Gellért

by Tibebu
(Budapest)

I have started my trial of Budapests spas from Gellert and I have now a question like comment. I have not much experience on bathing actually, I directlly start in the small pool with temperature of 38. I stayed around an hour and directly steped out, and drank little cold water. And took some rest in a chair. After that I went to my cabin and did not take that much nap and changed my clothse and headed to home. My questions here comes. I got sick, my muscle got exhausted and felt cold. I had also fever the whole night. Now, its my third day after the bath, and I have still a pain in my throat. What happended to me? If you have a response from similar experience, I can be reached at tibsal2009@gmail.com
thanks.
T

Széchenyi Bath

by Nelle
(Taipei)

It is an awesome bath!
There were so many different pools, different in style, size, temperature etc. sauna and steam bath were great.

It was a little too cold for me to go outdoor in the winter, but my husband enjoyed his little excursion to the outdoor pool.

I like the fact that it had common area where we can share the experience.

kiraly bath

by kath
(budapest)

The Kiraly is fantastiaclly atmospheric with its huge domb, bare stone walls, shafts of light, sounds of dripping water echoing around the dome etc. It is my favouirte of the baths and excellent for an an hour or two of retreat from city life.

Unfortunately recent experience has shown that there is a scam for tourists to be aware of:

On entrance you are given a bar coded card, depending on the amount of time you spend in the baths on exit you are probably entitled to a partial refund, as much as 1000 forints. One of the attendants at the Kiraly makes a deliberate attempt to take the card from you and take the receipt so that they themselves claim the refund.

As I visit the baths frequently and know the procedure I was able to ask for the receipt that the attandant had taken. I have since spoken to a number of tourists and the exactly the same thing has happened, the attendant takes your card , puts it in the machine pushes the turnstile and says goodbye whilst standing in front of the bit where the paper come out, trying to hide it.

Kiraly Bath

We've visited the baths in December 2010 on a men's only day. All in all a very bad experience and we left quite soon.

The bath is no more or less than a gay sauna. We don't mind people being what they are and having fun the way they like to, but we do mind if visitors are having sex in the public thermal baths with other visitors present!

It felt like swimming in a bath of dirt :-( Hanky Panky was going on in the showers, in the shower cabines, in the baths. It creates an unhealthy enviroment for people in the baths.

So all in all, a very very bad experience as we came here to actually enjoy the thermal bath itself and not the men or the gay entertainment. The bath is listed in all brochures of Budapest as a 'normal' thermal bath. We recommend giving the proper information in the tourist information brochures.

Mind you that based on the Tourist Information provided, I could have entered this bath with my kids and I had a lot of explaining to do afterwards.