The Grand Hotel is above average, but a mixed lot. The Grand Hotel is in an excellent location, about one block away from the main city square. The staff is sparse, but very nice. We stayed in room #68 which faces the back of the hotel. The room was small, fits two twin size beds and a desk. The bathroom has a full tube and is nicely tiled with marble. Free internet is available (they supply you with a cable, so now WIFI). Otherwise the furniture and 18" TV were old. A decent morning breakfast consisting of cold cuts, scrambled eggs, cheeses, fruits, etc is free. We got a grea rate for the room, $150/night. Overall the hotel is outdated and in need of a serious renovation. The room we stayed in was too small and needed an update. The fitness/sauna is a joke and you have to pay for it. The hotel doesn't provide many luxurious amenities befitting a 5* hotel. I would stay here again for the location if the price remained the same.

This used to be one of the premier hotels in Krakow--and still charges premier hotel prices. But in all respects, it is a three star hotel and that is not acceptable at the prices the hotel charges. The hotel rooms are small--even by European standards and the amenities poor. The gym was deplorable. Rooms facing the street are very noisy. The complementary buffet breakfast--touted as one of the nicer amenities at the hotel--was inadequate nothing hot, no fruit, just some cheeses, bread and cereals. One irate guest threw a temper tantrum during breakfast--I disagreed with his behavior but fully agreed with his complaints. I will say this: the service is excellent; super friendly and helpful but I will not return to this hotel again.

The Grand Hotel in Krakow easily represents the worst experience I have ever had in a 5 star hotel. To be honest there is no way its 5 star. (I have stayed in many 5 star hotels world wide) There was a group of us staying in the hotel in 3 rooms, and one major fault is that as with many hotels, it uses a card entry system to the rooms but it obviously is massively flawed as all of us had to repeatedly keep getting new cards issued. Without exaggerating we must have gone through over 20 replacement cards between our group. This came to be a huge problem on our last night. Our particular room was a LONG way away from reception and sure enough when I got to the room the cards didn’t work. I trudged back to reception to get new cards issued and was given new ones. These also didn’t work. Back I went again and the porter came up with me this time. His card didn’t work. He told me to wait while he went back to reception so I waited…. and waited……… and waited. He didn’t come back so I had to go back down stairs yet again. By this time, as you can imagine I was not in the best of moods but was doing my best to keep as calm as possible. This time an “engineer” was sent to the door carrying a computer of some description obviously to decode the door. He took a cable out of the wrapper and then proceeded to stare blankly at the machine and turn it round and round trying to figure out where to plug the lead in to. He clearly had no idea how it worked. At this point I went back to reception again and demanded to speak to the Duty Manager. I was advised there was no manager on duty. (5 star hotel with no manager on duty….. really!?!?) After some considerable time, the door was opened but baring in mind I had only come back with my friend so they could go to bed and I intended to go back out (and yes, I was pretty sober in case you wondered!). I was assured the problem would be solved by the time I came back. Without making this story ridiculously long, obviously it wasn’t and I went through the same saga again when I got back a couple of hours later. I was absolutely fuming by this stage. Now call me old-fashioned but when you pay for a room in a hotel (especially a 5 star hotel) it is kind of a pre-requisite that you are able to access the room!!! When we checked out the following day the manager was there and offered absolutely no effort at trying to placate the situation. Although I had more than good enough reason to be annoyed, the manager was in fact actually incredibly short with me when I suggested that I wanted a deduction off my bill for the considerable inconvenience. I am not normally a complainer and if you read my other reviews they are usually glowing. I accept that unfortunate things happen from time to time but the key to good service is how they are handled and resolved by the hotel. In this instance the hotel failed miserably to rectify the situation in any way what so ever. The only exception was the lady at reception during this saga on our last night who was polite and trying to resolve the situation but had no authority to compensate or resolve in any way. If the hotel wishes to contact me now to rectify the situation then I will update this review to show that they do have some consideration for their guests. I don’t really expect that to happen however and that being the case, if you want to stay in a 5 star hotel in Krakow with a high standard of service then what ever you do, do not stay here. The other main issue is that the hotel is very noisy due to its location. Some of that is down to road works which you can hardly blame the hotel for but it will always be very noisy.

We stayed at The Grand last year and decided to re-visit this. We stayed in Room 23 which was very pleasant and clean, at the back of the hotel and opposite the church. The hotel is nicely placed, being close to the main Square, but being in a central location, there was some noise late at night which meant that we had to keep the windows closed. We stayed on a bed and breakfast basis and the breakfasts were very good with an excellent choice. We chose to eat in local restaurants. A visit to the Jewish quarter is recommended and also the salt mines (although there was in interminable wait for the lift to return to the surface). This is the second time we have visited Krakow and we have stayed at The Grand on both occasions. The town is very compact and we found that we were able to walk to most places so comfortable shoes are essential.

We have just returne from staying at thr Grand Hotel in Krakow, what a wonderfull hotel and city. Every year six of us travel to different cities for a break bit of culture and lots of shopping! The destination is decided by the cost of the flights!! Good old Ryanair !! This years hotel and destination out did any previous visits to Saville, Vallencia & Budapest, the Polish people were very friendly & helpful, from a young lady on the bus to the hotel staff outstanding. For us ladies who love to shop it was excellent value, drinks coffee and food were great value, eg meal out plus three rounds of drinks was around ?30.00 !! Amazing and of a very high standard. Try the Goulash soup in bread it is exacxtly as it says in bread awesome! We loved it and will go back again , if you want to go to the salt mines etc we got a taxi from the hotel which was so easy and not expensive. We got the bus and tram from the airport which was a bit of an adventure we would recomend a Taxi, which we got on our return so much easier and only ?30. Will put some photos on next week