Sharing a 12 bed spacious dorm room with clean facilities and a shared kitchen allowed us to meet plenty of new people. We were met with friendly and helpful staff and visited a Tesco very near the hostel whilst being only a short walk away from transport or a nice stroll to the city centre. An overall welcoming and friendly vibe.
I think that most people would agree that the Shantee House is THE PLACE to stay when in Budapest. It is quite far from the city center, but there are buses that go right into town just a few blocks away.
Staff are friendly and helpful. I stayed in the yurt (which I HIGHLY recommend!). The rooms are clean and comfortable. They had extra blankets which I was grateful for on the chillier nights. The other guests were respectful so I got a good nights sleep. The kitchen is quite small considering how many people were staying there but it was fully stocked.
There are lockers – bring a lock! Showers and bathrooms are clean and I never had to wait!
They have a hookah (shisha pipe) and often bake treats for their guests. Free tea and coffee and a full array of movies you can watch in their common room!
Shantee House is very much billed as a chill-out, hippy kind of an experience. There is incense burning and Bob Marley playing and pictures of the Dalai Lama on the walls. Which is all well and good. There are also a lovely dog and cat hanging about, which help to achieve a nice, relaxing atmosphere
I would say that I have a couple of issues overall. For example, there is a sign in the kitchen asking you to clean your own dishes and telling you that washing up is ‘fun’. However, the dish cloths and scourers provided are so old and filthy looking that I was more worried about making my dinner plates dirtier by trying to clean them. Add to this the mould in our bedroom and bathroom and the blocked shower which didn’t get fixed and I would say that I would have preferred less Bob Marley and more clean stuff.
None of these issues are major and our stay was fine, but I think that it is worth getting some of the basics right before you focus on where to hang your Buddha pictures…
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