I like a big hotel room, and I like to bring a lot of luggage when I travel.
It is hard to believe that the Corinthia Hotel Budapest is not the same hotel as the one in the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), but its not. The original hotel was named The Grand Hotel Royal. The problem with staying at this hotel is the rooms may be small due to it being an historical hotel. I have gotten to like the more modern larger rooms because otherwise you are tripping over your suitcases. I like to take a lot of luggage on trips. This is what makes flying for vacations so difficult. The prices look good online, but it turns out its for no bags and no carry ons. The price for a normal two suitcases per person and a carry on can be double the cost of the ticket.
There are two kind of domestic vacations. One is where you have all your luggage so have your best clothes and makeup because you drove. The other would be flying in a plane with no luggage and no carry ons, only to arrive at your location and have to buy all new stuff. The stuff you buy such as the clothes you will need to either donate to a charity store or you can mail them back to yourself before you leave provided you have time. Don’t buy your ticket without checking the bag fees.They make the bag fees cost hard to find on the website, hoping you will buy the ticket thinking the price is low without considering the bag fees. Why would you fly economy if you had so much extra money to spend on your bags? Clearly this a case of income discrimination. Business class is normally paid for by the company one is working for.
On American Airlines the bag fee can be up to $200 dollars if you elected to bring four bags. I would never want to bring four suitcases as that would be too much, but I like to take an electric blanket with me and that takes up a lot of space in one suitcase. In the busy season I found the bag fee for just normal bags doubled the cost. They call it the “busy season”, but it’s really the time in which most people want to go. They make the bag policy even more extreme at popular times of the year.
I had to drive to New Orleans rather then pay these bag fees. Since I am traveling with my companion who wants at least one bag, it would have been too much money to fly. Furthermore, I was bringing my mother and my step father’s ashes for burial. I realized each one would count as a carry on. That would have pushed me up to three or four bags, but I could only find carriers to New Orleans at a low price that would have doubled the cost or made in business class. Maybe the extra 200 dollar was not such a high fee compared to the business class upgrade, but American was not a choice I was seeing. I saw just budget airlines in my search.
Since I drove I got to see sights along the way, but there were drawbacks to driving even with a hybrid car. Coming back we hit a storm in Colorado. It was frightening to think about driving off a cliff or being stuck in the snow with no cell service. Then the extra cost of staying in hotels or airbnbs, maybe pushed the cost even higher? It’s hard to say if one rather pay $4000 dollars flat out or just spend the money along the way. The tickets seemed to start at around $500 from SFO to New Orleans, not so bad, but double in for bags that’s $1000 with a companion two tickets round trip it doubles again.
For going to Europe one will have to fly. Corinthia Hotel Budapest hotel looks really nice. The pool and spa is fantastic looking. This You Tube Video will show you the spa which also looks like the pool and the spa from the movie. The outside of the building looks like it was from the Movie. I could not believe that it was a made up hotel. I am sure the movie must have been created with Grand Hotel Royal in mind. If you compare the outer photos of the move hotel with the Corinthia Hotel Budapest they looks so similar. It would have been fun name hotel The Corinthia Grand Budapest. This would give the name of the company such as The Corinthia along with historical sounding name Grand. When people looked up the Movie online they could find the Hotel that way like I did. They would be impressed with the hotel, and the many interesting things there are to do in Budapest.
The Hotel was restored according to Wikipedia, but the rooms are small. I expected a deal therefore, but I did not see that reflected. My first impression was the hotel costs about 100 dollars a night in US dollars, but when I looked it was much more expensive. There could be different deals and things out there. It’s hard to know what the real price of the hotel is due to so many competing online companies wanted you to book with them.
The Palmer Hotel in Chicago was the same way. I went to Chicago and I got a great deal on the hotel. I liked the hotel and I thought about going again to see David Bowie Is, but suddenly the prices were three times higher. I am thinking this is an old hotel with a lot of rooms. They offer deals so those rooms don’t sit empty by lowering the prices. But to make it work you would to live nearby and be ready to stay at a moments notice when the prices dropped. Once you buy the plane ticket you are locked into dates, so get the reseversations first before you buy the plane ticket. I would have chosen a different hotel from the Palmer House if I had to pay a high rate.
In any historic hotel the rooms will be small and the bathrooms will be smaller. Some bathrooms may have old fashioned faucets. The only way to create a modern sized room would be to tear out the original rooms and make new rooms using double the space. This would remove half of the rooms, and then it would not be a historic room that one was staying in. Naturally they would want to double the price as they would lose half of the rooms at 100 occupancy. Upgrade the rooms to a normal modern size would then make it worth paying $250 to $300 dollars a night. I would not pay that for a small room, even in a very interesting historic hotel.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) Movie can be seen on Amazon for a low rental fee on Prime Video. I give this movie five stars. It’s a fun and suspenseful. Bill Murray has a small role.The movie is fast paced and well plotted. If you enjoyed other movies by Wes Anderson such Royal Tenenbaums or The Life Aquatic you will like this movie.
Spoiler Alert Stop reading as this gives away a plot point
The best scene was the one in which the Concierge asks the Lobby Boy why he left his home country and he says it was because his family was killed in the war. The scene starts out with the Concierge screaming like Basil Fawlty to Manuel in Fawlty Towers, but ends with understanding between the characters. This was uplifting to see them come to an understanding of each other, although the nationality of the Concierge is never given I would assume he was from Europe. This may have been done to make the Concierge more of an everyman, but one of European descent. He could have been German, French or British or even from Budapest as the dialogue is all in English. The viewer has to suspend disbelief about the English Dialogue.
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