I have just been to Krakow in Poland for my stag do and this is a review of the hotel that I stayed in while in Krakow. For those of you who are looking for some juicy gossip from the stag may I just remind you before I go any further about the first rule of a stag which is 'What happens on the stag, stays on the stag.' This is not a kop-out on my part but just simply due to the fact that I do not remember much about it!
**GETTING TO THE HOTEL**
We flew with Ryanair from GlasgowPrestwick Airport direct to Krakow Airport, a flight which took about two and a half hours. We nearly never made it to Poland as the pilot announced that he may not be able to land the flight due to a very drunk Polish guy on the plane who was refusing to either sit down or fasten his seat belt for landing. The story that was passing round the plane was that the man in question had consumed about a full bottle of vodka on the flight which was made even more amazing by the fact that the flight had taken off at 6.55 AM. After all this the flight did eventually touch down and the very drunk man was arrested and escorted off the plane which gave us a bit of excitement to start the weekend. Our flights cost £14.99 each way plus tax which were very good value although not quite as good as my brothers which were £1 each way plus tax from
London Stansted.
After the excitement of the flight and the subsequent arrest, the rest of the journey was very straightforward. The staff at Krakow airport were very efficient and within half an hour or so we had passed through passport control and had received our bags ready to go. For the next step we decided the easiest thing would be to jump into taxis to get to our hotel, the Wyspianski Hotel, which is situated in the centre of Krakow. Krakow is about fourteen KM from the airport and the taxi journey took about twenty minutes and cost the equivalant of £14, so about £3 each for us.
**HOTEL**
My first impression of the Wyspianski Hotel was that it was a lot nicer than I had been expecting for some reason. You tend to expect the worst some times when going for a stag weekend and I was kind of expecting the cheapest/worst hotel would have been booked but that wasn't the case here. I think the fact that you get a lot more for your money in Poland helped as this hotel only cost £44 each for two nights bed and breakfast, which you would struggle to get anything near the value of anywhere in the UK.
1) Location
The Wyspianski Hotel is ideally situated in the centre of Krakow and is only a short walk from the main square in Krakow. Although it is very well situated you are not too close to any of the bars and clubs so you can also avoid the noise if thats what you choose to do.
2) Reception/Bar Area
On entrance to the Wyspianski Hotel through the automatic doors you walk into the reception/bar area of the hotel. The reception is very nice and tastefully decorated and is also very clean. The quality of the check-in process at reception was very high. The staff on the desk at reception were very attentive and speak very good English. The reception staff took our passports on check-in and held these for the duration of our stay, giving us our passports back on checking out of the hotel at which point the reception staff also booked us taxis for the journey back to the airport. The one downside that I did find with the staff on the reception was that they did go onto the hard sell to try and sell us tours which we did not want to go on. This would have been fair enough if it was something that we wanted to do but they did not seem to get the hint that a group of guys on a stag weekend prefer to do there own thing.
The bar at the Wyspianski Hotel was in the reception area of the hotel and was very quiet most of the time that we were in the hotel. There was only ever one member of staff working behind the bar at a time but this was always more than adequate to cope with any customers that were present. The barstaff were very hard working and whenever they had no customers to serve they always kept themselves busy with other duties like cleaning the shelves or restocking.
3) Rooms
The bedrooms in the Wyspianski Hotel were in my opinion not up to the same standard set by the reception area of the hotel. The style of the rooms was quite strange with the twin rooms in which we were staying having two beds back to back against one of the walls. This meant you were almost lying head to head with the person you were sharing the room with. The beds in the room were particularly uncomfy and my back was a bit sore in the mornings although that may admittedly have something to do with the sixteen hour sleep that I had on the first night in the hotel. The pillows were also very poor and your head seemed to sink right into the pillow making these uncomfy as well.
The rooms were kept pleasantly warnm which was a plus point as the temperatures outside dropped as low as -10 Degrees C at some points of our trip. The bathroom in the hotel room was very clean and had a very good shower which was good for wakening you in the morning as it was like a power shower although a strange point was that there was no soap in the bathroom.
The facilities in the room included Cable/Satellite TV which was only of any use if you could understand Polish/French/German as there were no channels on the TV in English and also a radio/alarm clock which did not work in the room I was staying in.
4) Cleaning
The hotel had a very high standard of cleanliness and there seemed to be a large amount of maids working in the hotel who all seemed very pleasant. The rooms in the hotel are cleaned daily and you have a choice as to whether you want fresh towels or not. There is a sign in the bathroom telling you to leave the towels that you want changed on the floor and any towels that are fresh you have to leave on the rails. I also have to give a mention to the porters who seemed to be forever cleaning the stone floors in the reception. With the weather being so cold and with a lot of snow on the ground, there were always people coming into the hotel with a dirty trail of footprints which the porters always mopped up within minutes.
5) Breakfast
Breakfast is served in the hotel from 7AM through to 11Am and although I did not make it for breakfast the first morning due to my sixteen hour sleep as I mentioned earlier, I did manage breakfast the second day. The breakfast is served buffet style and included various fruit juices, cereal, cold meats, cheese, bread rolls and hotdog style sausages amongst other things. The breakfast was reasonable enough. The hotel did serve other meals later in the day although I cannot comment on this as we ate elsewhere.
**CONCLUSION**
I would recommend this hotel to everyone. It is suitable for a group of people like it was on our trip, families or couples. It is in an excellent location and at £44 each for two nights bed and breakfast the hotel is excellent value for money. The one complaint I would have is to do with the rooms, if they got comfier beds and pillows it would make a huge difference.
The hotel is a 3 star hotel and has 158 rooms.
I would like to finish this by saying that I am glad to have survived my stag weekend and made it through the two days without any major incident although I am now worried about the home leg.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Really informative. Plenty of detail yet concise. I want to go!! Rachel x
newty1977 10.04.2006 02:28
Great review. A good mate of mine, who is currently travelling in Oz is a big fan of the place. We have had a few hardcore nights out over here with his Polish fraternity !!!
tekin21 31.03.2006 10:28
Sounds like a pretty decent hotel for a cheap break, had never considered Poland before, wouldn’t mind reading a bit more about the area (guess you are not really the person to tell me – since you don’t remember much of it, lol!!) Jane x
Location. Wyspianski Hotel rises from historic Krakow, Poland, a city famous for its ... more
ornate architectural buildings and rich history. The hotel is located only 500 meters from Rynek Glowny, Krakow's central market square. Moreover, the ancient Cloth H...
Information:
Price is per double room per night and may vary depending on date booked...
Location. Wyspianski Hotel rises from historic Krakow, Poland, a city famous for its ... more
ornate architectural buildings and rich history. The hotel is located only 500 meters from Rynek Glowny, Krakow's central market square. Moreover, the ancient Cloth H...
Information:
Price is per double room per night and may vary depending on date booked...
exceptional by (11%):
very helpful by (88%):
helpful by (1%):
