Royal Palace of Gödöllő — Attraction in Gödöllő Regional Unit

On May 3, 2024, my family arrived at the palace. We were very interested in its history. But the excursion turned out to be terrible. At the entrance you have to pay 1000 forints for an audio guide. Our family paid for 5 audio guides. The staff gives audio guides without checking the battery charge. One audio guide turned off after 10-15 minutes. Its battery was dead. In addition, audio guides with the Ukrainian language had confusion in numbering. For example, you see number 3 on the sign in the room. But the audio guide will tell you about this room if you press number 5 or 7. You will have to guess which number the desired story will be. This is tiring. It greatly spoils the impression of the palace. But things are even worse with the Russian-language audio guide. My son said he didn’t understand anything.I decided to check what was wrong. It turned out that the announcer spoke badly. She constantly made long pauses. It seemed that the announcer was thinking about how to correctly read the next word. She constantly made a lot of mistakes in endings, word stress and cases. Her pronunciation was terrible. Understand her it was possible, but very difficult. And listening to such a clumsy story was very unpleasant. Absolute disrespect for tourists. They simply mocked half of the words. Knowledge of the language is at a maximum level of A2. Such a person should not read excursions to be recorded in the audio guide. But even more unpleasant was the manager's reaction. She said that everything was fine and she had no complaints. That was a lie.The girl at the checkout agreed before the management arrived that the audio guides had problems. She said that many had already complained about errors in the audio guides. The manager also told us that we had to go back and change the audio guide!!! We saw many palaces and castles in Poland, Romania, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain... And nowhere were they given to us (especially for an additional fee) faulty and discharged audio guides. Nowhere have we encountered such a terrible attitude from the staff. And I can’t remember that we were offered to come back and take the tour again. I doubt that the manager will want to correct the situation. She is confident that “everything is normal” in her company. Therefore, I do not advise you to pay money for a service of such low quality. Do not pay for an audio guide. Better read the signs that are in each room (in Hungarian, German, English and I think in French). The audio guide in this company is a collection of random recordings and mockery of...

Baroque palace built by count Antal Grassalkowich, main Hungarian adviser of empress/queen Maria Teresa in the first half of the 18th century. The empress/queen herself was accommodated in the palace. One hundred years later (1867) it was offered by the Hungarian state to the newly crowned royal couple Franz Josef & Elisabeth (Sisi). The latter used it very often as one of her favorite residences away from the intrigues of the court of Vienna. After the independence of Hungary it was used as a summer residence by Miklós Horthy, de facto ruler of the country from 1920 to 1944. The palace went through decades of neglect and misuse at the end of WWII, being successively occupied and sacked by Romanian and Soviet troops. It was used as a warehouse, lodging quarters for Soviet officers, and retirement house. In the 90s it was decided to restore it to the way it was when Sisi had chosen it as her special retreat. Today you can see the restored royal appartements with many beautiful paintings and learn about the loving relationship between the Hungarians and Erzsébet királyné (Queen Elisabeth). There are on the weekends live concerts of classical music to accompany you through your visit. The entrance costs 3200 HUF for adults and 1800 HUF for students. An audio guide is available for 500 HUF. It makes a lovely excursion away from the crowds of Budapest. The café offers delicious Hungarian cakes and sandwiches with a view on...

We took a day trip form Budapest (where we visited during the Christmas market season) to Godollo with my mum, who is a huge Habsburg history fan. Godollo castle is easy to get to via subway and HÉV, although the ticket situation needed some explaining from locals (thank you kind gentleman taking off at Szilasliget). The castle is right next to the HEV station. We paid little extra for audio guide in Slovak language. The information mentioned in the record was sufficient, although the lady who recorded it had such a heavy overpowering accent (If you are interested in re-record, feel free to contact me, I would love to do it for free). The main exposition was interesting, explaining the life in castle both during Grassalkovich and Habsburg era. The seasonal Sissi expositions with artefacts from Schönbrunn was, in my opinion, worth the extra money. For those of you, who were not impressed, I recommend the Sissi museum in Hofburg (the fee is 44 EUR thought). The staff at Godollo castle was helpful, all of them I had a pleasure to talk to had a sufficient level of English language. I am still surprised by so many negative reviews from Hungarians, but us Slovaks love to do the same - complain about our country and heritage while foreigners love and enjoy it. 100+ years ago we lived in the same Empire and share the same roots and history...