Normafa Hotel

Wonderful Weekend at Normafa

by A TripAdvisor Member

My husband treated me to a long weekend for my 40th Birthday to the Hungarian city of
Budapest. He booked us in to the Hotel Normafa****. What a wonderful weekend we had. The Hotel Normafa**** was set at the top of a hill, surrounded by a beautiful woodland, full of chestnut trees. We were welcomed warmly by everyone at reception and shown to our room. Our room was lovely, overlooking the beautiful heated swimming pool, our room was very clean and the bathroom was sparkling.

During our weekend my husband and I ate in both the Hotel restaurants. All the meals were top notch. We also made full use of the leisure activities, using the gym, swimming pool (beautifuuly heated), steam room, sauna and treating ourselves to a well deserved massage. Bliss......

We had a fantastic time and will recommend the Hotel Normafa**** to all our friends and relatives. Although we didn't have our children with us, this time, the hotel caters well for the young ones too with kids pool and climbing frame (park) etc.

Thank you for making my 40th birthday extra special.

Susan and Paul Stewart

Lovely Hotel in Normafa

by TripAdvisor Member hammersnceltic

Hotel Normafa in Budapest, Hungary.

The Normafa Hotel is worth a visit, the place is positioned in the hills of Budapest. The hotel has facilities to cater from the business person to Joe Public. There is a lovely pool area with drinks served from the hotel. The food is very tasty and would appeal to all. There are two eating areas within the hotel grounds. First is inside the hotel and there is a second area which is called the Normafa bar and grill. The staff are very polite and courteous, they all speak quite good English.
There is also a gym and a sauna area. You can hire books from the hotel.
The only problem with the hotel, it has no air conditioning or fans to cope with the high temperatures of Summer. The rooms have central heating for the Winter if you visit then.

Transport into Budapest is excellent and conveniently positioned to the left of the hotel exit. Bus numbers 21 and 90 run on a very regular basis, even on Sundays. Tip enquire about a single trip ticket at the hotel reception as you will need a ticket to use on the bus. As tickets aren't sold to you by the bus driver. Once in the City, go to the Metro, and purchase a travel card either 1,3 or 7 day tickets. This travel ticket will give you all day travel on every part of the Budapest transport system:- Bus, Tram, Metro Underground Trains and the Cog Wheel train by the Hotel Budapest. This travel ticket you must keep on you at all times whilst using the transport as you may be asked by an Inspector to see it. If you don't have a ticket you can be fined 2500 huf on the spot or even more if you don't pay. You can hop on each piece of transport and never get lost, just remember to get on the opposite side to where you got off.

Opposite the Hotel is the Normafa Cafe which is situated by the wooded area to the park. If you walk through it at night, (Tip:- Take a torch to see in the dark as there are no lights). Walk through the area until in front of you, you see Budapest all light up it is an amazing sight. It you are you a camcorder make sure the night-scope is on.

The whole of Budapest is worth a visit, there are plenty of trips, but if you do as my husband and I did, we hopped and stopped along the Bus, Tram and Metro routes and found so much more.

Also take a stroll or a boat along the Danube, the buildings are well built and the carvings are lovely.

For shopping use the Mammat Shopping Hall and the Kaiser Supermarket (go right down the ground floor escalator and go out the doors to the underground tunnel leading to the bus and tram stops. Continue passing through, there are little outlets of different things to buy, but continue to the glass doors and walk through and you will walk into a 4 - 5 levelled shopping mall.) This mall has food areas and loads of shops.

Can't really fault the Hotel at except the air conditioning not being there for the Summer.

I can say this Hotel is well worth the visit!!!!!!!!!!!!!

excellent hotel & city

by TripAdvisor Member jayarrscott

We stayed for 5 nights - weather was v.hot. Every day we spent a couple of hours beside/in the lovely pool. AM & evening we spent visiting the city, which was a super experience - best parts were (in no particular order) castle hill, river cruise (standard ferry), opera (rigoletto), synagogue & museum (holocaust section invoked strong emotions), acquincum roman site (via above ferry).

We ate al fresco every night & had a most enjoyable time, not least due to the normafa hotel quality (including good breakfasts & restaurant meals), location (20 minutes from city by frequent bus) & customer service (e.g. free internet access)

Everything was reasonably priced, including the hotel itself, travel (1 week travel card for all city transport = £8.50), meals at good restaurants, admission to sites of interest.

Budapest people very easy going & helpful - no hassle at all.

Go before it becomes over popular & expensive!

Slightly misleading

by A TripAdvisor Member

We arrived here on 29th April, 2006. Again the reviews were helpful on deciding to stay at this hotel.
Yes the building work is on going and should be finished sometime soon, no later than second week of May. We were not aware of this until we arrived and as we were staying for 5 nights were disappointed because the pool had been drained and we only booked this particular one because of the great looking pool.
Seeing as though we booked direct with the hotel we were offered half board at an extra 10 euros per room (as we thought) but on checking out out were told it was 10 euro per person. Okay still not bad for a 3 course evening meal but the Normafa should have stated this on their website. We did not actually have any confirmation from the hotel but they assured us this was stated. We had to make 3 phone calls to Normafa just to clarify our booking.
Anyway saying that, had a lovely bottle of bubbly left in my room, compliments of the hotel for my birthday which fell on one of the 5 nights of our stay.
Public transport was excellent. We didnt buy the Budapest card but purchased a 3 day transport pass at Moscow Square for about 11 euros cant remember exactly how much in Hungarian florints. This covered us for metro, Tram, Bus within Budapest.
We went to Vienna for the day by train, costing a little over 20.00 pounds sterling return. The journey took us 3 hours to get there but well worth it as our ticket also covered transport within zone 100 in Vienna. Caught the 6.00am train to Vienna and returned on the 4.00pm train getting us back into Budapest just after 7.00 pm (DONT FORGET YOUR PASSPORT)
Anyway Hotel Normafa was lovely and a nice change to be up in the hills away from the hectic downtown.

A first-rate hotel

by TripAdvisor Member RosemaryJohn

My wife and I spent two weeks at the Normafa and we have nothing but praise for the way the hotel is run. The staff were exceptionally friendly and helpful to us, particularly those at the reception desk and in the restaurant. The facilities are very good, and although our room was not air conditioned we were able to keep the temperatures down because of the location of the Normafa, high on the hills overlooking Budapest. There was an excellent (and for us being EU pensioners, free) bus service 3 minutes walk from the hotel, with buses running every 15 minutes down to the city. Budapest is one one the most beautiful and interesting cities we have ever visited and warrants at least a two-week stay, as we did. Standards everywhere were at least as high as in any other European country we have visitied, and we have been to most, and the local people couldn't be more kind and helpful.

So peacefull

by TripAdvisor Member Schrap

We chose the Normafa because it was close to the forest. And it did not fail to impress and met all of our needs.

The rooms were clean.
The regluar public transport makes it a perfect getaway to enjoy both the forest/park and the city.

The pool and fitness area were a bonus. The food was delicious and the staff were very friendly and helpful. I recommend their home-made lemonades!!! A great way to cool down your thirst on a hot summers day! And their cottage cheese filled pancakes for desert are devine!

Normafa

by yoro

"Normafa with fog"

This time Budapest city was covered with fog (very very rare), but we went to Normafa (in the northwest part of the city) and we were in a nice spot of sunlight.

Walking to the forest, into the heavy fog.

The sun wants to see us.

Here it is. The clear sunlight on a higher place. We were surrounded with fog around us.