The French hotelier Accor operates the Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, and Ibis chains in Europe. Price, roominess, and level of luxury decline in the listed order, and usually superb quality control provides reliable consistency from hotel to hotel, but quality was a bit frayed around the edges at the Budapest Sofitel. Turning on the TV was an adventure in the mysterious, the mystery being how to make it work, which even baffled the staff. Postcards the front desk assured us would be mailed "tomorrow" for $1 each were undelivered four weeks later. The buffet breakfast, included in the high room price, was a disaster of empty serving trays and cold supposedly hot dishes on one of our two mornings. The other day, the breakfast was quite nice.
Perhaps it was hangover from the Soviet days, but there were no such problems at the super-efficient Prague Hilton. That said, it was a nice, modern, comfortable hotel. Rooms weren’t spacious be American standards, but not bad for Europe. The window drapes did a first-rate job of keeping out light (see our comments on the cruise accommodations).
Beds came with no top sheet and a comforter, which we found was too warm for a hot summer night, even with A/C. This is common in Europe, and we have fix. We removed the comforter from it’s cover, piled the insulation in a corner, used the cover as a sheet, and found real blankets in the closet, giving us a real American-style bed.
For what you get, which is nice enough excepting breakfast, the Budapest Sofitel ain’t cheap.
The hotel has a fine location in downtown Pest on a large square almost on the banks of the Danube across from Castle Hill, near Vaci Ut., the city’s premier shopping street (boutiques and souvenir shops), not too far from the metro (Vorosmarty Ter or Deak Ter, the only station where all three metro lines converge), and only two blocks from Gerebaud.