I stayed at the Charles Hotel on regular business trips to Budapest and the last time was in July 2007.

The hotel is conveniently located on the Buda side of the city (District I - Castle district). The buses that stop in front of the hotel (across the street) takes you to downtown Vaci utca in 5 minutes (3 bus-stops). If you drive, the hotel is about 3 minutes away from the road that leads to the motorway M1 (to Vienna) and M7 (Lake Balaton)..

The rooms are very clean and spacious with a small kitchen and fridge. The TV selection is rather limited (less than 20 channels) and the only one in English is CNN.

Another thing is the thin curtains; if you're staying here in Summer, be prepared to be woken up early if you have a room that faces the morning sun.

Unlike some reviewers, I didn't have a problem with the noise because I keep the windows closed all the time. Rooms that faces the street have double-glazed windows that cuts out the noise almost completely. I stayed in their deluxe room with air-conditioning so it wasn't hot in Summer with the windows shut.

Breakfast is buffet style and has a good selection of food. The restaurant crew is efficient, friendly and polite. Ditto the front desk staff.

I wish the hotel would have a laundry room with coin-operated machines for guests. It's such a pain to get laundry cleaned in Budapest without blowing a hole in your wallet.

My partner an I stayed at the Hotel Charles in July 2006 and found it to be very good value for money. The noise from the road was quite loud, but you do get used to it! The breakfast (which was included in the price) was very good and we often had lunch/dinner in there as well, which again was good quality. All of the staff were helpful - booking taxis, offering advice etc..
I would certainly recommend this hotel to people looking for a cheap, clean place to stay within 15minutes walk of the centre.

I booked online a 3 days stay in late October 2006, at the reasonable price of 58 euros a night.

I had an apartment on the 3rd floor, with a large sleeping room, a kitchen, a bathroom with shower and a small balcony. The whole room was clean, as well as the double bed.

The hotel is no so bad located, near to bus stops and 20-40 min from downtown if you like to walk.

I didn't notice too much traffic noise, as written in other reviews.

In brief : Good hotel.

We stayed at the Charles hotel in late July and found it to be very good. We are from the country in Australia but did not find it noisy--our room was on the side of the hotel away from the road. The room itself was more than adequate for us, we did upgrade to one with airconditioning but it still didn't cost much more. The staff were very helpful, the breakfast had everything we needed and was as good as we had over the 11 weeks we were travelling and the night meal in the restaurant was lovely and not over priced. While a short distance out of the city centre we used the bus and found no problems with this. Enjoyed our time in the hotel Charles.