Europa Royale Bucharest

Contra:The hotel has a bit of a weird set up, where half of the rooms face an internal atrium. If you get one of these rooms you can hear everything going on in the lobby and the restaurant, regardless of whether you have your window open or not. Speaking of which, these internal rooms are very, very hot. There is a thermostat in the room but even if you have it set to the lowest setting (18 degrees) it feels like 25 degrees. I had the manager come up to see if it was broken and he said it was working perfectly and it was a lovely temperature, why didn't I like it? I am a person that runs cold- I am constantly wearing slippers and sweaters and throwing blankets on myself at home- if I'm saying it's hot, it's hotter than most people can take. I tried a different internal room and it was exactly the same and eventually moved to a room on the outside perimeter of the building, these rooms have a window to the outside with fresh air. You can hear a bit of traffic but it's much easier to sleep. They charge something like 40 euros more a night for these rooms, which seemed like a lot considering they are pretty similar, just quieter and not boiling hot. (by the way I had two colleagues staying at the same hotel and they had the same experience- they didn't change rooms and they barely slept all week due to the noise and heat). The internet does not work very well. There are connection issues- particularly with newer apple devices. I have an iPhone X and I was only able to get onto the internet 3 times in my 8 night stay. The manager told me this was a problem with my phone- even though I have never had an issue connecting to the internet anywhere with this phone and I connected to wifi no problem with other restaurants in the area as well as at the airport. I was able to connect with my laptop and iPad without issues. It was fairly fast (on average about 7-10 MBPS up and down) although it's not completely stable- occasionally there are dips so if you are doing a lot of video calls for work, keep that in mind. Housekeeping was mediocre. On the days when I tipped, the room was cleaned ok. On the days I forgot to tip they barely made the bed and threw the towels in a heap in the bathroom. They never replaced my dirty glasses all week and only gave me new water about 50% of the time. Sometimes the empty water bottles were left just sitting there (I left them out so they'd remember to replace them). My colleagues started to put the do not disturb sign on their doors during the day because they felt they could do a better job tidying up than the maids. The hallway lights are on a sensor and sometimes they don't turn on for quite a while so you are walking in the dark which is sort of weird. Breakfast was good- the only negative thing is that the waitresses are very aggressive with requesting you fill in the satisfaction survey so they will interrupt you while you are mid-bite and stand over you until you fill in the survey. Very odd.

Contra:The rooms facing the bar next door can be a little noisy, especially on weekend nights. The breakfast buffet is average at best.