Arriving: Aeroportul Henri Coanda is small and not difficult to arrive to. If you havent booked a transfer through a travelagency(which I did, it is a bit expensive, but worth it), there are plenty of taxies and "service personel" ready to rip you off.
Hotel Location: Calea Mosilor- the street is under "renovation", which means there is no street at the moment, and no traffic noice. Just take next street Sfintilor which has a small convenient store with very nice service, you can buy everything there. It takes 7 minutes to get to Univercity Square(on foot), where you can travel by metro, eat at McDonalds and enjoy the view of romanian building styles and infrastructure. In case the hotel has no city or metromap, you can buy one from bookstore located underground at the station. Continuing down Balescu street you will reach Piata Unirii- with shoppingcentres, restaurants, cafes and shops off course.
Rooms: Had a very good room at the 3rd floor, very clean, big bathroom, sattelite tv, minibar and aircondition which worked fine. Armonia uses keycards, which does not work most of the time, so prepare yourself to exercise a couple of times everyday getting new keycard in the reception.
The hotel offers breakfastservice in the room- just fill in the form and hang it outside your door- didnt work any of the days I was there, so you better check when you wake up and then call the restaurant and order. Wakeup calls did work 2 days out of 4.
Services: roomsservice- call at any time. Restaurant and bar. Ohh and they have a travelagency there. Internet in receptionarea.
Staff: Most staff was friendly and polite. I am sure they did their best, but remember if you dont have information yourself dont expect to get it from the staff- go to the internet. If you find the barman or porter to be sleeping in the receptionarea in the afternoon, it is because they are tired as the person in the reception explained to me. When asking for directions the answer will be: take a taxi. Instsisting to try the metro I was told to go to Victory Square(history and arts museum), which I did. Asking several pax on my way to find the museum, they just pointed in diffrent directions. It later shows that the museum is almost right next to the hotel*LOL* - so my advice is: prepare yourself.
Transporting yourself: if you stay in Armonia you dont really need any transportation, if you like to walk. You can easily use the metro which consists of 3 lines- and it does not cost a lot of money- 2 RON for a return ticket. I will not recommend taxis, the rates stated in the taxis are not the rate you will get. And they know that you know that they are trying to rip you off. If you try to discuss with them they dont have a problem shouting at you and namecalling.
Bucuresti: The city actually has some very beautiful buildings- the rest is communisticstyle concretebuildings. The city is green with a lot of parks. Big boulevards, heavy traffic.
Sightseeing: Romania is not yet ready for individual travellers, but I was lucky to find a company who did tours for individuals. Had a "bucuresti in depth" tour- 5 hours, with good informationlevel and a very extensive visit to Village Museum. 135 RON(approx. 37 Euro), [--].
People: In general I think that romanian people were friendly, latin meditarrainian people with temperament. If they like you they are smiling - if they dont, they dont have a problem letting you know. Guipsys is a whole other category.
Note: Religion does mean a lot to romanians- latin orthodoxs(greek orthodocs) style.
"DOWNTOWN" is the magazine to get at your hotel, if they have one. It contains some very good information about everything you need to know when in Bucuresti. Romanians has no problem about throwing stones at gay-people, spitting at them or other forms of attack- it is beliewed that homosexuality is a sin. If you have a look at the magazine "Downtown" you will find several pages about adult entertainment- escortservice which is just another word for prostitutes- which must be less sinful than homosexuality I guess?!
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
