Expo Hotel Sofia - Free Airport Shuttle

The hotel is well‑located, parking is available, breakfast is decent, it’s easy to find, the front‑desk staff are friendly, the room is spacious, and the price is reasonable. The smell in the bathroom is awful – cigarette scent that makes you want to vomit. The hot water doesn’t work; there’s no flow, so I took a shower with cold water.

The airport transfer is free in both directions.

They advertised “No credit card needed,” but the front desk asked for a card for a deposit—this was the first time I’d been asked for a deposit at this hotel. I had booked a king‑size bed on an upper floor, yet I was given a second‑floor room with two separate beds and an empty minibar. After speaking to the receptionist, they moved me to a room on the 7th floor that had a minibar. In the first room the electrical outlet was outside the wall and the ceiling in the bathroom was flooded. In the second room the bathtub tap was broken and the door frame had been patched with adhesive tape (see attached photos).

“Leider ein sehr enttäuschender Aufenthalt: starker chemischer Geruch im gesamten Hotel, keine Möglichkeit, die Zimmer zu”

The location was good. Unfortunately, our stay was very disappointing. Throughout the hotel and especially in the rooms, there was an extremely strong chemical and unpleasant odor. Before our room, it seemed that a strong cleaning or drain cleaner had been used, and that smell was clearly noticeable in the room. Because the rooms had no windows, the odor could hardly escape. We were kindly offered another room, but it had the same strong smell. We couldn’t sleep properly and had to move to another hotel in the middle of the night. The elevators also made very loud clanking and snapping noises while operating, giving an extremely unsafe impression. The lady at the reception was friendly and tried her best, but she couldn’t give us clear answers to our questions. It was especially confusing that she didn’t know which cleaning agents were used or whether the strong fumes were harmless. Additionally, communication about the refund has been unprofessional and contradictory to this day. We were given multiple conflicting statements about when the manager would come and when the refund would be processed. Even after providing our IBAN, we have not received our money. The hotel entrance itself is nicely designed, but overall we cannot recommend the hotel because of the strong odor, the lack of ventilation, and the resulting sleep problems.

The location is good and the rooms are spacious, and the staff are helpful. I was moved to a new room after the first one had a faulty shower. The second room had many minor defects that could have been avoided with better communication between housekeeping and maintenance—issues like a broken toilet seat, a tap on the sink, a faulty phone line in the bathroom, lighting problems, a thermostat that didn’t work, and no tissues. During my three‑day stay, my towels were only changed once. There was no spare small towel for the floor when the shower screen was too small and the rubber was leaking. Water bottles weren’t refilled, the room wasn’t cleaned, trash bins weren’t emptied, and the bed sheets were never changed.