Hotel Lycium

Just had 3 nights at the Lycium. Very good stay at a good price. Ideal location just a short 5 minuet walk from town. Nice breakfast and all the staff we meet were very friendly. One slight down side was that our room overlooked the small plaza and fountain which most of the time was very quite but Saturday/Sunday afternoon had a lot of skateboarders which was very noisy. Overall well recommended.

The conference centre attached to the hotel is superb. Spacious, very flexible, light and airy, although the low capacity catering meant long queues. The hotel itself is pretty average, nice rooms, but the public areas are too small and not conducive to socialising, and quite tired. The staff were variable, some reserved until you made an effort to speak Hungarian, which is some mission! Others could not be more helpful and attentive. You have to remember that by nature Hungarians are taciturn. The location is brilliant, close to shopping malls, which is handy if like us, Lufthansa lost both our bags! The hotel is also a couple of minutes walk to the main sights and restaurant area, but set back in a peaceful backwater.

I stayed 8 nights at this hotel attending a conference arranged at the conference center in the same building. The room as of good size. Breakfast was included and was good. The personel was friendly and spoke fairly fluently english. The level of cleaning the rooms was not very good. The floor was not vacuumed for several days.

We had two nights in this hotel which is extremely well situated. Across the road from the #2 tram from the railway station and directly behind the Museum. Our room was on the 1st floor and overlooked the square and fountain below and we could see the back of the museum so quite a pleasant outlook. The room was a good size and quality, firm bed, set up as two singles pushed together as is the European way. Reasonable size bathroom, shower only. You need to be here at the right time of year, our room was too hot and we were told that it was on a heat cycle so you couldn’t turn down the heat. We were told to open the window. That worked, but at night the noise from the square went on till past midnight (on a Wednesday) and couldn’t sleep. Breakfast was only average for 4 star hotel, limited options, reasonable quality. On the first morning there were only small numbers in the hotel. No one came near us or cleared away any of our dirty dishes until after we left. The next morning there were two tour groups staying in the hotel, a bit more attention but not much better. The room itself is extremely large and airy. It is also the restaurant at night. As other reviewers have said the staff tend to be a little offhand at first but many warm up the more you converse with them. The men seem better than the women. The girl who dealt with our check out was particularly unhelpful. Earlier in our stay she had gone out of her way to keep looking down when my husband had a question to ask. My experience with her was at check out. First she didn’t want to give us an invoice until after we had paid which was highly unusual. Next when we discussed paying the bill it was quoted in Euros as being 151. I was then handed the card machine with what looked to me like I was being charged 178 (It turned out to be 46178 HGF but they put a big space between the 46 and 178). When I queried the figure, I was told aggressively that it was in Hungarian money - "we are in Hungary you know”. Of course I knew that. The more appropriate thing to have done would have been to hand me the machine and to say, ‘that comes to 46,178 HGT” as staff with good customer service skills in most hotels would do as a matter of course with international guests.

Overall Hotel Lycium offers very comfortable, central accommodation from which to explore Debrecen. Look and feel are of a business hotel. Rooms are spacious and clean. Staff are friendly and speak fluent English. The location is brilliant (modern art museum in same building, Deri museum around corner, Piac utca and main square 10 mi s away). Breakfast standard 4-star. I would very much choose to stay here again.