NewbieRunner

I recently had a three-night stay in a King Room with Balcony at this property which opened about a year ago. No Diamond recognition whatsoever but mostly young staff are very pleasant and speak good English.


Hilton Garden Inn Tirana


Hotel lobby / reception

My flight from Vienna arrived shortly before midnight. Passport control was quick and I found two ATM machines in the baggage hall. I went to the AHA taxi kiosk just outside the exit which had been recommended by the airport’s website and a man pointed at one of the yellow taxis. I had completed an online reservation request but had not received any confirmation and it didn’t seem to matter. A fixed price from the airport to the city is 2,500 Lek (a little over 20€ though the driver asked for 21€ when I asked about paying in Euro) and 1,500 Lek from the city to the airport.

I was assigned Room 704 with a small balcony. Everything was sparkling clean though water pressure for the shower could have been better. No dressing gown but slippers were provided.


King room with balcony


King room with balcony


Bathroom


View from the balcony


View from the balcony at night


Floor plan

Breakfast was about the usual HGI standard in Europe with cooked-to-order omelette, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, fresh fruit, etc. In mid-September it was quite pleasant to sit outside if you didn’t mind occasional smokers.


Dining room


Dining room

The hotel is about 1.5 miles from the centre of Tirana facing Lana River which at the time of year was no more than a small stream. To go to the centre you could just follow the river choosing whichever side with more shade or walk along Rruga Myslym Shyri one block away and parallel to the river. This is a pleasant tree-lined street with many restaurants and shops. There are buses to and from the city centre (the street in front of the hotel is oneway so in order to go into the city you have to walk a few hundred metres and cross a bridge) but I never used them.


Rruga Myslym Shyri

As in other HGIs there is a small snack shop in the lobby. The restaurant is only open for breakfast but there is a reasonably priced room service menu. 100ALL (Albanian Lek) is about US $0.90.





Room service menu

There is a guest laundry which only has washing machines and no dryers. The use of the machines is free but they looked much older than the hotel and I did not use them. I was pleasantly impressed by the selection of TV channels.



All in all the hotel is an excellent value. A prepaid stay with breakfast for 3 nights or more starts at under 54€ per night including tax. Tirana is interesting but more historic and scenic places including four UNESCO World Heritage Sites are outside the capital. I hope to return and will certainly spend a few nights at this property.

kkong42

I stayed at this hotel last weekend.

Booked a King Room with Balcony, pre-upgraded as Diamond to King Family Room with balcony (809, same floor plan as 709 shown in photo above).

The bedroom is rather small, there's not much space between sides of bed and the walls.

But the separate seating area and (unnecessarily large) balcony make up for it.

I paid under €50 per night for 2 nights on an advance purchase rate.

There is a Conad supermarket - and some bars/restaurants - just round the corner (turn right on exiting the hotel and walk though the petrol station).

:D!

Thanks for the review. I wanted to stay last September but it hadn't opened yet plus I am wary of staying in any property within the first few months of opening.

I am bit confused as you say there was no Diamond recognition and your rate included breakfast. Do they not give free breakfast to Diamonds?

Is room service an HGI standard? Prices seem cheap but probably quite expensive for Albania?



I hate this stupid practice of advertising prices in euros when the country's currency is not the euro nor related to the euro. I assume the hotel actually charged you in ALL, but did they give you an accurate exchange rate? Do they accept euros (including coins) at the front desk at a fair rate, or do they treat it as an exchange transaction attracting commission?

(For reference, HRK is unofficially pegged to the euro, and I couldn't work out what euro exchange rate DT Zagreb used since they billed in HRK on my GBP card, but it appeared to be *better* than the interbank rate; meanwhile DT Minsk adds a 6% markup when converting their USD rates to BYN.)

You mentioned the taxi driver wanted €21 - did he have euro coins for change or how was that supposed to work if you didn't have a €1?

NewbieRunner

I am not an expert on Gold/Diamond breakfasts but I was thinking of things like a room upgrade (as reported by kkong42), welcome gifts/amenities and standard greetings thanking you for your loyalty that you hear at most other hotels. I was quite happy with my room and not getting an upgrade wasn’t a problem. The rate I had booked was called “Honors Stay Longer BB”.

Probably. I only had one lunch in town and a lunchtime food walking tour, both of which at a west European price.

The booked rate for 3 nights including taxes was €181.61. I paid 23,011.64 ALL including the room service. Both EUR and GBP went up in value against ALL during the past month. I don’t think I was ripped off but even if I was it’s not a big deal at this price.

TIA taxi/AHA website quotes 2500 ALL or 20 EUR between the airport and city centre. I had a €20 note ready in my hand but no coins ready so decided to pay in ALL.

I got the impression that some tourist facing places accepted EUR but I only used credit cards or ALL cash and didn’t pay much attention.

kkong42

I was charged in ALL (12,216.34).

I paid by Curve card, so no opportunity for hotel to play with exchange rates.

This converted to GBP 87.93 for the 2 nights, a rate of GBP 1 = ALL 138.93.

As advised above, taxi fare from airport to hotel was fixed fee ALL 2,500.

The driver didn't want to hand over any change from the ALL 3,000 I gave him until prompted, whereupon he went into the hotel to obtain change.

NewbieRunner

I think the question is how the Euro price quoted on the reservation was converted to the ALL price actually charged and appearing on the invoice.

kkong42

My booking (made in June for an October stay) quoted a total price including tax of EUR 98.49.

So the actual price charged in ALL seems reasonable.

:D!

Thanks, good to know that a quoted rate of €50 doesn't actually mean roughly €55, and that they don't use DCC. I'll probably post a review of this place in 9-12 months' time (or potentially November if my Star Gold status retention plans go awry and I need to make emergency mileage runs)

unusualtravelblog

Good price, good hotel. The neighborhood is modern with many restaurants. You can buy cheap food and drinks from the supermarket behind the hotel if you want to. The city centre is about 20mins of walking from the hotel. The airport is 30 mins by car if there is no traffic. The price for taxis to or from airport is fixed and is 20€.

I booked the cheapest room (at around 50€) and was upgraded to king deluxe family room with balcony as a diamond. The breakfast is OK, like the usual HGI's. The staff is very friendly and attentive.

Canarsie

I am at this hotel property right now and was upgraded to a small two-room suite at the end of the hallway on the eighth — and top — floor.

The quoted base room rate was slightly greater than 60€ per night.

SanDiego1K

I looked at the hotel for a booking in May 2024. It showed as sold out every day. That's a little concerning. Is it too soon or is it being rebranded? Availability is shown thru Dec 31 2023.

Cymro

11 months is almost certainly too soon to book - and probably also too early for a planned rebrand to have any effect on availability.

SanDiego1K

I was able to book Tirana Marriott for next May. Tirana HGI availability ends Dec 31 2023. Hopefully that simply means they have yet to open availability for 2024.

Cymro

Seven months is quite short for availability to end, granted - although I've seen worse (booking in Iquique for this spring had about a three-month window, then everything was sold out before and after).

:D!

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.