Pension St. Maria — Hotel in Staré Hory

Pension St Maria in Stare Hory is a small family owned hotel located in a small village a few km from Banska Bystrica and Donovaly ski resort. ||My partner, my 4month old daughter and I stayed at the end of March 2013 for a 3 night Easter break. The few staff that work here are extremely pleasant and helpful. But the owners worked cooking foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner, they were genuinely lovely people and wouldnt not do anything for you. They organised a cot for our baby, kept our pram in a safe place and kept us continuously warm with the log fire. The food is very tasty and inexpensive (3 euro pp breakfast and 5 euro dinner pp), they offer a sauna, free wifi, hot tub outside which is perfect in snowy conditions. ||They do not know much english but from what i heard them speak they can speak hungarian, polish, slovak, czech and english to a good level.||The village is very small and not much here except houses, a shop and a couple of pubs and restaurants but is set in around beautiful mountains. ||There are many walking areas you can go for an hour or all day and it is really picturesque. ||The rooms are very large with sofa area, bathroom and fully equipped and some with kitchens.||Excellent location near busy Banska Bystrica and Donovaly ski resort and other skiing resorts, its an excellent stopover hotel or a cheap relaxing but simple stay. ||Having stayed in much larger and more expensive hotels around the world, they havent got the amount of things to do such as a gym or pool but the service is top notch and much better than others!! I couldnt ask for more on that front. The hotel is very easy to get to but the carpark is very small, holding only 5 or 6 cars but the area can hold more cars free of charge. ||Overall the hotel is lovely, very friendly, service outstanding, easy to find and great location for all, very cheap (having only paid 35 euros for all of us per night un including food on Easter bank holidays) and we would definitely recommend anyone to stay here old/ young, groups or singles. Whether to just get away, on business, skiing or...

Found on booking.com as a last minute overnight to stay at Donovaly, it was listed as €124 for the night. As my partner is Slovakian she decided to go in personally to speak to them with the hope of saving them the commission. When the owner found out I was British he said the price was €150 and removed the room from booking.com even though it was still free.

We booked it as we had no other option.

The room was adequate but the TV's were not working, the plumbing was backwards so my daughter had a cold bath and trying to make a payment was a joke as the staff did not know how to use the card machine. This resulted in us having a stressful morning trying to be among the first on the slopes.

Overall I would...

We could rate the pension "very good" for the clean, comfortable rooms, suitable for a our family (6), the table tennis at the club, the sauna and afternoon coffee at the the tables above the the little stream. But pension St. Maria deserves an "excellent" rate for the the owner's friendly and helpful attitude. Svetlana (the manager) did her absolute best to help us find the best restaurant at the village, the best way to tour the slovenskyraj, the most suitable trail or the finest castle to visit.||||We've used it as a base for our trips to: Tatralandia aquapark, || Tarzania theme park, dobsinska-ladova ice cave, Oravski Hrad (castle) , and the slovenskyraj.||||||||We hope your stay will be as...