The W of Slovenia – Trip Report Hotel Cubo – Ljubljana

This is part four of a six part trip report from my travels to Slovenia and Serbia. This report includes our stay at Hotel Cubo in Ljubljana…or as I like to refer to it, W Ljubs.

• SWISS Business JFK-Zurich(ZRH) & ZRH-JFK A330, SWISS Lounge JFK
• SWISS Zurich Lounges – SWISS Arrival Lounge, Swiss Business Lounge, & Panorama Lounge Zurich
• Adria Airways Zurich(ZRH) – Ljubljana (LJU), Slovenia / LJU-ZRH & Ljubljana Business Lounge
• Hotel Cubo, Ljubljana, Slovenia – The W of Slovenia
• Highly Underrated Slovenia – An Amazing and Friendly Country with Great Scenery
• Jat Airways Economy Belgrade (BEG) – Ljubljana (LJU) & Zira Hotel, Belgrade, Serbia

When searching for hotels in Ljubljana there were no major hotel brands to choose from except for the Best Western. The Best Western had solid reviews and very nice comments on Trip Advisor, though the remarks for the new Hotel Cubo (and the pictures) convinced us to book at the independent property instead. Don’t worry, even without a loyalty program, Hotel.com points were awarded! In the end, we were all thoroughly impressed with the hotel from booking to check-out.

Finding three available rooms at a hotel with only 26 guest rooms is hard work! We had to email and call the hotel on several occasions to help us find rooms when there were no vacancies in the middle of our stay. They were also needed to combine the multiple separate reservations that we had due to the fact that some online booking sites would have availability for one room for part of the trip while a different site would show availability for the other nights. The entire front desk staff was incredibly helpful and emailed us back promptly, kept us on a wait list with daily updates of our status, and re-arranged other guests reservations to accommodate for our party not having to switch rooms. By the time we arrived, it felt like we already knew the 4-5 front-desk employees. Hotel rates varied from €111 to €180 per night during our stay.

The hotel sent a car to meet us at Ljubljana airport and little did we know that the driver would be our Slovenia tour guide and taxi driver for the entire length of our stay. The trip from the airport to the hotel is about 20 minutes and the lobby was completely empty when we arrived. The lobby is small and includes a cafe and the front-desk…that’s it! The front-desk also functions as the concierge, luggage storage, and even provides towels etc. when housekeeping has left for the day. It was fun to meet the staff who we had been in contact with for weeks and they quickly informed us that our rooms were already prepared. Two of  our rooms were even upgraded to corner suites with views of the castle! One other interesting thing to note before moving on the the room, they asked if we wanted to pay for the driver or put it on the room. We opted to add it to the room and from that point forward almost everything imaginable was added to the room. As the hotel is small and privately owned, there is no official policy as to what actually constitutes a charge that you can place on the room. You can’t imagine what we charged…taxi service, airport service, a Slovenian full-day tour, club admission, dinner (outside the hotel) on three separate nights (we only had USD at the time and instead of changing money for us they gave us a payout for dinner after contacting the restaurants), even groceries from a local supermarket. Double points on all!

…that’s the lobby, the flowers to the extreme right are at the “front-desk”

The hotel is only three floors and I was on floor 3 in the corner room over the CUBO sign in the picture above!

The room was huge with multiple sets of windows, a couch, a round bed (it didn’t move), a gigantic window, a desk, and two huge closets. By the way, the flowers on the table in front of the couch were fresh and replaced daily.

The room still felt brand new and you could smell the newly finished wood from the closet, desk, and table. Behind the bed were multiple switches that allowed you to adjust the blinds and lights. Additionally, there were multiple outlets which made charging your devices (or using your laptop in bed) easy and convenient. If you somehow needed every more outlets, the desk had several more. The bed had a great mattress and premium bedding and it definitely felt like the W bed. There was also nightly turn-down service. The 42″ TV swiveled so that you could watch from the couch or your bed. Speaking of the TV, there was an enormous selection of international satellite channels (over 100 including 12 HBOs) and all movie channels were free…including the ones you lock your kids from viewing 😉 .  Everything in the mini-bar was complimentary including waters, candy, snacks, chips, and a few beers. Usually hotels are slow to replace the contents of a free mini-bar, though housekeeping did a great job refilling mine each day.

The bathroom was great with a separate shower stall with a rain shower head, bathtub, double sinks, and amazing heated floors (key in Slovenia during the winter). Toiletries were by L’Occitane and generously replaced daily.

It’s hard to explain just how impressive the room was for Ljubljana, the comfort levels and amenities could have been at one of the best Asian or European hotels and the trendiness was similar to a W. Perform a hotel search for Ljubljana and you’ll understand just how great this hotel room was.

Views from the room in the morning…

One of our friends was not upgraded to a suite and his room was still new and stylish, though had a normal bed and and open bathroom.

Breakfast is complimentary for all guests and is served at the second floor restaurant. There’s a large selection of items including fresh yogurts, danishes, croissants (amazingly good), fruits, oatmeal with at least ten different toppings, vegetables / salad, fresh salmon, and cereals. Additionally, you can order a variety of warm dishes including eggs/omelets, french toast, pancakes, and warm pastries. There were also multiple fresh juices, coffees, and teas. For a hotel with only 23 rooms, the selection was outstanding. The staff was extremely friendly, always asking us how our night was and wishing us a good day. They even became accustomed to our American ways of rushing in the morning and had takeaway bags, cups, and containers ready for us each day.

We had dinner at the same restaurant and the food was fantastic as was the service and presentation. Very fresh and perfectly cooked and reasonably priced…

I can’t say enough about how much we enjoyed this hotel and how it made our stay in Ljubljana even more pleasant. The front-desk was extremely friendly and provided us with great restaurant recommendations, sight-seeing itineraries, bar/club recommendations, Slovenian history, and truly looked after us at all times. If we were late in coming back to the hotel, they’d call my cell phone to make sure we were OK! If you have a trip planned to Slovenia, definitely make sure you spend some time at Hotel Cubo.

Like the hotel staff, everyone we met in Slovenia was warm and friendly and the scenery all around was beautiful…up next Highly Underrated Slovenia – An Amazing and Friendly Country with Great Scenery.