Hotel Golden Lake Resort

We booked a 4-night stay here specifically because we wished to spend a long weekend at a spa hotel with warm-water pools and a hot tub - unfortunately, halfway through our stay we found out that these were under renovation and would remain so for the rest of our time at the hotel.

Given that we booked this hotel for this specific reason, we were understandably upset, especially because they had failed to inform us about the situation either beforehand or upon arrival. After some negotiation, we were offered a discounted rate for the second part of our stay, a compensation for the drinks we had consumed up to a certain point, and an opportunity to use the spa facilities at another hotel in the city.

Overall, I wish we had been informed about the renovation in due time so we could have booked a different hotel altogether. We did, however, find the compensation satisfactory, but nevertheless having to go to a different hotel where you don’t have access to a room kind of defeats the purpose of a spa hotel in my view, hence the negative review.

It seems also that the hotel doesn’t have a manager on site to deal with these sorts of issues. According to the staff, all complaints that involve compensation have to be handled directly by the owner, who happened to be away, which honestly made the entire negotiation process somewhat awkward, since it involved a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth between the staff, the owner, and myself.

Another thing to watch out for when booking a room here its location within the building: the ones facing the marina are generally quiet - although the sound isolation is not exactly what I would expect from a hotel in this category -, but the rooms facing the street or the adjacent square will be very noisy in the evenings if there’s music playing at any of the nearby bars / restaurants.

On a more positive note, the location is great and breakfast and dinner were both satisfactory. The views of the lake are breathtaking and I suppose the spa facilities and pools are nice as well - as long as they are in operation.

AC is not working and they change my room to front side where there is construction going on.

Only good thing is its right by the lake..

Opened the door to a hot and musty smelling room. AC didn't work. The outdoor furniture of chairs and table had spiderwebs all over them. There were several big ants crawling around our room, some even on the bed. Told the front desk who came back to our room to inspect, and of course we could only find one ant, at which point she implied that I was making a fuss over nothing and then saying it's normal to have ants because the hotel is close to the lake. Needless to say we ended up leaving right away without sleeping (didn't get a refund either) and headed back to Budapest. Don't stay here. To say this is a 4 star hotel is utterly laughable.