Hotel Rotasar

Main reason for visiting Sofia was a concert at the arena, so I stayed at that end of town, like I did last time I visited. Last time (2014), I stayed at the Park Hotel Moskva, but I didn't know if they'd fixed the lift that made me think the cable was going to give out every time I used it and I couldn't face that again, so I looked for somewhere else. The RotasaR was cheap and small (so unlikely to have a dysfunctional lift), so I booked it. It also had a 24 hour reception, which I needed after a chronically delayed flight, and was easy to get to as it was on a main bus route between the airport and city centre and Joliot-Curie metro station isn't far either. Initial impressions were good. The rooms are spacious, with nice old-fashioned furniture. There is no lift, dysfunctional or otherwise, but with a room on the first floor, that didn't matter. The bedroom windows have mosquito nets, much-needed in Sofia, although not the bathroom windows for some reason, so I couldn't open the bathroom window to let the humidity out. There was also a fridge in the room, which was useful. However, the problems soon became apparent. Firstly, I thought the point of having a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor was to let water drain out? Whereas in this one, a pool of water slowly expanded around the drain after showering: easy enough to avoid after a normal shower, but it backed up horrendously after washing my hair or shaving my legs. The shower itself was powerful, the way I like it, but the wall bracket couldn't cope with it. On the first morning, I did my usual trick of pointing the shower at the tiles and fiddling with the taps to avoid getting scalded or frozen while searching for the optimum temperature. However, the bracket couldn't hold the shower in place: it spun round 90 degrees. Because the shower curtain didn't stretch the full length of the bath (even though the rail did), this resulted in a large section of the wall and floor and all the dry clothes I'd put out to wear after showering getting soaked. Then there was the odd state of affairs whereby the room had a kettle, but no tea, coffee or cups. Mystified, I went down to reception to ask what was going on. The receptionist seemed put out and told me that it was a 2 star hotel, not a 3 star hotel. So then I had to go out and buy some tea and a mug, just to use the kettle. Those weren't the only fails, either. I heard someone complaining at reception that the battery for the safe in his room was flat and could he have another battery? Not sure if the safe battery in my room was flat, because in order to set a code on the safe, you had to press a red button inside the safe at hinge height and I couldn't find a button of any colour where the instructions said it was, so I couldn't use it either. The wifi cut out one evening when I had work to do. When I went down to reception to ask what was wrong with the wifi, another woman was in reception because her room