made worse by the fact that there were more than one wedding going on at once and a building not far from the hotel seemed to be a venue for weddings every night - all night. The second night of this chaos we packed up at 3.30am and fled the Hotel Baron. We sought refuge at The Prince Hotel in Tirana, which proved to be much cheaper, much more spacious, spotlessly clean, with metal window blinds which ensured a silent, dark nights sleep in a beautifully air conditioned room. It was luxury and we loved The Hotel Prince for the rest our holiday, It was a friendly, beautiful, peaceful hotel which we looked forward to coming home to every day. The food was wonderful and the staff went out of their way. It was far more professional than the Hotel Baron.
When we visited the Hotel Baron after leaving it to request a partial refund (we had paid for 8 nights and only stayed 3) we were refused any refund and the Hotel manager even refused to give us a simple note stating that we had stayed 3 nights - so as to enable us to seek a refund of sorts. She was rude and challenging and her son was very intimidating. She tried to charge us a large tax. My husband wanted to pay the tax as he was scared of her son's threatening behaviour but I refused and they all started rowing loudly in Albanian.
The awful experience at the Hotel Baron made the first three days of our holiday extremely stressful and upsetting and was a massive mistake.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
