Summary

For £30 per night per room, it would be rude to be negative about the Hotel Lucky. I would put this in the "cheap and cheerful" bracket. It's small, friendly and quiet. Above all it's outstandingly good value. If you want luxury or you want to be close to the action, this hotel is not for you.

You'll have probably ended up looking at the Hotel Lucky because it now features on the Easyjet Hotels site and sites like Octopus Travel. As a result of this, you may well be interested on the best way to get to the hotel from the airport and similar tips. So if you can be bothered, read on.

The Hotel

It's situated about 17km from the airport. We hade read up about a minibus service run by the airport that drops off at various hotels. This will cost about 2,100 HUF each for a return ticket which you can buy in the arrivals hall. Coming back, you book the minibus from your hotel the day before your return. It's a bit cheaper than a taxi, but to us not cheaper enough to warrant the risk of being the last to be dropped off! The taxi service is excellent. Turn left out of the arrivals door and you'll see a young man with a laptop behind a small counter. Tell him the name of your hotel and he'll write you out a slip to give to the taxi driver with the cost. This ensures that you have an agreed cost before the journey. The fare was a very reasonable 3,500 HUF (around £10). Getting back to the airport, we used the travel card (see below) and it was easy using a combination of bus, tram and metro.

In terms of the location, Hotel Lucky is in a suburban area with nothing really in the near vacinity. From what we saw, there wasn't much to see or do when wandering around locally.
There is a bus stop immediately outside the hotel.

Rooms

We had two small single beds on opposite sides of the room. There was heating / air conditioning and the en-suite bathroom was adequate. The rooms have mini bars and the prices are not at the rip off levels you come to expect in most places.
Note; the hotel has 4 floors and no lift. Also the restaurant is on the lower ground floor, so more stairs. If you are disabled or elderly, I think you need to avoid this hotel.

Staff

Friendly and helpful even though one of the guys that serves in the restaurant looks like a night club bouncer.

Food

Breakfast was good and we did have dinner in the restaurant which we found enjoyable and very good value.

Cleanliness

All areas were clean and the room well serviced.

Tips

If going from Luton, don't get your curency (HUFs) from Ace foreign exchange (which is by the cash machines as you enter the airport), the exchange rate we got was rubbish - 327 : £1. Get about £30 only if you have to and exchange the rest at the hotel, who were offering 380:£1.

Smokers beware. Although Hungary is in the EU, you can only bring back 200 cigs. Customs officers in the UK look out for people who don't know this and who think that they can bring in as many as they would from Spain. Budapest airport will happily sell you as many as you want - UK customs will be delighted to relieve you of them.

I've read a lot about the ticket inspectors and bent police in Budapest handing out instant fines to unsuspecting tourists. In our time there, we didn't see one ticket inspector or anyone being hassled by police. Since the EU thing in 04, I think they've tried to stamp this out.

Be careful of bag snatchers and pick pockets when around the shopping areas. We were followed around in one store by someone who had split away from his two accomplices and was strangely interested in all the same things that we were. Apparantly it's not a good idea to challenge them but to catch their eye and hold their gaze for a moment so that they know you're onto them. This seemed to work and when we left the store we noticed his two mates browsing ladies lingerie!

Travel

Public transport in Budapest is brilliant. If you smoke, do the cigarette test. That is, I bet you can't finish one before the next bus comes.
To get to the city centre, get the 82 bus from outside the hotel. The hotel will sell you single tickets for this journey. Remember that you have to stamp the ticket in the machine on the bus. After 10 minutes or so it comes to the terminus (by Ikea). Get off here and in front of you, you will see a round building where you can buy a 1, 3 or 7 day tourist pass. We bought a 3 day pass which costs 2,500 each. This enables you to hop on and off the buses, trams and trains within the city. Once you have your ticket, you can get on the metro (use the underpass by the round building) to go into the city. A good station to get off is Deak Ter. This will put you in a good place to start and it is the place where the city's 3 metro lines (M1,M2 and M3) converge. The travel card enables you to get to all the sights and is so much better value than the city tours on offer. Make the effort to get the bus up to the Cittadel and do go in and see the war bunkers, it's worthwhile and the people on the tour busses don't have time to go in, so you'll probably have the place to yourself.

We paid for a comfort triple with balcony. We were allocated a small double with no balcony. Upon complaining we were offered the option to change rooms - the room we moved to was also a small double with a small balcony and with the added charm of ants found under the carpet in sufficient numbers. Upon complaining once again I was asked if there were very many ants or an acceptable level! Again, another room was offered - a drab room with two single beds.

Whilst the hotel staff were friendly, this is certainly not a 3 star hotel. There was one old hair dryer and iron to share between all guests and inadequate bed linen.

However, we were quite taken by the food in the restaurant - although rather depressing in decor the staff were great and we were astonished at the choice and quality of the coffees and hot chocolates, the best french onion soup and the desserts although we did not have a full meal here just drinks and snacks.

Breakfast was carniverous which we would not have minded so much had it been actual meat rather than slices of the processed stuff. If you get down early then you can get delicious eggs and some fresh vegetable offerings.

We would not stay here again although the staff are the best thing about this place - just needs a bit of a TLC.