City Avenue Hotel — Hotel in Sofia City

Worst hotel experience I have ever had - we paid to leave tired, sick, angry and with body pain

Good sides of the hotel: Very big and spacious but old and unclean rooms with bad lightning. Kind staff which is unfortunately not effective when it comes to resolving negative situations. We received a complimentary bottle of wine and a plate of some season fruits which was a nice gesture but absolutely not enough to make up for my ruined time with my partner who I see for a few days once every 1-2 months :) The breakfast is not bad but absolutely nothing special - again the bare minimum from a hotel which is about to be closed. Since the bathroom was leaking, we were transferred to an "upgraded room". Not sure how much this is on the positive side since when we requested this at reception, we were told "no promises" but after escalating to booking, they gladly did it :) The only difference with the not upgraded room is that it had a sofa and a couch chair instead of the two smaller chairs in the previous room. The TV was also bigger.

Bad sides: 4 days of not a single drop of warm water, hence the luxurious experience of showering with wet wipes and cold water. Bonus: getting sick and paying to go to a salon to have your hair washed. PS: There was an outage in that entire region for which the hotel is not responsible. However, the hotel is responsible for the fact that their heater was broken and they only called a technician on the next day which still did not resolve the issue because the heater did not have the capacity to cover the hotel's needs - basically whoever gets lucky, gets the water :) "Nothing we can do attitude from staff" Discrepancies between what hotel staff says and what Booking representatives say in terms of available options for addressing the issue. Most uncomfortable bed I have ever slept on and the accompanying back pain after. Unprofessional response when attempting to find a mutual agreement on adequate compensation and being called a "hand twister" when expressing my opinion of what I believe is a reasonable responsibility taking on the hotel end. Dangerous objects in the rooms - my boyfriend hurt his foot on that metal object on the ground. Photos of the hotel absolutely not as reality We were explained that the hotel is due for closing and this is why everything is in a bad condition, however, I don't think that this is the guests fault and they should be the one suffering. I hope this helps everyone to make their choice and not have the...

We arrived late on a Saturday evening and were very tired from traveling. Parking in front of the hotel, one of the staff came to ask if we were guests or if we wanted to park. We informed that we were guests and would not leave the car. Upon this answer the staff member said "okay" and went back inside. We had 3 large suitcases, a bit of help would have made a good impression, however we did not receive any offer of assistance. The impression of the reception area is very good and shows well maintained and modern, cosy furniture. Check in was smooth, we would stay at the top floor in one of the bigger rooms. The room itself was great, the view was blocked by other buildings across the street though. Very spacious room, the bed was very low and a bit soft, the interior modern and lighting was good.

However... There was a horrible smell in the bathroom, as if someone had passed away recently and had been left there for a few weeks. I tried to shower and we brushed our teeth as we were so tired and just wanted to go to bed. The next morning we immediately asked for a different room, which was a bit difficult as nothing was available at first. After discussion we agreed on a smaller room, which according to the staff we should have gotten in the first place. (typical sales trick). This room was not ready so we had to pack our bags again and leave them at the reception. Not much later the new room was available.

Room no2: the room was much smaller with a small window overlooking the garden. The bed was acceptable but nothing special. The lighting is terrible! It hurts your eyes and also one night lamp was broken. The bathroom didn't have a terrible smell. However, the shower would flood, leaving the entire bathroom blank and there was also no sliding door in the shower... TV was not connected to internet although it being a smart TV.

Breakfast was okay, the typical hotel style buffet. The breakfast area was well maintained.

At the end of our stay, during checkout, we mentioned all the problems and asked for a discount or another solution to our unsatisfied experience. We were told this is hotel and policy and we were not given any compensation. Instead we were charged for the 2 bottles of water and a beer we used from the minibar.

All in all it seems that the rooms are terrible and need major renovation. The hotel is paying much more attention to their public areas and should invest much more in...

This was by far one of, if not the worst stay in a hotel I have ever had.

The images of the rooms and the hotels posted on booking.com and Google are nothing like the reality.

When we first entered our “Superior” room, we were shocked by the fact that the walls, the ceiling and the carpet as well as the bed sheets inside the room were covered by huge yellow or black stains. Furthermore, there was a rather unpleasant smell inside the bathroom. We immediately went downstairs to the reception in order to complain. Unfortunately, we didn’t receive any apologies or empathy for the bad state of the room. The receptionist offered us two other rooms (rather unwillingly), which we then went to take a look at. Both had the exact same terrible problems (stains and horrible smell). One room which was supposed to be “cleaned”/“ready” actually had a used shower. I suppose somebody had just showered there a few moments earlier. Because of that we decided to stay in our initial room, as there was no point in switching, since the other ones were terrible as well.

The walls between the rooms of the hotel are extremely thin and fragile. We could clearly hear sounds every single night coming from neighboring rooms that we would have preferred not to notice.

The breakfast was very basic, nothing special. There was barely any variety whatsoever among the available foods.

The AC in our room did not work which was terrible considering it was 30+ degrees outside!

The WiFi was extremely slow inside the room. I had to use my own mobile data instead in order to watch a video!

The staff was, sadly so, very unhelpful in their approach. I saw the receptionists smoking in front of the hotel more often than actually sitting behind the reception desk. Nobody really seemed to care about the horrible states of the room, nor were they surprised by it. It seems as if we weren’t the first guests to be shocked.

In conclusion, I ask everyone who reads this text: Please, stay away from this hotel. I paid for the hotel shown in the pictures and literally got cheated (in my opinion), as what I paid for didn’t match the images at all.

I loved Sofia as a town, but this hotel made the trip a lot more stressful and a lot worse than it should have been.

The hotel manager should be ashamed,...