I'm surprised to find how positive the comments here are on the Ritz-Carlton Budapest. I stayed last week and was disappointed. The difference, however, may be that I'm not at all well-connected. I was just a lowly "Gold Elite" paying a fairly low rate. The GM personally seemed to be tripping over himself to accommodate the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder ballers, and it was clear my presence was not important.

This hotel felt to me basically like the RC Cleveland, both in terms of clientele and physical plant. Everything is clean and modern, but there's nothing particularly unique to the character of Budapest (or the building's curious history). The breakfast was fine (apart from the extreme difficulty of getting anything, like coffee, from staff), but a generic one with the buffet labels only in English. There weren't any obvious local specialties. Usually I enjoy breakfasts of all local products, and I appreciate the hotels indicating how many kilometers a product traveled. The soap is the same Chinese-made Asprey they have in Atlanta and Cleveland. Some of the bath towels were ripped up, oddly.

In terms of service, the "Ladies and Gentlemen" (what an idiotic catchphrase, incidentally) seemed well-trained on platitudes but never offered any substance. That is, they would apologize for shortcomings but never offer any real assistance. When I arrived, my first impression was the doormen flailing their arms for me to move my car out of the way so a giant boat cruise bus could park comfortably. Initially we were assigned a basic but nice room with a St Stephen's view. Unfortunately, it smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. We were reassigned to a much smaller room--one window instead of two, no seating area. I complained, and multiple staff members insisted it's in the same "deluxe" category with the same view. That may be, but it's smaller and unacceptable to me. Maybe the hotel was full with all the elder cruisers from the USA, but staff didn't bother to offer an excuse. No matter why I didn’t like the room, a luxury hotel ought to work hard to do what they can to move me and make me a happy guest—even if it has to be after a night or two. I would've left, but the prices elsewhere were relatively high at the last minute and I had my family (and associated luggage) in tow and decided to suffer through. Considering Al Habtoor owns both the RC and IC Budapest, an attentive staff might have given me the option of moving me over to a nice room at the IC. It gave me a chuckle when they doubled-down on the point both rooms are deluxe after I completed a survey they sent me and I provided negative comments on this.

I bought pizza for my kid next door one night and left the box outside the room to avoid stinking up the tiny room with the food smell. It was still there 12 hours later when I went to the gym for a run. After an obese American finished watching CNN at full-blast while sitting on an exercise bike, I hoped I'd be able to listen to my own music for the end of my exercise. But an employee inexplicably installed a small speaker next to me and started blasting techno--not complaint-worthy, just clueless weirdness that is another vignette inconsistent with the service standards for a luxury hotel.

During my time in Budapest, I walked into the New York Palace, a Boscolo that also is now under the Marriott umbrella, and regretted very much not staying there instead, at least based on the lobby and the vibe from the staff. Next time.