Mjus World Resort & Thermal Park

After two days at Mjus over my birthday, we came away with a mixture of feelings. Overall, there were three strong posiitves and three big problems:

On the positive side:
1. The sauna area is excellent and the sauna sessions/seances each day were outstanding (and we've been to a lot around Hungary - these were amongst the best).
2. The food is amazing and is certainly of the highest quality. They also catered well for us (we have special diets - vegetarian, and one is gluten-free) and there was excellent choice and taste. There was also the pleasant surprise of a fruit plate delivered to our room on my birthday, which was a nice gesture.
3. The rooms are tastefully designed, spacious and really sound-proof. They have even designed the doors to each room so they close silently, which is rare in any hotel. There's a real Nordic sense to the design which somehow works wonderfully inside a building that, from the outside, looks very ordinary.

And then the three big problems:
1. The staff need some real training in customer service and hospitality. With the exception of the sauna area, where the staff were pleasant and helpful, the staff elsewhere seemed bored, frustrated and gave the impression that hotel guests were an inconvenience. The front desk staff at reception were particularly unhelpful and unfriendly.
2. Sadly, for a thermal resort, the water in the pools simply isn't hot enough. In fact, the water in the adults-only shared indoor/outdoor pool next to the sauna area was so cool that we could only take 5-10 minutes at a time before we had to get out and have a sauna to warm up. At most it was about 33-34 degrees, which on a cold January day in the open air just doesn't feel comfortable. During this same trip we went to many other thermal resorts around the region, and their hottest open-air pools were a wonderful 38-39 degrees and just blissful!
3. The check-out restriction of 10:30am is early, but OK if that's what they need to do. But the really unfortunate part is that after 10:30 you cannot use the pools or saunas anymore. Even if you have checked out of your room and taken you luggage to the car, they simply won't allow you to enjoy the facilities as part of your stay on the day of departure. This leaves you with the feeling of a business that is both greedy and willing to put (pointless) rules and profits before customer service and kindness - and it doesn't leave guests with a good feeling.

On balance, there is so much potential to Mjus - but it would be hard to strongly recommend the place until the water is warmer, and the smiles too!