When we booked our flights to Budapest, next was accommodation. Now, normally we go budget and stay at a cheap hotel because we never spend much time in it but when we saw how cheap places were in Budapest, we thought we’d splash out and stay somewhere nice. As soon as we found the Prestige Hotel Budapest we were smitten.
This hotel was in a great location, stones throw from the Danube, about ten minute walk to Parliament or the centre where we caught the airport bus, and close to restaurants and bars. We actually even walked to the Széchenyi thermal bath the first night to get acquainted with the city, forty-five minutes away. In fact, we didn’t use public transport at all while we were there preferring to walk everywhere (aside from the one night/early morning we didn’t feel like walking from the ruin bar). As soon as we walked into the hotel, we were impressed, straight in front of you are glass elevators and beyond that a beautiful lobby with plush sofas and chairs. Orange being my favourite colour made me even more enamoured.
Rooms start at around £125 a night depending on when you book (we went in the off season so it was cheaper rates) for a standard double room, but we booked on hotels.com and got the deluxe double room because it looked so pretty. When we got there we seemed to have been upgraded to the executive double room though and it was just so pretty and just like the pictures on the website. You know how sometimes you book a place and it’s not even close? Not so here, unless the specific picture was of our exact room, down to the table position! They also included a welcome bar of chocolate (always welcome) and some bottles of water which was nice.
I loved having the bench seat at the end of the bed for us to put our suitcases on and keep everything tidy, and the sofa to throw ourselves on to and rest our tired feet after a day of walking. There was even a Nespresso machine with pods to help ourselves too, and they refreshed them the following day. Definitely took advantage of those as neither of us can go very long without a coffee.
One thing we didn’t take advantage of was the “relax room” where there were a few gym machines and weights, along with a hot tub, relaxing nook and sauna. Considering it was only a few doors down from us this was pretty silly, but we were too busy exploring during the times it was open.
The staff was super nice and helpful during our stay, my only complaint was that they apparently worked with one Danube river cruise, so when asking what times river cruises were, we were told there were only two a day. Because of this we missed out on doing a cruise as didn’t think we had time when we would have. This could have been avoided with a little research on our part, but I was still sour about it. My only other gripe was oh my days were the towels and robes horrible. They were like sandpaper, to the point I was really wishing I’d have just brought my own towel. For such a nice hotel I feel like they could easily buy nicer towels and robes.
All in all though we loved our stay here. The bed was immensely comfortable and Adam took a picture of the pillow tags he was that in love with them (he took a photo of the mattress we slept on in Canada to try and find it too so this is not uncommon) as they felt like sleeping on clouds. Considering we were on the first floor with an inside room and the lobby right below us, it was super quiet as well, so no unwelcome wake up calls from people talking or laughing loudly below.
We’ve both said we’d love to stay here again on our next trip to Budapest, so that’s surely a mark of a good hotel!
When you travel, do you go budget or like to stay in luxury?
