Hotel Mara — Hotel in Sinaia

Mara is a former four star resort, currently downgraded to a three star hotel. Some of the four star facilities, such as the spa, swimming pool, smart elevators, sumptuous hallways, glass roof, generous balconies, two level rooms located on the top floor are still in place and functional. ||And they are all included in the three star hotel prices. ||To benefit from a four stars resort facilities for the price of a three star hotel is a miracle in Sinaia, where the customers are usually charged like in a four star hotel, no matter if their hotel is three star only. ||However, don’t expect the resort to offer you full four star services! ||The restaurant needs urgently refurbishing, some of the walls require painting job and some of the furniture needs to be scrapped. ||We stayed in a top floor room. These rooms are organized on two levels, connected by stairs. The bed is located upstairs. Downstairs you have the bathroom and a living room with flat TV set and sofa and a large balcony offering mountains view. Our friends refused the top deck room, as they wanted the toilet to be at the same level with the bed. Anyway, we were happy about the large room as it was very well lighted, due to the roof windows. Next day in the morning some of this happiness disappeared as there was no remote control in the room to activate the window blinds of the roof windows and no other way to reach them. So, the sunrise woke us up a bit too early for a Sunday morning (which was not a tragedy, actually). ||The balcony view was beautiful yet the balcony was in urgent need of maintenance as well. Some chairs and a table on the balcony would've made our stay more pleasant. ||The breakfast was more than decent, with various options and good coffee. Good selection of teas and herbal infusions, as well. ||The swimming pool was lovely – about half of it located under a glass shelter (indoor pool) and the other half outside (outdoor pool). The water was warm – about 26-28˚C both inside and outside the glass shelter (in April, the average temperature in Sinaia is below 15˚C). ||Generous parking lot. ||All in all, it was a pleasant stay in this quiet resort, located a bit far from Sinaia...

I really hate writing this review but there's some things i'd like people that are planning to stay here to know. Here's what I disliked about this hotel: We got a duplex on the 8th (last) floor. Duplexes have two floors basically and stairs. On the first floor the weather was perfect and relatively controllable while on the second one it was terribly hot to a point where nobody wanted to sleep there. Also in the night, the wind was so strong it made the windows shake. We couldn't sleep at all. The reception, pool and rooms were overall very luxurious, apart from some little things for example the doors looked like they were forced or shot at some point and the bathtub looked infected (i'll show pictures). Now i'd like to point out that, since we came on a 3-day weekend, the hotel was full. I mean thousands of people, so you can imagine the horror and challenge it was to go to the pool or restaurant or even try to park. The service was alright (I didn't get to interact with the staff too much but they were pleasant and friendly), but the pool receptionist stood out. He made us all uncomfortable with weird jokes (at least im hoping he was only joking). On the other hand, the pool was quite enjoyable. The exterior was heated as well as the interior and the hot tub/jacuzzi was ok. At least until our last night there, the water in it started to get so hot, no one could stay in it. We went to announce it to the pool receptionist and he said he turned the heat up just because he "felt like it". Luckily we managed to solve it but still. The people that stayed next to us were extremely loud, shouting 24/7. This is all i'd like to point...

Not sure this hotel deserves 3 stars as I've stayed in hostels with better service and facilities. Pros: beds are clean rooms are spacious there's a (albeit tiny) indoor swimming pool. interesting view from the balcony, depending on where the room is. Cons: floors look like the set of House of 1000 corpses so definitely bring slippers (they don't offer them anymore) a lot of facilities are out of order or plain broken such as coffee machines from the breakfast area, elevators, some doors, some lights the bathroom has a very loud fan that cannot be turned off without turning the light off. You can hear it from the hallway with both doors closed. the heating in the rooms is preset to about 26°C and there is no way to turn it down. the ventilation system goes throughout the building so if someone is smoking in their room the smell is sent to your room as well there is always noise during the night (light sleepers beware) the bathtub cannot be used for baths, only showers. the advertised massage therapist is available during odd hours only on some weekdays. there's apparently a "tax for occupying the room" which you pay after you leave your room. It's not expensive but it requires you to have the smallest romanian coins (1 ban) on you. It's plain weird, because I thought the price of the room included you actually occupying the room.

The hotel looks outdated but this is more a matter of preference. Overall it has become worse than it was 2 years ago. There are less services included in the price and there are plenty of better...