Following a tour of eastern europe., Czech Republic, Krakow and Budapest my partner and I thought it would be nice to spend a day or two chillings out after all the walking before returning home. We booked the Thermal Hotel Visegrad for this purpose on the Danube Bend about 45kms from Budapest.
We travelled north through the very pretty town of Szentendre to Visegrad. The hotel was situated in an elevated position overlooking the river Danube but housed in a typically communist era designed building, although I understand this hotel is quite new!! The welcome on arrival by the male staff on reception was cold both in temperature and atmosphere. The layout on the public spaces were regimented and unwelcoming, like the staff we'd already encountered.
Our room which supposedly a "superior" room had a beautiful view. The room was very very cold, the twin beds were lumpy with only 1 pillow per person and none in the wardrobe, the bathroom was tiny, and there were no tea/coffee making facilities in the room unlike all the other hotels on our trip. The hotel information pack in the room wa sonly in hungarian including all the information on the thermal/wellness & spa facilities.We asked for two extra pillows to be put in the room, what came were two bags of sponge/foam bits in a pillow case, one would certainly not be able to sleep on them.
The Thermal Spa was excellent, many different pools, steam rooms, saunas, aroma rooms etc, very clean, but beware of the thai masseuse in the Wellness centre. I chose to treat myseld to a Thai Foot Massage (having finally got the information in English) at a cost of €32 approximately which was to be charged to my hotel bill. The massage was admisitered to me by a young Thai lady. It was extremely uncomfortable on the first foot and I asked her to be more gentle with her massage. Later that evening when dining locally my right foot swelled up and became very painful as was my right leg, I had to sit in the retaurant with my leg up.
Breakfast in the dining room was very poor with unfriendly staff and poor quality food. After breakfast that morning we had to drive to the next town to find a pharmacy for anti-inflammatoried to kill the pain and inflammation in my foot and leg. On my return to the hotel I complained to the wellness centre, explained about the pain etc, they credited my bill with the full cost of the massage but even now 5 days after returning home I still have a great deal of pain and swelling and am now wearing a bandage. When we went to our room that afternoon we found our beds had not been made and towels had been taken but not replaced in the bathroom.
When we checked out with the ladies on the reception who were warm, friendly and pleasing...they certainly left the men in the cold ....literally! We were so glad to leave this hotel the atmosphere was very uncomfortable.
This hotel has excellent facilities in terms of the Thermal Spa but my advice would be stay locally and use the facilities of the spa. The Hotel/Pension Honti looked very nice.
These two nights cost us €356+tax for a very poor, uncomfortable
unfriendly hotel, we had just spent 5 nights at Le Meridian in Budapest for a really good deal of €34+tax for a standard room approximately €44 less...the two places cannot be compared.