Al Habtoor Palace Budapest, Preferred Hotels & Resorts

Let’s start with the important things: breakfast is excellent. Try the Shakshuka, the honeycomb with melons, and the fried spicy Hungarian sausages. It’s the kind of breakfast that makes you consider cancelling your plans and moving into the restaurant from 6:30 until 10:00, when the feast sadly ends. The grand cupola is beautiful, and from the upper floors you can enjoy a splendid view of the top of it, or the city, and the Bazilika if your room faces the right way. The swimming pool is, without exaggeration, the cleanest hotel pool I have ever seen. The sauna is exactly as hot as it should be: not hotter, not colder. And there’s a terrific gym with everything you need to exhaust yourself before collapsing into a wonderfully comfortable bed. The location is spot on, right in the city centre. Close to everything: Gerbeaud, the metro, tourist traps, and authentic Hungarian goulash. Try Retro Goulash on Dob Street. It’s a wonderful location for sightseeing, though terrible if you were hoping to escape into nature and discover yourself. No time for that. For my faithful Muslim friends, there’s even a Qibla sign on the ceiling in the rooms, making it easy to determine the correct direction for prayer. Thoughtful details matter. And then there are the lobby dates. No, not romantic dates. Actual dates. The fruit. Quite possibly the best dates in Budapest. I have no idea what the procurement department is doing, but I suspect international negotiations with elite date suppliers are involved. All in all, an excellent hotel: fantastic breakfast, immaculate pool, perfect location, thoughtful details, and dates that deserve their own booking platform.

Bad parts, however: some members of the staff can be quite forgetful. They can forget to bring you the breakfasts' egg-menu (did I mention to choose the Shakshuka, it's brilliant), even after asking, or the food you ordered, or the bed you're supposed to sleep in. But from my point we all are humans, these are just mild annoyances, and fortunately, there’s always another staff member ready to save the day. Bed delivery and assembly may not be their strongest skills, because they work the reception, but enthusiasm is plentiful, and with a little teamwork, you’ll have a bed in no time. Just ask for it, and you will get it.

As always, it is a pleasure to stay at the Al Habtoor hotel. The staff are very friendly, the food is excellent, and the room is very spacious. A chocolate cake awaited us in the room as a welcome-back gesture. We are especially grateful to the General Manager, Luke Wooley; he truly values ​​guests and made our stay even more enjoyable. We feel like at home at the Al Habtoor Palace. We highly recommend the Al Habtoor Palace to everyone.

Staff

The staff were super friendly with no exception, the location is perfect (located in front a park and next to fashion street) and they have car parking for a daily rate

The room sound isolation is not perfect, but that wouldn't stop me from going there again