Moreni Hotel rating by the 5D Sensograph of placescases.com: 3.8 out of 5.

September  2020

 

Seen         

Felt             

Heard           

Smelled     

Tasted              

 

Reading time: 7 min

You don’t have 7 min to read? Then try the fast mode, go only through bold and colored text- 5 min

You don’t have 5 min.? See the short movie further below:  4:38  min.

Hotel Moreni is brand new. It opened in December 2019, shortly before the big closure due to Covid-19. I assume that this has quite destabilized the start of the place. I hope that things will go smoothly for them to develop its potential.

We wanted to stay just one night to climb Cherni Vrah  (Black Peak). The hotel is close to the upper station of the gondola or as it is named Simeonovski lift. They offered us a promotion, you pay 1, you get 2 and we agreed on a second night. This caused consumption on our part in the restaurant, which has the prices of expensive restaurants in Sofia. Probably that made sense of the promotion, but not our stay. Read below why I think so.

See ….

…. The hotel has an elegant style, its design creates a feeling of coziness, emphasizing the elements of wood, stone, natural textiles, imitations of goat fur, white carpet. The decorations are from hunting trophies, old skis, murals. I’m afraid that in time this white carpet will look pretty bad – I hope they’ll manage to maintain it;

…. Gondola cabin in front of the hotel, ski lift chairs in front of the restaurant against the background of photo wallpaper with ski slopes – very nice and fun spots for Instagram;

…. Great view from the apartments on the 3rd floor to the Balkan Mountains. There is a similar view from the lobby bar and the restaurant;

…. Greasy, uncleaned tables at the lobby bar. This problem was not a one-off, but a permanent one. Despite of the nice lobby design, the dirty tables spoil the impression 

Feel ….

…. Like the staff does not care how the customers feel.

Almost all employees did not wear masks. Some of the waiter had one, but it did not cover the nose and the other kept on his beard. 1 heart is immediately dropping from the assessment, without any remorse.

…. Complete lack of food organization at the buffet breakfast. The latter was nothing special. Moreover, the most desirable by the guests meals were finished out fast and one had to beg to the kitchen for them to be reloaded at the buffet. There were queues in front of the buffet table, although the guests in the hotel were not so many.

Read about the a la carte dinner at the restaurant further below.

… . Since the hotel is declared as a SPA hotel and it even offers a SPA apartment, I warn that there is no pool, but only a larger Jacuzzi, in which approx. 6-7 people can fit.

Hear ….

…. The typical music for the hotels – arrangements of hits in a slow rhythm, pleasant and relaxing;

…. Complete silence in the evening, the mountain kept our sleep.

Movie watching time: 4:38 min.

Smell ….

…. The beef sausage had good spices and was delicious;

…. The pork ribs smelled like a refrigerator and weren’t good at all.

Taste ….

…. Overall, the food was not good, especially for the prices they put on it.

For the buffet breakfast, I already said, it was nothing special. Most of the items were semi-products, only the eggs were fully cooked on the spot. The honey was in packages, chocolate spread was missing for the croissants, and even croissants were hard to come by because they were running out and they were still not reloaded on time.

The first night all the dishes from the a la caret dinner were under criticism. Only the hummus was delicious.

…. The risotto with chicken was rather boiled rice – neither the rice was a variety for the risotto, nor the cooking technology was followed;

…. In no case do not order poke with jasmine rice, salmon, octopus, which the waiter recommended to me. It sounded good as a description. I’ve eaten one other times, but it was the nastiest poke I’ve ever tasted. It was fridge cold, the rice seemed to be cooked last week and had nothing to do with typical Asian jasmine rice. The octopus seemed to be from last month, the salmon was hard to find. I told the waiter that I didn’t like it, I wanted to order something else, but he pretended not to hear me and passed.

It is an old trick of the declining Balkantourist, the state monopoly from the socialist times of Bulgaria, to recommend old food to customers to minimize its write-off. In a hotel with claims for high quality of service like Moreni, I never expected such an absurd from the last century.

The next day, at dinner, we felt like there was another cook. Everything was relatively tasty and was arranged differently on the plates. However, the waiter had his boner again. He explained that there is no tripe soup, but they would  cook one for us. How one can cook tripe soup for 10 minutes, if it has not been frozen. This was probably true of both chicken and fish soup.

The coffee is from a combined machine and was bad. I went to order from the bar, it costed EUR 2 and more. I think this is the most expensive espresso in Sofia and the surrounding area. I suspect that the price is such as to get rid of the tourists coming down from Cherni Vrah, to prevent crowding in the lobby bar. I couldn’t think of anything else as a reason.

How to get to there?

Don’t worry about getting to Hotel Moreni on Vitosha, Sofia. Just use the Google map here by clicking on the red pin of its location and then select directions:

Hotel Moreni, Vitosha mountain, Sofia, Bulgaria

A: Gondola Last station on Vitosha mountain

T: +359 878 879 888

Е: reservation@hotelmoreni.bg

If you need to rent a car for your trip, you can book it here in the box of the largest booking platform.

How to book your stay?

If you are not from Sofia and you are already planning to stay at hotel Moreni,  I recommend that you book your stay right here. For your convenience, I have added a booking.com box, which refers directly to their site. I guarantee you’re going to use all your genius discounts and privileges they would offer to you. Just enter the dates of your trip, then hit the Search button and voila. In addition, booking.com are doing their best to make sure that your expectations as a customer are fulfilled. I’ve described an example about the latter in  my story about our stay in Shangri-La hotel in Singapore .

Booking.com

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Do you ever wonder how some places differ so much from others in service, environment, as an overall experience? This means you are also interested like me in the topic of The Experience Economy by Pine and Gilmore. I constantly add to my collection reviews about those of them, which practice its principles, regardless of intentionally or accidentally. If you are curious to understand which are they, explore category The Experience Economy.