Bo33 Hotel Family & Suites — Hotel in Budapest

Watch out for ants!

I was really looking forward to staying here. Somewhere to retreat to and have a little spa session between excursions and sightseeing. Reviews were great and so we thought we'd splash out on a 4 star hotel for the luxury. Rather than anywhere to rest our heads at night.

First impressions. Walking in the hotel was so nice, clean, friendly atmosphere. I loved the smell that you got just walking through the door.

First day we wanted to investigate the spa area. It was nice, cosy and most of the time quiet enough to feel like you were the only ones there. That was a bonus. The only letdown we didn't have robes in our room nor were we told where to get any. So, non the less we just went with towls around us. We thought maybe they don't provide robes or slippers. That was until the days to follow, when other customers were in the spa and they all had robes and slippers on.

The general vibe was relaxed.

The room itself seemed big and spacious. The bed was 2 single beds together. Mind the gap if you like a cuddle! The floors were black tiles in bathroom and a dark brown patterned carpet in the bedroom. Looked reasonably maintained. Kind of reminded me of a premier Inn.

We arrived Thursday. Friday I noticed an ant crawling on the white towel i left on the floor as instructed for housekeeping to take away. I didn't think anything of it. It was just one ant. Overnight I felt really itchy in bed. On Saturday when we had just got ready to go out. We found 4 more ants. All in the bedroom. One on the window frame, carpet, chair and suitcase stand. I videoed 3 of them to show reception and complain. The friendly staff member said he would inform the manager.

So, we were left there waiting when we were ready to go out. Just for the manager to arrive half an hour later with ant spray! Are you kidding?! The amount of money we paid to stay here. In a supposed 4 star hotel and this was their solution? I can understand as he put it "these things happen" but for one. When he arrived. His reaction was to ask where the ants were. That annoyed me. That's like looking for a needle in a haystack with all the dark floors. I felt like saying "I tell you what I'll just ask where they ran off to shall I?" I showed him the videos but hence they were no longer where we found them. So without further hesitation and without asking permission he goes around spraying the whole room with toxic ant spray. He didn't ask if we were asthmatic either. I took a coughing and sneezing fit straight after, which lasted about half an hour or so. We never got out when we were ment to.

I couldn't breathe. He didn't ask if we'd like another room. He didn't offer a discount or any kind of complimentary offering. This put a real dampener on our last night.

I wouldn't stay here again after that experience. Reviews said location was good, but for us, it was too far out the way from what we wanted to do. It was a lot of walking or public transport.

The staff were nice and helpful. All but the manager who nearly killed me off. And since that Saturday I've had a really nasty sore throat. Probably from all the coughing...

The hotel itself is well located in the city. You can walk by foot to the metro station. In fact, you can easily walk to everything on the Pest-side. The staff at the reception desk is friendly and tries to help you as much as they can. Our room (an executive suite) was spacious and nice. Breakfast was 'so-so', nothing memorable and more like a regular continental breakfast (eggs, breakfast pastries, some fish and sausages (but no vegetarian sausages), cornflakes, ...).

However there were some problems during our stay, kitchen tongs were placed on the freshly baked breakfast biscuits, one of our dinner plates (in our room) was dirty, but the most significant one was the cold water in the shower of our room. The morning we mentioned the problem at the reception desk, they told us that it would be solved within an hour. This happened, so we can not complain about our shower in the following days. We asked for a compensation for that specific morning, since you can expect something from a hotel with four stars. The staff told us that they will discuss this with the management and we would receive a message later. Sadly enough, we did not get any feedback during our stay, so we contacted the hotel again afterwards before writing our review. We discussed the problem of the shower, together with the other problems about the poor hygiene at breakfast and the dirty dinner plate. As a compensation the hotel wants to offer us a discount for our next stay. We urged for a monetary compensation since we are not planning to stay in Budapest again in the next 1 - 5 years, but the hotel ignores this request and keeps repeating the offering with the discount. We think it is a bit sad that they act a bit cheap in their after-service, considering the fact it is a hotel with four stars and the price that you pay. We still hope that they are willing to do another form of compensation. We would gladly adjust our review in case the after service...

While we found the hotel and it's staff to be decent, a couple of things really made our experience pretty bad:

On the day we arrived we were told that our room would be ready by 2pm guaranteed. It was not ready till ~3:00pm.

The air conditioning was not working and would not cool the room below 24-25 degrees C (77 deg F). I called the front desk and they came 3 times to check it out and said the maintenance person was out so they could not fix it. We had a really uncomfortable night and were up till 4am just tossing and turning due to the hot room. The next day for a nap in the afternoon the staff provided us with a fan. While it cooled us down a bit, it was still very hot. the hotel later told ya that their HVAC system was over burdened and could not keep up. This is not true because the next day it cooled down but the room would still not cool below 24C. This is not what i expect from a nice hotel (or any hotel).

On the second day, we got back to our room at around 4pm from a day of being out in the city only to find that it has not even been serviced yet. At that point we needed to take a nap and did not accept servicing as we were very tired. ALL hotels I've been to previously clean your room by 2pm. This one of obviously sorry staffed (explains #1 as well).

I did contact the hotel while we were there and afterwards but they made excuses for all of these issues. This is NOT what i expect from a nice hotel.

Besides this, the hotel is fine but the location is a little far away from the places to visit in Prague. This was not a huge problem because we like to walk but keep that in mind if booking here.

Overall i would not recommend this place... Especially not...