Introduction For my weekend trip to Budapest, now with the Hilton Budapest City gone, I only had 2 choices - Hilton Budapest (Castle Hill) or the newer Hilton Garden Inn. Based on price, the Hilton was just slightly more expensive compared to the HGI. Since my original flight was arriving deep in the night into Budapest, I went for the HGI mainly because of it's location and I did not want to go all the way to slightly disadvantaged located Hilton. If the Hilton were more centrally located, I would have just gone for it, since I've until today not had really much good experiences with HGI's in Europe. Location This property is located in a side street close to the Opera House. For those depending on using the public transportation, the airport express bus stops is about 800m (at Deak Ferenc ter Metro). There's two other metro stops closer to the hotel - Arany Janos and Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út. From here, walking to some of the major attractions (e.g chain bridge, parliment, etc) is quite close, all within a 20 mins walking distance. Around the hotel there's quite a number of good restaurants/cafe/bars - only recommendation is try and make a reservation early especially during the weekends, they seem to be fully booked most of the weekend nights. Check In I did not use the online check-in facility for this property even though it was available - including digital key - because I was not sure if my new flight would still be scheduled (due to the weather). Anyway, these days, online check-in does not really help much since quite a lot of country requires additional check of health documents. For this property - as usual in Hungary, they will need to take/scan a copy of your identity document. When checking the room, type I noticed that no upgrade to another higher level room was provided even on the day itself. Arrived at the property around 1730 - with 2 other guests checking in. As I stood, there was 2 other agents free and I was called to be checked in - this was by from what I read on the name tag, the Front Desk Supervisor. Check-in was neutral to say the least - not much enthousim outside of later at the final stage of the process, a Thank you for being an elite member and the included benefit (breakfast). WIth that, I was given the key card and that was it, no additional explanations of anything else except for the breakfast hours and location. Use of mask seems to be compulsory - athough not using them, no one would say anything. (this was the same at a lot of restaurants/shops) Room To access the room/floor, a key card activation is needed - the room was situated on the 7th floor and just around the corner of the lift. (which did become a problem). The hotel does have a sort of semi 8th floor.Room size was OK - with a the bathroom/toilet directly to the left of the entrace hall and a longish working table/TV stand/coffee making area. At the corner of the room was a small table and single lounge chair. Other than that, not much exciting decorations. The wardrobe was a built in one - with the usual amenities of ironing board/irion and the luggage rack.,View of the room was towards an inner courtyard looking towards other buildings/apartments. Initially I thought that there would be no better rooms with better view (rooms on the other side looks also towards the building opposite the hotel).Internet login was the usual method - with the room number and name. Internet speed and stability was ok - The TV in the room was of an appropriate size with a mix of international and local channels. Tea and coffee making facility was provided and included (i believe for all rooms) 2 bottles of complimentary water (1 still and 1 sparkling - which is not replaced the next day)As for room temperature (and hotel in general) - like lots of countries in this side of Europe, it was baking hot, initially entering the room, it felt like going into an oven. Luckily there was a window which could be opened. As for the climate control - again this was quite useless, it was registering a set temperature of 21 deg C, reducing this down to the minimal (18 degC) did nothing to help - so for the whole stay, only solution was to leave the window open - it can be opened entirely or just vertically. This did help a bit to keep the room on the cooler side. However for those who really need a colder temperature to sleep, this could be an issue if you also need to have the dark out curtains to close. [Even when in the lobby area, the temperature was on the higher side, walking around in T-shirt was not an issue]As for noise - this is where having both situation - needing to leave the window open and close to the elevator (can) became an issue. With the window open, you can hear clearly the emergency vehicles off an on. Location of the room close to the elevator means being close to the elevator shaft/mechism, which did become an issue during the normal hours (if the TV is out) - you would hear the mechanism clicking/whoosing, etc. Outside of this, other noises from the interior itself was ok - you could hear occasionally doors closing or people talking, but luckily nothing too severe in my case. As for the bathroom - it was ok in size - with a walk-in shower area. Water pressure and temperature control was good. Only thing is that for those who showers on the wild side, due to the smaller shower glass protection, the floor might get a bit wet. Toiletries were the usual Crabtree and Evelyn product. Breakfast The breakfast spread was good for a HGI. Although not informed, you can do eggs to order (not clear what could be/not be done - but for certain the usual fried eggs or omelets). Seems you just do this directly with one of the kitchen staff - as i did not see anyone ordering via the servers working in the breakfast room. Both cold and hot dishes are the usual spread. Refills of dishes seems to be done quite well. Other than that, it was the usual breakfast service you can expect. HHonors benefit For HHonors elite members hoping for slightly better treatment at this property, I would say forget about it. Outside of what is stated on paper, nothing further is provided. Although during my stay, much better rooms including suites were available, zero upgrade was provided even to a room with a better city view (which are rooms located on the 8th floor). I tried to ask for a late check-out, but this was straightout denied - I was given some really weird excuse that on my check-out day, they needed to clean 70+ rooms, which i did not argue. According to logic, fine if you need to clean 70 rooms and usual checkout time is 12 noon, what has these 70 rooms to clean not allow for a late checkout request for 14h - I would understand if I had some special room and you needed that particular room, but with the hotel still selling loads of room on my checkout day, I really did not understand why late checkout was not permitted. Service in general I found the service at this property to be a just OK or rather neutral neither good nor bad. For example when checking in, you would expect someone with a position of a supervisor to be more forthcoming/welcoming. The breakfast staff - yes, they did do what was needed, but outside of that, no smiles nor any sort of warm service. In fact for the breakfast room, i felt that the staff working behind in the kitchen to be much more friendlier than the servers. To me it seems like staff are trained to just say no to everything - if not part of what is written on paper. An example i found out during my stay that there was this rooftop terrace - which seemed to be closed during winter time - I asked if it was possible to have a quick visit outside (just to see the rooftop view of the city), but was told no. Overall All in all - a bit of a mix bag with this property. In my view it is an OK property if the price is right and zero expectation of some additional special treatment as an HHonors elite guest. I guess going into this property with an expectation of having a clean bed, good location, modern property and following the written expectation, this would certainly not result in a dissapointing stay.For HHonors elite guest expecting something extra, my advise would be to put those aside for the Hilton property (which is much forthcoming and welcoming). I will only return to this property if the price is right and of course with the correct (low) expectation of benefits as an elite member, might even just for the next time if I want a location on Pest side, select one of the Marriott properties.