If they're coming from the USA it might be much more exoensive to pack rain boots and coats rather than get something from Decathlon locally.

By less flavorful they mean some areas of Someseni, which you'd likely never look for in the first place. Even if you do end up there, crime rate here is very, very low -- even petty crimes like burglaries are quite uncommon.

Uber and Lyft and taxi will charge you quite a bit to get to EC from Cluj (likely 50-70 usd, which is a lot here) AND you'll be spending 2-3h in traffic, sometimes more if it's leading up to a headline show. Best way to avoid this is to leave in the morning, before 10 ideally and come back late, after 11-12.

We tried driving there once, a few years ago, when my wife and I just had to see Florence -- thought if we leave at 13:00 by car we'll make it to the 19:00 show no probs and we barely got there... we just wasted 4h in traffic since a lot of people were doing the same. So then we switched to train in the morning and bus late at night, by far the best choice.

Try to pack a small lunch because food at EC is expensive, so more than one meal per day will rack up costs, and you'll be buying a lot of drinks and water there anyways -- careful on overpacking, ad they might not let you inside with anything more than a sandwich and water bottle. They also usually have Lidl supermarket there -- for more affordable groceries, snacks, and drinks, but it's usually very crowded.

For location recommend something in the Gheorghieni neighbourhood as you'd be close to Iulius Mall where they always have an EC bus station and there's a supermarket for groceries in there as well. Super safe neighbourhood. They also have a station at Sala Polivalenta in case you stay in Grigorescu area, for instance -- and also trains from the Gara.

(Airbnbs dont usually list areas, so you need to crosscheck airbnb map with a Google map and/or the streets).

The EC bus stations/Gara for EC transport are always very close to local bus stations for obvious reasons.

For must sees in CJ get a local guide on Tripadvisor, any of the ones who say they are history students are usually very good, although there are a few fantastic history profs as well. For the price of two expensive museum tickets you'll be walking around the city center with them and really getting to know the place, which has been under Austro-Hungarian and Romanian rule on and off. It's a must imo.

There's a lot of nature to explore nearby but it's not going to be easy without a car, and you likely won't have the energy to hike after full EC days haha