ambiguous hotel close to the old town

Written: 11 july 2012
Travel time: 25 — 31 august 2011
Who does the author recommend the hotel to?: For business travel
Your rating of this hotel:
7.0
from 10
Hotel ratings by criteria:
Rooms: 8.0
Service: 5.0
Cleanliness: 8.0
Food: 6.0
Amenities: 6.0
Design hotel with a very convenient location to everything.
(But with some weird cons).

The hotel is built in a modern style (we read that it is new, opened in 2009), belongs to the Austrian chain.
Quite original illuminated at night.

From the hotel, a 5-minute walk to the entrance to the Old Town through the Mikhailovsky Gate.
Across the road is the Grassalkovich Palace.

From the railway station directly to the hotel go:
- tram (I don't remember the number)
- bus (I think 93)

From the bus station to the hotel there are 2 trolleybuses (206.208) - the bus / trolleybus stop at the hotel is called "Hodzovo nam. " - it is the fourth from the station.
The tram stop is somehow different, and from it you have to walk 70-100 meters to the hotel. And the tram takes a little longer than the bus.

Directly in front of the hotel is a shopping center, which at the same time protects the hotel from street noise. And the hotel is very quiet.
There is a Billa department store in the mall.

There are several cafes in front of the hotel, and also if you leave the hotel - and go left and back, behind the hotel - there are also a couple of normal cafes to have a bite to eat.

The hotel itself also has a restaurant bar (the cuisine is average, but the prices are not higher than in the city, which is nice).

There is a pedestrian street in front of the hotel.
Therefore, a taxi cannot drive directly to the entrance and stops 70 meters before it. It is necessary to take into account if you have heavy things.
Especially during a rainstorm, this becomes a problem. I got out of the taxi and then ran to the entrance until it rained.

The hall is very nice, large and high, with soft sofas. The receptionist is also very welcoming and friendly.
...
Why choose this hotel.
We were looking for something close to the old part of the city, with good transport to the bus station, where we came from Prague.
And close to the railway station from where we planned to leave for Lviv later.
But as a result, it turned out that you can also take a taxi (if you call, and not catch on the street, then it turns out about 4-5 euros from the stations to the hotel)
And if you take it from the bus station - then 10 euros. Theoretically, if you're lucky, bargain and get there in 5-7. But calling is better.

We found few hotels with air conditioning in Bratislava, and even less for a normal price (45-50-60 euros).
We searched - according to the pictures and the location, I liked this hotel. But the price tags for this hotel were high. Around 90-100 euros and more per night.
They began to look further and found it for a more or less sane 65 euros at Hotels4u. com
This is a British booking system that I was not familiar with before, it was found through compare, which has helped us more than once. hotels. su (aka Hotels. su)
And the prices for hotels4u. com for some reason, then in pounds sterling, then in euros.
We spent a total of 6 days in Bratislava, 3 of which were unplanned, and on some days we caught this hotel even for 60 euros a night, and on some under 70.
On average, 65-67 euros per night came out.


And the extra 3 days were unplanned, because I managed to get poisoned with something.
And I have such a strong suspicion that this happened at breakfast in this hotel and most likely it was dried fruits. Maybe they weren't washed. Because this is the little that I ate and my wife did not eat. Or a melon (they wrote in the newspapers that in Europe at that time there were melons with some kind of infection, but who knew)
My stomach hurt right after breakfast.
...
By the way, about breakfast.
The breakfast seemed to be good.
Everything seems to be there.
Sliced ​ ​ sausage / cheese, vegetables, different breads, butter, jams, cereals, various dried fruits, croissants, sausages, bacon, eggs, a couple of times there was even soup. There really was no kasha.
Dried fruits are different. Ordinary fruits (including watermelon, melon)
An omelet is fried right in front of you (a la "hotel in Egypt").
The waiters carry coffee in a coffee pot (you make tea yourself, in a teapot).

Everything seems to be great. But the food itself is somehow ...not that tasteless.
But something is not right with her.
What exactly we could not understand.
Maybe something sypyat, such as preservatives? The heat was.
And on the third day of my stay for breakfast, there was not even a desire to go.

By the way, there were almost no people at breakfast.
In addition to us, 2-3 people for the whole huge hall on the 2nd floor.
Breakfast itself until 11-00, and every day until 11-00, including on weekdays (this is very good! )

The hotel also has unpleasant cons, which seem to be nothing special, but gradually they become very annoying.
I don't pick on. Just in good 4-kah for the same 60-70 euros have already lived in different countries and have something to compare.

--------
MINUSES
--------
1. First, air conditioning.
He is. But you can only adjust it plus 3 minus 3 degrees (half a degree).
I haven't come across such a system yet.
And I hope I never do again.
To begin with, it is not clear what temperature is taken as the reference base.

She is always different, as explained at the reception, and depends on the temperature outside, and expose her technicians, not the reception.
That is, even the reception does not know what temperature the air blows from the air conditioner in the room.
It can be assumed that the base temperature is indicated on the display of the condo (for example, 26. And from it, by pressing the key, you can make it seem like 23)
But the condo blows not much and not very cold even at maximum speed (there are three speed modes).
That is, how many in the room is real - FIG knows.
When it suddenly became very hot outside (plus38!! ! ! ! ), the condo in the room could not cope at all. It felt like it was +30 degrees in the room.
Only at night it more or less cooled down to a more or less comfortable 25.
And during the day it was best to go to the lobby at the reception, it was very cool and good there. But we are still not on a collective farm, but in a 4-star Austrian hotel chain. So it doesn't matter at all : (
And in the corridors of the hotel there was a steam room, plus some passages are glazed and thus work like greenhouses.
(At the same time, it was also impossible to stay outside until the evening. Some kind of weather anomaly. The heat was below +40.
And then a few days later the weather changed radically in just a couple of hours the temperature dropped from +36 to +16)

2. Second information in the room.
She is not true.
We were delighted when we saw the info that there is a late room service. A brochure on the table in the room happily declared that until 1 AM you can safely order food to your room, and even chicken soup.
However, when we returned to our room without having eaten in the city, counting on this room service, we were told that it was until 9 pm in the summer.
And they offered to go either to a kebab shop or to a night pub (not far from the hotel, but on some back street). And the time was half past 12.
The Old Town is very close, 200 meters, but all the cafes have kitchens there until 23-00, then only booze.

At the same time, in the neighborhood (with this pub), as the reception said, punks and metalheads hang out, but that's okay, you (they say) just calmly walk by.
Nafig-nafig, a McDonald's was found nearby on the square "SNP nam. ", working until 24-00 (and until 1-00 on Sat). But the receptionist did not say anything about McDonald's.
And kebab is generally a terrible survival horror, I would not recommend it.
And I did take a walk to the pub, I didn’t find any personalities nearby, there are young people inside the pub and it’s noisy, everyone is adequate. But there was no food in the pub either. Only baguettes and beer.

Third - there is a hidden ambush - a pay phone in the room.
We called a taxi from him, and I thought that I was saving money, because usually local calls are free.
Not a fig.
Calling a taxi cost me every time from 1.65 to 3.5 euros per call (despite the fact that my goodline would cost me 0.55 dollars per minute)
And when leaving the hotel, I was billed in this way for 7 euros.
There is no information about a paid LOCAL telephone in the room.
The money is small, of course.
But unpleasant.

Fourth, a small inconspicuous wire protruded from the handle of the hair dryer in the shower. He stuck out for 3 millimeters just from under the connection of the two halves of the hair dryer handle. But what was bad - he was ...(! ) naked!
The wife said that she did not understand whether she was shocked, or she pricked herself.
To be honest, we were crazy about this. We took a photo and showed it to the reception.
The first reaction was kind of strange - "we have nothing to do with it, that's all ...a manufacturer of hair dryers! "
Then, as an apology, we were given a coupon for a drink at the bar.
I said that all this, of course, hurt, but what are they going to do with the wire? They said that they could change our room or fix the problem until the evening. It was too lazy to drag things and I agreed that everything would be fixed.
In the evening we looked at what the Slovaks mean by "solving the issue. "

The handle of the white hair dryer was hastily wrapped with BLACK duct tape. And tyap-blunder and somehow. Hotel 4 stars. Austrian network.
Kapets. Kolkhoz.
And then we went to Vienna and realized that the Austrians are still those guys.
If the Slovaks are very friendly and always ready to help, of course, gouging like the Russians, but if you turn to them on the street, they will take you by the hand and take you away. And if you stand with a card on the street and be stupid, then they themselves will come up and ask if they can help you with something.
In general, of all the Eastern European countries where I have been (and except for Hungary, I have already been everywhere) - Slovaks are the most friendly and open.

But the Austrians are gloomy, unfriendly, unfriendly, arrogant and generally unpleasant. And the hotel chain is Austrian. We will not generalize, of course, but we have drawn some conclusions.

And finally, fifthly. This is wifi.
He is. Both in the rooms and everywhere in the hotel.
But what immediately alerted me was that it was made on Cisco.
That is, this is an endless input of passwords (which is annoying) - time.
And pretty nasty speed - two. And thirdly, it falls all the time.
And the most disgusting thing is that their Wi-Fi Skype does not pull at all!

This is the first hotel where I paid 65 euros per day and was dissatisfied with almost all the services of this hotel (except for the room itself).

The first couple of days there was still nothing (apparently there were few people in the hotel).
And the next days I constantly wanted to give a laptop to someone on the head for such an Internet connection.
As a result, we found out that there are two magical logins, from under which Wi-Fi is more or less (at least! ) stable and does not fall every 10 minutes.
These are logins and passwords:
44444444
hotel hotel
But he did not pull Skype from under them, unfortunately.
But at least the Internet "flyed out" not so often.
Because if you pay for something with a card on the Internet, then unstable Internet is a nightmare.


With me, in such a way, for this very hotel, money was "charged" twice from the card (at the time of paying for another night - the Internet ordered a long life).
Then I had to correspond with hotels4u. com on this topic
(because
a voucher is purchased through them, and you no longer pay at the hotel)
I must say that the extra debited money was returned quite quickly.

By the way, the usual logins and passwords are the room number. That is, for a number, say 510, the login password will be 510510.
And if you wish, if for some reason your login password does not work, you can brute force to go from under someone's room))))
And there it is constantly, they take the login password and "fly out" for no reason and you have to call the reception, ask to reload the login.
When I came to the reception again, hell knows what time - I was given these very logins 4444 and hotel, which apparently they have for use among staff.

And further. The hotel asks for a voucher. Yes, they see booking in their system. Yes, they see that he is on your full name.
But you must give them a voucher.
Although they are allowed not on paper, but can be sent by email. I still don't get it - wow.
And then I just sent them an email with a confirmation and a voucher that I received from hotels4U

It seems to be nothing special, but all these little things (after the cozy and friendly hotel "Amigo" in Prague for the same 60 euros) were somewhat annoying.

......................
OVERALL ABOUT THE HOTEL
......................
Other than that, the hotel is ok.
Overall a good room.
Personally, the combination of light green and dark brown in the design of the room is a little annoying for me.
But it's tolerable.

Good bath. Shower is good! Fenced off with a glass fence.
Two watering cans - manual and large stationary.
The shaving mirror can be rotated so that you can look into it through the glass barrier and shave right in the shower.
The bed is comfortable.

We had corner room 540 with city view. Then we lived in 539 opposite - everything is the same, only the view was simpler - on the next wall)).

The windows open a little, but if you open the window, it turns off
air conditioning.


there is an LCD TV.
The TV has a menu and you can watch the temperature outside the window through it.
There are even 1 or 2 Russian channels.
There is a mini-fridge (bar).
There is a safe that fits a full size laptop.
There is no kettle.
But we are experienced people, we carry our Kenwood mini-kettle))

Every morning in the alley on the street nearby, someone played the violin.
Played very professionally. If you open the window you can hear it in the room.

And like I said, the hotel has a great location.
Upon arrival, you will be given a map and guide.
Plus, they tell you where to go.

But for some reason there is no feeling of comfort : (

In general, one can live, and if it were not for the heat and poisoning, everything would probably be fine.
But still, next time, I would probably stop somewhere else.

.........................
A PAIR OF WORDS ABOUT BRATISLAVA
.........................
But in general - Bratislava itself can be seen in 1-2 days.
A few more days should be devoted to trips to the castles.
And a very pleasant ride down the Danube to Vienna on a speedboat.
It comes directly to the center of Vienna, and there is a metro right next to it.
Just do not take seats on the deck - they are the most inexpensive (22 euros, it seems), but you will really be blown away there.
Because the boat has a VERY high speed.
And we rode in the captain's lounge on the upper deck (for 36 euros per bow) with air conditioning.
Standard places on the lower deck (inside, there is also a condo and a small bar) are about 32 euros per person.
There are very beautiful views on the trip, you will pass several castles along the way.
Back the last boat at 18-00 it seems. Therefore, you can go back from Vienna on the late Eurolines bus. sk for 8 euros at 23-00. In general, they go there once an hour, but the last one is at 23-00.
Theoretically, you can probably take a train, but I can’t say anything about them, I didn’t go.
It is better to buy a Eurolines ticket in advance. It is possible through the Internet.

And it’s not so easy to find a Eurolines parking lot in Vienna, there the exit from the metro is completely ambiguous, I’m afraid I can’t explain in writing. It's better to ask.
And arrive 40 minutes before departure to calmly find buses.
The bus itself from Vienna to Bratislava (or vice versa) takes about 1.5 hours.
Trains also run there, but we didn't.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original

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