i would recommend this hotel and go back to it again. No problems. The room was updated and modern. The staff was friendly.

My husband and I stayed at this hotel from the 9th-11th March 07 last. This was a short business trip for us. A colleague booked the hotel for us, and we were very pleased to find such a nice hotel. The Barcelo Festa Hotel is a newly built hotel, about 10 minute taxi ride from the centre of Sofia. There is not much to do around the hotel itself ie.. like many other buildings all along this road, it is mainly business and apartment blocks.
But taxis are so cheap into the city centre , it doesn't really matter. The hotel is beautiful , with lovely rooms, and marble bathrooms. It was extremely quiet over the weekend stay we had, we only saw a few guests there. It is a strictly business week day hotel we were told. This was great for us, very quiet and no delay in service etc... Food is cheap here, and quite good, although I recommend eating in some of the lovely restaurants in the city, in particular,Restaurant Uno near the Opera house, an italian eatery which served gorgeous italian food, just don't be in any hurry, it is a place to sit down and relax for the night while dining.

If you have to visit Sofia, I definitely recommend the Barcelo Festa Hotel, all staff were very well trained and spoke excellent english and could not be more helpful. The hotel is very reasonable , prices around 120-130 euros a night per room inclusive of breakfast for two, which comprised of the bulgarian version of an english fry up, lovely hot croissants of various types, toast ,rolls etc....juice & coffee, plenty to eat and cooked fresh. This is a very good four star standard at least in my opinion and there is a leisure spa etc... which I did not get to try out this time.A very good hotel to stay in if you are visiting Sofia.

I was attending a sports championship and stayed in this hotel in July ’06 for 10 nights sharing a twin room (with another colleague). I could not recommend this hotel for the following reasons: -

(1)Service:
·Hotel gave us one key (card) to a room – Customer Service steadfastly refuses our request for an extra key even though there were two people staying in the room. We are paying good money to stay at the hotel and we thought the hotel should be able to accommodate this simple request.

·They are stingy with bathroom toiletries. Instead of them replenishing toiletries daily, we have to continually ask for things like soap and shampoos.

(2)Food:
·They ran out of food a few times! Sport members were having buffet style meals and those that came late to dinner were missing out.

(3)Facilities:
·The Hotel is small and boring, lack ambience - there was no really good place inside the hotel to sit and relax or listen to music etc.

·Internet facilities are inadequate – there is only one free terminal available to quest (and this is in their office!)

(4)Location:
·It is miles away from town center. It cost between 5-7 Leva by taxi to get to town. The hotel surrounds are pretty dead with partly constructed buildings and wasteland.

The only positive is that the rooms are clean and the hotel is quite new. I suspect the hotel is cost cutting to the expense of clients. It really has to offer more if it wants to be an attractive proposition to travelers.