One of the worst hostels I've ever stayed at. Both the owner and the person who works behind the bar who is also in charge of checking in guests are two of the most horrific people I've met. Rude, obnoxious, abusive people. They make staying at this hostel a terrible experience. Not to mention the dirty rooms, people checking in to find their bed sheets haven't been washed, toilets in the rooms that don't work, door codes that are the same for every single room (1234 by the way). Do yourself a favour and avoid this place at all costs - you would be better off sleeping on the streets.

BED BUGS!!!! Absolute disaster. Upon arrival we were told that the hostel was overbooked and we were moved to a shabby apartment in the outskirts of the city. When we finally were able to move to the hostel we had to painfully discover that our room (room number 2) is completely infested with bed bugs. Don't go there.

!!!BED BUGS!!! Booked via AirBnB. When we arrived at 11pm, they told us, that they are overbooked. They presented to us an alternative flat a few km away from the centre, which we -lacking other choices- took. The flat was dirty and not cleaned. Used towels were laying around and there were used cigarettes in the ashtray. The next day we moved back to the hostel. The rooms there were not clean either and in addition to that there were bed bugs in one of the rooms. On of our friends got bitten and we decided to leave for good. The manager handeled the situation quite rude and refused to refund us. Guess he is a greedy piece of s**t. Sray away from this place. There is a reason, why it is so cheap. And the people are only caring about money. This place should be closed.

Actually it wasn’t a good experience to stay there with their immoral attitude especially the bar guy .In addition they are exploiting people mainly foreigners …

There were bedbugs everywhere. Even we have changed rooms. This hotel wasn't able to treat such situations. I could not stay there the next night. If they don't change the infected mattresses and sheets, there will be other victims. Be careful. The staff turned me back the refund for the second day while I left.

Horrible dump ! Horrible service. No reception even though they say that someone will be there to check you in. And Icing on the cake, bed bugs. We had to find a new accomodation in the middle of the night at 1:30 am as it was impossible to stay there. Rooms dirty, no care at all whatsoever. A complete, utter disaster. I hope this place will go under or will be taken over by people who care. DISASTER ! HORRIBLE DUMP !

Flea, bedbug and dirt allergy. Paduci, alergi, Paduci de pat f murdar The lost dirty hotels in my life wich I stayed. If you want bed box will be eat your nights you can stay there. You can get allergy very dirty place. It is better you can stay outside in a bank than sleep a hotel. I slept 2 days 2 have allergy since a week.

I went to the hostel to pay in cash instead of reserving by booking. In booking the price was 72 Lei. I told the guy I wanted to pay in cash and he told me that the price was 100 Lei. He told me that the price in booking wasn't updated... Then I said I prefered to pay with booking (it was cheaper) and he went out. Finally I went to other place. This kind of people who tries to lie tourists are not reliable. So I don't recomend.

Woke up with flea bites. Dirty. Sheet had cigarette burns. Staff didn't restock toilet paper. Dirty towels everywhere but I couldn't get a clean one. Location and price are ok. The cats are very nice. But they're probably related to the fleas...

Maybe the atmosphere in the garden and the staff are nice, but the rest is absolute disaster. Very noisy and problematic guests, absolutely out of control. You don't feel safe there. There is a lack of the basic staff. In one room even the window is broken and doesn't close. Stay far away from this place.

So, about the scam called 'Zen Hostel'. Apparently, you need to be zen in order to not start beating up every single 'owner' in charge. The place is a mess, dirty and without any sort of organisation. Many doors cannot be locked due to malfunction. The people that you share the rooms with are weird and scary. Same goes to the owners. Our checkin was delayed by 3 hours. The matresses were dirty(propably not even changed from the previous customers). This place is a mess and makes you feel violated and uncomfortable. I wouldnt recommend at all to anyone. Avoid at any cost and thank me later.

The ginger bearded psycho running reception and the bar downstairs needs to go pronto. Ive never experienced such an asocial unpleasant 'welcome' No toilet paper, The cat was the only comfort I got from my stay. They were spraying for bugs when I returned. Great location, but two thumbs down till the ranger freak gets the sack.

Bed bugs. So many bedbugs. I was going to stay a second night but I didn't even make it through my first night. After laying in the bed for 3 hours, I was covered in bites (over 20). I left and didn't sleep. I normally never complain about hostels because I'm comfortable in most situations. Bedbugs is where I draw the line.

Spoiler: Bed bugs. I booked through AirBnB, and halfway through my first night noticed bed bugs. Despite photographing them (as well as the grimy bathroom), contacting AirBnB support, messaging the host, and taking a slew of screenshots, the host claims that I did not spend the night in the hostel! Because we messaged back and forth, I showed him the pictures, and have text evidence of spending the night, it's clear that he was trying to save face, and that he was aware of the bed bug situation in advance. Forget professionalism, this is just a lack of integrity and decency. Embarrassing. I will say that the vegetarian cafe on the ground floor is really cute, the food is delicious, and the staff is kind and laidback. So the cafe I recommend. But I would not - under any circumstances - recommend this place if you are looking to actually sleep here. I had to haul my clothes to a dry cleaner's and a laundromat, and figure out new travel/lodging arrangements last minute because of this experience. I wish I had read the Google reviews and not just the AirBnB reviews when I booked this place - it would have saved me so much time, energy, and expenses (new train ticket, laundromat, taxi back and forth to the laundromat). The hostel should be closed, at least temporarily, until the bedbug and cleanliness situation are properly addressed.

TERRIBLE. Go on your own risk. I’ve been already traveling for a whole year and stayed in a lot of hostels but this is BY FAR the dirtiest one with the most rude staff. The check in was almost impossible cause there was no one in the reception, the rooms are not safe at all, not only for the other guests (there are some people who seems to be living there) but also cause you don’t even have a lock or key from the street to your bed, so anyone could enter. There was a cat sleeping on the beds with the guests… i personally liked that but for some people could be annoying. It’s smelly, noisy, dirty, unsafe… just go to the next one and ignore that this place exists, it doesn’t worth it.

The hostel is conveniently located close to the city centre. The bar and the chilling area are very nice, however the personal and the cleanliness are disastrous. One might have a feeling that the kitchen, the toilets, the bathroom and the rooms haven't been cleaned for months. Though the rules are hanging all over the facility no one sticks to those, including the staff itself. I would not recommend staying in this hostel, unless one accepts the low standards of cleanliness of the facility.

I stayed in this hostel from Sunday 25th of September to the 26th and I had more than 100 bedbugs bits all over my body that night. The main manager was not at the hostel that day (there were two guys who I think were the ones in charge of the hostel bar) and when I told them the story they called the manager. They handed me the phone so I could talk to him. I explained the situation to him (very politely because at that moment I understood that this can happen in any accommodation and that, if they take measures and are polite, I did not have to take it out on them), I told him that I felt physically terrible (I had a reaction all over the body), that I could not rest in peace sleeping one more night there and that I believed that the fairest thing was that they return the money from the reservation. This man assured me that for the inconvenience they would not charge me anything. However, the next day I found the charge for the two nights (one that I hadn't even used) on my account. After trying to get in touch with them for long time, they finally answered me by inventing the situation, such as that I had not informed anyone in the hostel about it and with completely different stories from those spoken on the phone: “The bedbugs are not our fault, we never slept în the hostel, we received them and we did dezinfection for many many times.”, “we cannot refund you because we dont have the money an also because this is not our fault”, Before you, în the room nb 2 where you stayed, were more guest and no one complain for bedbug”. “it happened, for you and also for me. Disinfection and changing beds cost me tousands of euro and i didnt complain or ask for repairs is noones fault and i understand this. Only when you will understand this, you will be in peace” The funny thing is that later I saw comments on booking from September 25th, the day I arrived at the accommodation, complaining about exactly the same situation as mine. Therefore, it seems that they were already aware of this problem and still decided to continue hosting people. It is no longer a matter of money; it is a question of principles. They gave me their word and they didn't keep it. I was feeling so sick from the bites that I had to go to the hospital and spent more than two weeks with pills and cream. I can’t believe that a place like this can be open and still host people who they don’t care about. This place shouuld be shutten down.

We stayed here in august. It was an absolute nightmare. Rooms where disgusting. Half of the toilet was missing and not working. The whole bathroom was disgusting. Bedding was not changed and visibly dirty. We booked a room for 6 people. So that 1 person had to sleep with strangers and the rest could stay together. Instead we got 2 rooms. We got a room that we had to share with a stranger. Something that we didn’t want to do. But all of that was kinda okay… things that could be overlooked (my travel mates opinion, not mine). We where drinking and talking in the seating area downstairs. One of my friends wanted to lay down. It was already 22:00. After ten minutes we received pictures of bugs. They where crawling over him, over the bed en on the floor. There where also several dead ones on the floors. After searching on google we realised they where bed bugs. The whole room was infested with them. We were horrified. We wanted to get our money back but they where being difficult about this, we had to call multiple people to come to an agreement. Thankfully we did get all our money back. This Infestation is not something that could have happened in a couple of days. We started digging on the internet and saw more bad reviews about bedbugs from a month before that. From what I can see now, several months later. They are still renting the rooms and doing nothing about this problemen. All the codes where the same for al the rooms. It is not safe The whole thing should be burned to the ground and then be rebuild.

Been staying here whilst healing my feet after walking/hitch hiking from Ukraine and feel like I've joined a family! Good people, good attitudes, good atmosphere, good price, good staff, good accomodation! Enjoyed it so much so, I returned here when getting my flight back to the U.K! Great place to stop and relax! Love it!

I loved it very much. True hippy place. :) cheap prices and everybody is nice. The hostel is at a great place in the center.

We spent two nights in their double bedroom. The room was 30€ per night but the comfort felt more like a cheap hostel. There wasn't actually a double bed but rather two 200x90 bedframes side by side with a 140 matress on them. The matress was quite thin so it was impossible to lay in the middle of the bed because of the edges of the bedframes. Our room, Nr 3 had quite a bit of water damage, and some strange holes in the walls. The toilet was not properly mounted to the floor and moved around quite a bit. The tab was mounted so close to the mirror that it could only be turned up a bit before the lever touched the mirror. The room was reasonably clean but we found a used condom packaging. The had nice staff and cats as well as a sufficient kitchen. We are really not picky, usually staying in much cheaper places or camping so we were quite disappointed with the value we got for the price.

I spent a single night at Zen hostel and i loved the place, very well placed and easy to find, with wonderful tematic decorations. It's placed right in the city center, the area was very quiet over the night. They even have a couple of friendly cats, plenty of space and nice lounge areas. The only downside i experienced was that i couldn't get in touch with the reception even after i called a few times in different times of the day and no reply to text.

The staff was nice and helpful. It's a good place to stay the night in the center of the city for a very good price, and perfect to know people from around the world.

Not clean and maintained. Very loud. Not recommended

There’s no better home replacer than this beautiful place!

Location and great atmosphere here. One downside but neglijable is the maintenance and housekeeping which except changing the sheets, seems like there is none. Prices are really good for downtown Cluj regarding acommodation and kinda high for the bar items

Staff and volunteers as family. Cheers and all the best. Hugs from Paris

We just landed in Cluj after one week of heavy trekking in the mountains. I called the hostel a couple of hours before arriving to reserve a room since I still saw a free room on booking.com. The owner (or manager) confirmed there was still a room free. We arrived there very tired and were looking fw to a shower and bed. The two girls at the reception (especially the dark haired girl) were unbelievably unfriendly. I asked for to check in but they told us they’re fully booked and in the one free room there is some leak in the bathroom. I told them if it’s not too bad we don’t care we just want a rest. Still they didn’t want to give us the room even though it still appeared free on booking.com. I asked if I would reserve it on booking will they let us stay? Then they were like no we will just remove it now from booking. Why didn’t they do this earlier if the shower was in such a bad shape?! Anyway since I had very bad stomachache I thought we’ll have a drink while looking for another hostel. I asked for a juice and pointed at what I thought was orange juice. The girl at the bar bullied me and told me it was lemonade not orange juice and poured it for me with disgust. I imagine we got such bad treatment because we looked exhausted after one week of trekking and camping and myself I was also stomach sick. I anyway drank the lemonade because I could barely move with my sick stomach and continued looking for another hostel. Right after we easily check in at a nearby hostel the manager of Zen calls me to tell they have a room free. I’m like Whaaaa we just were there and you kicked us out. Apparently the leak was very minor. I hope the owner finds friendlier staff to employ than the current one. The girls seemed more interested in chit chatting with each other, drinking and smoking than attending us (the only clients at that moment anyway).

Zen Hostel is the best place to stay in Cluj , the staff is super friendly and are always glad to help, Jánoš and Razvan make you feel at home, the prices are fantastic and the location is perfect

Friendly staff, bomb location, good prices, Georgi is a sweetheart!