Hilton Sibiu: Sweet Redemption (RIP), Generous Upgrade

I’ve written before about my unimpressive Diamond upgrade rate at Hilton. Well, a few weeks ago, I finally scored my 2nd ever great Hilton upgrade – the Royal Suite at Hilton Sibiu in Romania. I had ranked it #1 on my (can’t keep up with devaluation) Best Low Category Hilton Redemptions List based on research (10k/night, 5 star hotel, at the time #1 rated hotel in Sibiu on TripAdvisor). After staying here, I was going to keep it at #1 for its combination of luxury, quality, upgrade likelihood, and location at the 10k redemption level.  But alas, Hilton raised it without notice to 20k just as I was writing this post.  At 10k, the only contender I can think of, out of the ones I’ve stayed in, would be DoubleTree Kuala Lumpur.

 

 

I was automatically upgraded to the Royal Suite without asking.  The website claims the suite to be ~614 sqft.  It actually feels bigger.  My apartment in California is 600 sqft, and this feels quite a bit bigger.  Maybe my leasing office inflated their numbers!  According to the Flyertalk page for this hotel, Diamond/Gold upgrades are common, as it doesn’t seem to get many elite status guests.  As impressive as it sounds, Royal Suite is the smaller of the two suite types (not counting the Presidential Suite), though it was more than enough for me.

One of the motivations for going to Romania was to make good use of my Hilton points.  There were at least 4 low category Hiltons in Romania at the 5-10k level, all in places I actually want to go to.  I stayed in 3 of them on this trip.  This property, Hilton Sibiu, is the most luxurious, though I personally enjoyed the Cluj Napoca hotel the most (review forthcoming).  

The hotel is well known for its massive spa.  The free spa area consists of jacuzzi, 2 saunas, steam, meditation room, relaxation room, and a big swimming pool. It closes at 10pm on weekends, 9pm weekday. There’s also plenty of paid treatments and special rooms, with fancy names like Cleopatra Bath and Cupid’s Dream.

 

Location and Transportation

It’s a few miles from the historic center, airport, and train station.  I arrived from the airport by metered taxi (23 lei / $6 USD).  Bus #13 takes you to historic center and train station (gara), and the bus stop is 3 minutes walk from hotel. However, you can ONLY buy ticket (2 lei) at a few locations in town, the nearest being the machine @ Cimitir / Calea Dumbravii station (2 stations on the way to old town / 25 minutes walk). I walked there the first time and got a couple of tickets, which I used throughout the stay. It only takes 1 or 5 lei bills. Hotel-called taxi to old town would cost 20 lei according to the receptionist. Flagged taxi cost me 15 lei.

The open air ASTRA museum is a 10 minute walk from the hotel by following the river path by the zoo. There were only a few actors on a Tuesday (no actors on Mondays reportedly). No one engaged us.  Overall, the hotel location is OK but not great for most visitors who will want to spend time in the historic center.

Old town is lovely, lots of locals on weekend, few tourists compared to Western Europe. Climb the council tower (2 lei) to get the best photo with the Lutheran church rising above colorful buildings. For a more panoramic view, climb the Lutheran church (5 lei, closes 8pm).

 

Breakfast

Breakfast can be had either in the lounge or the nice looking restaurant. When given such choice, I always choose restaurant for the wider selection. I did compare the options here and the restaurant definitely has more, with nothing additional offered in the lounge. On no day was the restaurant more than 1/3 full, so it’s peaceful.

Restaurant breakfast was decent for one day, but it was 100% identical during the 3 days I was there, and it got tired quickly. They claim to have a waffle on demand but on both days when I requested it, I was told the wait would be substantial and I was offered sweet crepe (“pancake”) instead.

The highlight was the pate in the cold section.  Overall, about the same as a 4 star hotel buffet in the US, a big step below those in Asia (for example, the equally 10k/night DoubleTree Kuala Lumpur)

{ Restaurant }

Lounge

The facility is nice. Light dinner is served between 6-8pm.  The hotel being away from downtown (which is where most people would be at that time of day), I only made it on one day. They had meatballs (decent) and some kind of fish (not good), plus decent dessert. I didn’t plan on it but it ended up being my dinner. Didn’t try any alcohol. Breakfast is also served in the lounge, though it was a subset of the restaurant offering (with nothing additional). There are snacks throughout the day, including bottled water. It never got busy.

 

In a Nutshell

Hilton Sibiu bills itself as a 5-star hotel.  I’d say that’s true of the facility, but service is more like 3-star, making it more like 4-star overall.  All things considered, without upgrade it was already one of the best uses of 10k Hilton points, especially when combined with other Hilton sweet spots in the region.  The generous upgrade was icing on the cake.  Sadly, I have to write those in the past tense as Hilton quietly doubled the points requirement, killing the sweet spot.  I’m glad I enjoyed it while it was sweet.  Sibiu has an impressive old town, and it’s a good base for exploring Transfagarasan Road and Balea Lake.