Green Cube Hostel — Hotel in Sofia City

THE WORST HOSTEL EXPERIENCE in my 10 y of travelling. If I could give less than 1 I would.

I’ve paid for 3 nights and while I was out of the hostel all day (before the third night) MY BED WAS CLEARED AND MY STUFF GONE. Luckily I’ve had my passport and money with me because I didn’t feel safe in this place. Why I didn’t feel safe: cleaner leaving the door to the room open, opening the curtain of your bed when you’re not there supposedly „to not make a mistake while cleaning the room” (what an irony…!), no lockers, people stealing food from the fridge which always makes you feel uneasy, random people sleeping on the couch by the reception at night (I suggest reading other comments about it). How it unfolded: I came back to the hostel in the evening to find zero of my things and new bed sheets on my bed. The receptionist didn’t have a clue what’s happened (even though it was her who made arrangements for the cleaners about the check outs. How could the cleaner think „this seems right - only about 6 kg of stuff (underwear, shoes, jacket, cosmetics, charger, towel, clothes etc) left behind - surely this person left and no need to check twice with the reception!”. Like I’ve said, reception completely didn’t know what happened with my things, she checked the room - surprise, surprise - nothing there! She kept on saying to me that the cleaner is gone and to calm down - oh cheers, I only have my flight tomorrow and you’ve lost, threw away my things. I finally made her call the cleaner and we found out she put my things in a bag and put it in the storage room. I was fuming. Obviously I wanted to leave this place but asked them for the money back. I told her to call the manager for me and he agreed to do it. The receptionist wanted to give me the cash, even though I paid by card. I didn’t want Bulgarian money as I was leaving Sofia on the next day. Boy didn’t I regret not taking the cash? The woman said that in an hour there’s a change of the shifts and her colleague will do the refund on the PDQ machine. Long story short - Cristo the other guy said he can give me the money back only for the last night, I’m free to pack up and go and I should be happy he’s not charging me for late check out… the audacity! Also he’s only a receptionist but as he said „he’s authorised to make decisions”, weird the woman receptionist didn’t call him earlier but the actual manger? When I told Criso that the man on the phone told the woman receptionist to refund me he said he won’t do it because I try to take advantage of them - lol. Yeah I was ecstatic with joy to have the hostel lose my belongings, go through my underwear etc so I could extort 20£ from them! Ah the best was when the man said to me „we found your things after 10 minutes, it’s an honest mistake and you’re blowing it out of proportions”. I mean… I’ve no words… 🥴 An honest mistake is more like „we’ve misplaced your towel” not „we’ve cleared your bed, even though your check out was meant to be tomorrow, we didn’t try to contact you in any way and to check and have pointed out that yeah it was an error but on our side and like that’s not enough that we’ve cleared your stuff we also don’t know where it is 🤡”. Once I came back home I contacted booking com, they were very understanding and apologised on behalf of this hostel and reimbursed me because the Green Cube didn’t even bother to reply to them and try to amend things.

There’s people living in this hostel, stealing your food from the kitchen happens, the fridges in both kitchens are disgusting. Mould, dirt, filth. When all my drama was happening I’ve said that to the receptionist that I’ve not seen a place that was ran in a worse way and that the fridge is a perfect example of it. Zero management to manage the hostel, the staff and the guests. The woman was telling me that the state of the fridge is guest’s fault. Nah, I’ve been in the hostels with 7 floors x 20 rooms and the kitchens and fridges were spotless. You in Green Cube just don’t know how to run the cleaning staff, let alone the reception and check ins...

This was my first visit to the Green Cube capsule hotel but not my first visit in Sofia. My biggest concern, when I booked, was about the place smelling of cigarettes, as this is really still an issue in most places here in Sofia. Many places are still bugged by room smokers even when the place advertises as non-smoking. This leads to rooms smelling of cigarettes even after they have changed all the sheets. I mentioned my sensitivity to this issue on Booking.com and received a reply pretty soon after. I was reassured that things would be ok. In the end, it was mostly ok, but because of the size of the rooms, in the first room I was in, I could still smell cigarette smells from people's clothes. I arrived late at night, but someone was there to check me in (there is someone 24 hours a day). They gave me a fresh big towel, which was very nice as I didn't have one! I headed for the showers (there were 4 showers and three toilets for the 12+ rooms of 4 people each, so not many). The showers were quite clean, and for being the end of the day, I was gladly surprised by it. The water was hot and there was a strong flow. Liquid soap was available too, that was great. Refreshed from the shower I went to my room. It opened with a key card. I easily identified my bed as they are all marked with letters (I asked at the reception if it would be possible to ask which room and bed to be placed in when booking, but the receptionist said it would not, except for the preference of a lower or upper bed). As you can see in the picture, the beds seem fully enclosed. The reality of it is that if the adjacent beds have their light on, some light comes in from the sides. Also, regrettably, there is no noise cancellation whatsoever, not even between different rooms. The separation is so paper thin, that I could hear the sheets moving when the person in the other room was moving. If you are sensitive to noise, you'll have to use some ear plugs (if that works for you). Because of this, as two people in the room kept snoring strongly, and one person's phone kept popping up with alerts, I could barely sleep. I tried multiple times to alert these people, but by 2 am I couldn't stand it anymore and went downstairs to ask to be moved to a new place. Thankfully, and despite the hostel being pretty full, the receptionist was graceful and found me a place in one of the rooms downstairs in front of the reception, rooms that are normally reserved for long-staying customers. The experience improved even though one person in the room did some snoring. In both rooms I also had to open the window because the rooms are small, and with 4 people breathing in them, plus all the odors from shoes and clothes...you get the idea! Once the window was open and fresh air came in (Month of November, night temperatures near 0), it was easier, and the noise from the street was not really a bother. But I wondered what the situation would be in summer when temperatures reach the 30s+. I can't remember seeing an air-conditioner. The beds were firm, the pillows super soft. The sheets and blanket very clean. By morning at 8 am I wasn't feeling great, but I had definitely gotten some more sleep. I went to the toilets around 8:30, but they had not been cleaned yet, so they were in a pretty miserable state. I saw the cleaners coming in around 9:30 am, a bit too late for my taste. Before leaving I had a few questions for the new receptionist. One was about disability access. Apparently they have a room with a stand alone toilet, but at the moment (November 2024), it is not available because there is no ramp at the entrance. They will announce it when the ramp is built. The receptionist then gracefully helped me out finding some shops. So if my experience of the rooms wasn't particularly good, my experience of the receptionists was very good. The place as a whole was also very stylish, and that was a nice thing. My overall rating is average because of the poor quality of sleep I got, but if you are a small group of 4, you're more likely to have a...

Hostel is good but staff here is horrible and extremely rude. The front desk guy named Bobby is one of the most horrible, nastiest snd rudest persons i have seen in any of the establishments. He refused to make a reservation for me as i had already talked to someone on whatsapp and they confirmed a room for me. Upon coming to the hostel he tells me that we are fully booked (which was a complete lie) and even her colleague (a lady) tried to defend him and said the same thing. They told me that only bed is available is in the girls's dormitory and i said iran fine you can book the room for me. Bobby refused and said he cannot and you can go to a nearby hotel called hostel mostel. Disgusting attitude and all lies and her colleague is supporting him in that. This disrespectful disgusting rude staff named bobby should not be working there as he has no respect/regards for the guests. When he kept lieing and refused to give me the room (even though i said i will pay you can give me the open bed in the girls dormitory) i checked on booking.com and to my surprise there were few beds available and i booked it immediately. When i told him that i have booked a room on booking.com he then gave me the card to enter the room after waiting and begging him for half hour to make the booking for me. Horrible Horrible Liar this Bobby is. Despicable behavior from this rude person. I would have given this place 1 star because of this BOBBY but 2 stars i am giving because room was good bed was comfortable and it was clean. and one more thing when he gave me the card to enter the room i saw NO GIRLS in the room and there were 2 more beds available i wish i could speak to the manager/supervisor about this behavior. Book this place but keep this in mind that this staff named Bobby is the rudest most disrespectful person EVER!! Another thing that bathroom is quite dirty, i don't think they clean...