I stayed for 7 nights on business at the end of April / early May 2009 and was pleasantly surprised by the HoJo. This was my first visit to the country and I felt very comfortable with the location and quality of service provided; particularly having a non-smoking floor, which is hard to find in all of Bucharest. My lungs are still detoxing from the trip as I type.

The location is excellent, which came in helpful on my day off walking around the city and looking at its various tourist attractions and monuments. Practically everything is within walking distance (except for the larger grocery stores, which are short cab rides away), which is very helpful in this bustling city of traffic jams.

The WiFi is adequate and perfectly capable of maintaining Skype calls, which is a must for my travel. One small problem is that the Swisscom service provider in-room is banned on several spam IP lists, which makes it necessary to use an outside mail account like Googlemail or .mac in order to get your messages through to some recipients.

Few small problems with the hotel: 1) the breakfast buffet is extremely boring. My client had prepaid for the room with breakfast at a negotiated rate, so I felt obligated to take advantage of it it each morning. The -same- combinations of bland corporate buffet scrambled eggs and bacon, each morning for 7 days. When I asked one of the wait staff why they did not cycle through other foods or serve something Romanian, he replied "this is what Americans want." I suppose that for the typical American staying at a Howard Johnson's branded hotel, he is absolutely correct.

I recommend that if breakfast is not prepaid, you should wander out to any of the dozens of nearby cafes for a coffee and light breakfast -- far better option in my opinion. The same is true for dinner (though I never ate dinner at the hotel) -- tons of cafes and nice restaurants all within walking distance, though sometimes a little hard to find on the winding streets.

2) We had an unusual occurrence at checkout, which negatively impacted my overall impression of the hotel.

For background information, sometime in the middle of my stay I noticed in my minibar that one mineral water had become 2 mineral waters, which was odd because I had not consumed anything from the minibar.

My total hotel bill was prepaid by my client, so at checkout, the person working the front desk tried to wave me off, saying that it was "all taken care of," but since I was concerned about being falsely charged for the phantom mineral water, I requested a copy of the bill. To my shock, they had charged me for practically everything in the minibar each day -- cokes, wines, champagne, the overpriced nuts... you name it.

The hotel manager seemed shocked when I went through the list and crossed off 90% of the items that were added to my bill and circled the few that were correct. With the help of my client's assistant who had by then arrived to take me to the airport, we cleared up the matter and I received a final bill that was (to my recollection) accurate. But what if I hadn't requested a copy of the invoice?

At first I thought that it was a simple mistake... but so many items and each day? To my knowledge, they only checked the minibar once (thus adding the water bottle). My client, who uses the hotel frequently for out of town guests, suspects that it may have been intentional and plans and is investigate the bills of past guests with their accounting department.

Just a little reminder that despite the American Howard Johnson's facade, you're still in Romania and the rules of travel in a developing country still apply.

I stayed there for a night and to be honest would not mind to stay there again. it Is a great business hotel. Centrally located and with excellent service. I was even upgraded during my stay there and I stayed in an apartment. It was great and u could find everything u could ask for.. I was on the 15th floor and had a great view of the whole town.
The breakfast was very good also.
Would definitely go back and would recommend it to everyone.

Great hotel in the centre of town, 20 min cab ride from the airport. Close to shopping, restaurants, metro and museums. Great base to explore Bucharest. 20 euro for breakfast not worth it, go to one of the many local restaurants. No complaints.

clean, comfortable, quiet, and business like and I would recommend it. Does what a business hotel should.