Well I posted in this thread 4 years ago and finally made it to Albania after covid.

Unfortunately there was only one date which worked for me to stay here, and I could only confirm about 2 weeks in advance. While I would have preferred to pay around €60 like mentioned by others, the quoted rate of €88 was still acceptable so I booked a twin room on advance purchase, as rooms with 1 bed were more expensive. My card was not charged in advance.

I first arrived at 1300 and my diamond status was noted but they were unable to check me in early, as apparently some IT system was "down" so they could not see which rooms had been completed by housekeeping. Front desk tried to phone housekeeping but (unsurprisingly) nobody answered. Yet, another guest arriving a few minutes before me was able to check in. I returned at 1700 and was asked if I needed 2 beds. Answering in the negative, they changed my room to a King, and also "upgraded" to a room with a balcony. The balcony is narrow with no furniture and overlooks the area under construction behind the hotel, so is not a useful space.

The room itself was spacious, and the shower cubicle is very large, slippers are provided (generally not in HGIs). The air con control unit did not seem to do anything. Wifi is an unsecured network and was sometimes slow. The desk arrangement could be improved: the bit with a hole for a chair and the sockets is occupied by the kettle tray, and there isn't really anywhere else the kettle can go except in front of the TV, but I was already using that area for unpacking.

Breakfast was from 0630-1000 and the buffet comprised more local dishes, which was more interesting than the usual items in western Europe.

As others have mentioned you can walk to the city centre in about 30 minutes, but I was already doing enough walking in temperatures reaching 30°C (high 80s °F), so I had to investigate Tirana's public transport system. It is strange but generally works. There is a circular bus route which runs past the hotel, identifiable by the front destination board which displays TIRANA E RE (I think meaning New Tirana), and the vehicles are Berlin BVG bendy buses painted white outside, but still with German notices everywhere ("entry only with valid ticket", "press bell to request stop" etc), officially route 13 but the number is not shown on the bus. There is no timetable, it travels the loop in both directions continuously from around 0500 to 2300. I never had to wait more than 6 minutes. In the anticlockwise direction the stops are about 3 minutes walk either side of the hotel, and in the clockwise direction there is a stop 1 minute across the river. The southern part of the loop takes 25 minutes between the hotel and city centre, while the northern part of the loop can take 30 minutes to 1 hour, because it is not the most direct. The northern part of the loop also serves the International bus station in both directions, and the Domestic North and South bus station in the anticlockwise direction only.

A faster way to get to the city centre is to walk along the side road to the west of the hotel, to the Habitat Hotel on Rruga e Kavajės. From all buses travel on that road to the western side of the innermost ring in 10-15 minutes, routes 3, 12 and 15/7 but not 10, I didn't work out how to identify route 10 though. I will make a map soon for my future reference and upload it here. All city buses are 40 lekė, get on board and a conductor will come round to sell you a ticket, cash only but they do give change even for 2000 lekė notes. They don't always remember who hasn't paid yet, but there are roving inspectors to double check everyone has a ticket!

I mentioned above that a bugbear of mine is when non-eurozone hotels quote in euros and then scam you on the exchange rate. The previous posts indicated this to not be the case, however upon studying my invoice after departing, I noticed that they had used a rate of €1 to 110 lekė when the real rate was about 1 to 105, therefore I was scammed by about €5. The front desk did say they would have accepted euro banknotes directly, so I might try that if I stay here in the future.