First of all - the hotel was 50 Euros per night - for 2 people, including breakfast! Reception is like something from a film set - beautiful chinese vases (nearly 6ft tall), fabulous plants, and all sorts of quirky art deco pices - look for the telephone and stand near the reception desk. The room was - simply amazing - it made us giggle every time we went in - luxurious drapes, red and black furniture - we were upgraded to a suite, beautiful tiling in the shower room - and the aircon worked. Red lamps - it was like a bordello - and just gorgeous, in an 'over the top' sort of way. Breakfast was a bad as all the other reviewers have said - but have a light breakfast, and then enjoy lunch or dinner in any of the amazingly low priced restaurants. Yes - have to agree, the staff were a bit 'distant' - but all in all, worth a visit.

As I write this I am in the bedroom of our "apartment". We have a king size bed which consists of 2 twin beds along with a sofa that pulls out to make a full size sofa. Unfortunately the hotel staff has no sheets for the pull out sofa that is simply a single cot only for one person and we are four people. The decor I would describe as gaudy in red, black and gold, the lamps are red and I mean really red. If you are familiar with some of Edgar Allen Poe's writings then you can imagine. The room seems clean and smells only faintly of smoke. The receptionist that greeted us Irina was very nice and courteous, however the rest of the staff reminded me of "bouncers" at a bar and really not friendly at all. My husband speaks fluent Bulgarian and he was the first to complain about their behavior as rude. We thought about using the hotel restaurant but the menu was relatively inexpensive but looked bland. We could not use the pool either. Free Wi-fi that works pretty fast and free parking if you can find a spo,t with cameras to monitor the parking area.

Wow, the service at this hotel was one big disaster. Starting from the breakfast, same items served for 4 days. If you happen to wake up later than 8:30 and the hotel is busy, you can say bye bye to breakfast " no big deal as it was tasteless". Reception area.... yeah I'm left without comments, this guy at the reception chewed gum all day and had very bad manners " I guess he thought he was in some pub or something" and when asked for advice his answer was " naaaa" which means do what you want. Room was clean and towel too. Surely will not suggest.

We were at the hotel for a week and we had expected much better. The first impression was good as we were given a VIP room due to a baby we had with us and the cot couldn't fit in the other rooms. The setting was quite appalling as its based on the Victorian style plus that all the red lights inside the room, red carpets and all the reddish setting seem to make you think that you are in Amsterdam on red light holiday. Certainly not adequate for a family room.

TV was great as gad over 60 channels, but only 4 or 5 in english. Breakfast was terrible, the same five items for the whole week and many times not all are available as no delivery has been made. Waiters at breakfast stop guests from smoking but then when you get near the kitchen you see the cigarette smoke coming up from behind the door!!!

Receptionists speak english but their approach leaves much to be desired as they probably have never been taught that you smile to a person when speaking to him especially in a hotel environment. One common approach was that none of the staff ever smiles, it's sort of banned from inside the hotel. Well that's more or less the Bulgarian culture from what I noticed as you hardly ever see someone smiling!!!!!

The gym was most of the time locked and when I found it open, we were charged 10 euros for a simple workout whilst on the sheet it was marked 5 Levas (approx. 2.50 euros). We were told that the displayed price is for Bulgarian nationals whilst the other was for tourists, is this discrimination!!! Well you can beleive me that we never tried the gym nor attampted to pass next to it, no wonder it's always emoty and locked!!!!!!!!!!! I think it's a new form of marketing strategies....

The location of the hotel is very central and could be utilised much better for tourism purposes, however the standard needs to be raised so as to meet Europena criteria.