Hotel Alexis — Hotel in Cluj Metropolitan Area

Travelling from South Africa, this was our 2nd time in Cluj-Napoca, Romania for Untold Music Festival, this trip was postponed from 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic but Hotel Alexis held our booking for almost 3 years :-)

Alex & Priscilla are absolutely amazing, we definitely received 5 star treatment from this fine 3 star hotel, even before we got there, communication, kindness & hospitality was felt from afar over the 3 years & this will be the only hotel we'll consider in this area.

Upon check in, we arrived many hours before check in time but received the warmest welcome from Alex & Priscilla who made us feel extremely comfortable upon entry, our luggage was stored for us & we were given a map along with some extremely useful tips to start exploring the beautiful surrounds of Hotel Alexis.

Most of the attractions, be it breathtaking modern & ancient architecture, restaurants, coffee shops, clothing shops, convenience stores, etc. were mostly short & comfortable walking distances or a very short & affordable Uber Ride.

We took all the advice of Hotel Alexis (Alex & Priscilla) & soon explored visited the most beautiful buildings & breathtaking views of the city. The many incredible churches, magnificent botanical gardens, the enchanting old town, central park & nearby piazza which is always so festive & full of tourists & fine bars & restaurants.

The hotel is extremely comfortable with 24/7 reception available, an extremely reasonably priced bar & even if you don't take the breakfast option, you are welcome to as much coffee & tea as you like. Upon reaching the room, a customized welcome card with our names printed on it awaited us with little note saying that we must enjoy the mini bar filled with snacks, soft drinks & wine as it was completely free & compliments of the hotel.

We stayed for 6 nights & simply could not complain about anything about the hotel, Alex & Priscilla were so welcoming & took such good care of us, everything you need is either at hotel or within walking distance & with Uber always 2 minutes away or Bolt Food & the most affordable hotel bar ever, this was the perfect spot for us to attend Untold Music Festival :-)

Apologies for not sharing photos as it was disallowed for some reason, I tried to include because most of the places in the pics were recommendations from Hotel Alexis, including the 1 Indian Restaurant called Gandhi, it was so good, thank you Alex for that suggestion :-)

Thanks again Alex & Priscilla for your amazing hospitality, we definitely arrived as guests & left as friends :-) Until...

Basic hotel - but I was double charged - stay away!!!

Liked · Location is within walking distance from the centre and old town, but it is still a 20-25 minute walk. Clean room. Average breakfast. The deep fried zucchini is very good. I had a room towards the yard and it was very quiet (both towards the outside as well as towards the hallway).

Disliked · The hotel interior feels sterile and not cozy. Part of the reason for this is that the lighting in the hotel throughout is cold white and in the rooms the lights are much too strong (except bathroom, where it is not strong enough). Suggestion to management: hire a lighting consultant for advice how to change to warmer light to make the lighting work to the hotel's advantage. Also add a few plants here and there to reduce the sterile feeling. I missed fresh bread for breakfast, only toast was available. The music during breakfast was extremely cheesy, elevator style (maybe suitable for pensioners?).

However, the real problem was that I was double charged for a one night stay. I was getting suspicious about payment issues already when the owner asked me if I wanted to change the credit card that I had used for the reservation through Booking.com. (Was it to cancel my original reservation in order to avoid paying commission to Booking.com?) Since the credit card reservation for the second night was never cancelled even though we decided to stay only one night, I had to write and complain. Despite writing four e-mails about it (of course using the correct e-mail adress) I never got a response from the hotel.

Finally I turned to my bank showing them the proof and the bank swiftly reimbursed me for the...

Liked · Location is within walking distance from the centre and old town, but it is still a 20-25 minute walk. Clean room. Average breakfast. The deep fried zucchini is very good. I had a room towards the yard and it was very quiet (both towards the outside as well as towards the hallway).||||Disliked · The hotel interior feels sterile and not cozy. Part of the reason for this is that the lighting in the hotel throughout is cold white and in the rooms the lights are much too strong (except bathroom, where it is not strong enough). Suggestion to management: hire a lighting consultant for advice how to change to warmer light to make the lighting work to the hotel's advantage. Also add a few plants here and there to reduce the sterile feeling. I missed fresh bread for breakfast, only toast was available. The music during breakfast was extremely cheesy, elevator style (maybe suitable for pensioners?).||||However, the real problem was that I was double charged for a one night stay. I was getting suspicious about payment issues already when the owner asked me if I wanted to change the credit card that I had used for the reservation through another website. (Was it to cancel my original reservation in order to avoid paying commission to them?) Since the credit card reservation for the second night was never cancelled even though we decided to stay only one night, I had to write and complain. Despite writing four e-mails about it (of course using the correct e-mail adress) I never got a response from the hotel.||||Finally I turned to my bank showing them the proof and the bank swiftly reimbursed me for the...