Molnar Janos, a lovely cave in Budapest (Hungary)

[andrea]

What would you do if you have a week free and you want to make a cave dive in warm water?

I had a week vacation and Tjibbe was able to be free at the same time. Both free? This means travel time for us. And first of all, dive time for us. I miss the caves of Mexico and of course al our friends around and in Tulum. So what could we do?

We went by car (1450 km) to Budapest, to dive in the Molnar Janos cave and in the K?banya mine. Nice warm water and cold water.
To cut a long story short: we did not dive the K?banya mine due to bad visibility. So the mine is still on my list. I only have to convince Tjibbe to dive with me here. He hates cold water.

But back to Budapest and Molnar Janos:
First of all: Molnar Janos is a super professional dive center. You can hire everything here, you get quick answers on your mails and they provide super guided dives. They are super friendly and they speak super well English. We had to mail them all our dive qualifications and a medical statement. They provide only guided dives and we chose 2 dives a day, a dive take 50-60 minutes. For these dives we used a stage and the doubles were backgas. Before every dive we had an excellent briefing, al the paper work had to be sign before the dive and after 30 (later 40 minutes) we started our dives. What can you expect:
The water temperature is on the surface 27 degree, after 10 meter is the thermocline and the water temperature stays at 23 degree. We dived in a drysuit. The ?new? part of the cave is big, you can see a lot of canyons, big rooms. There are a lot of lines in the cave at different heights. The lines are thicker, markers and arrows are a little bit bigger than the arrows in Mexico. Our maximum depth during several dives was 34 meter.
During the dives our guides Eta and ZEE (Zoltan) showed us the beautiful parts of their cave. We dove in the old part of the cave (small tunnels, corners) and the ?new? part is bigger. The visibility was super. On the 23th of august there were a lot of divers in the cave, it was an national holiday and wat are you doing if you are free ?. Yes you have a nice dive. I never saw so many rebreather divers and rebreathers. But for this cave it makes sense. The cave is deep and long. The cave is still under exploration.

Between the dives we had a one hour break. We did our lunch shopping in the supermarket. On the 23th we were invited by Atila for a really Hungarian goulash soup for the lunch. It was delicious.

The afternoons we spend in Budapest and explored the city. We had a room in an apartment hotel (Millfort) and went every day by car to the divecenter (5 minutes). Other guests stayed nearby and were walking every day to the place. Our dive gear stayed in the divecenter. Budapest is a very nice young and dynamic city. We felt very comfortable in Budapest. After 3 days of super nice diving in Budapest we drove to Vienna and stayed here for two days.
It was a well spend week.

Al the pictures I made with a gopro.

Have a nive time,
Andrea

[andrea]

Here are some more pictures.

[cavedivingwoman]

'Looks very pretty; thanks for posting.

[diveconjeff]

I almost had the chance to go last year, but plans fell through. maybe the stars will align better next time. Thank you for posting.

[oceancurrent]

Never been a fan of commercial caves with $100 entrance fee requiring guide and lots of certs.

[macado]

What is the deal with this place? It's definitely on my bucket list and I'm happy to pay for a couple days of guided dives but is there a system in place that would allow me to dive without a guide after a while?

I'm not going to spend a week of diving there if I have to shell out to pay a guide every day but I'm happy doing it for a couple says to get some local knowledge. Their website unfortunately says "guided dives only" so I've probably do it for the experience but I'm not spending a week of diving there.

[andrea]

Dear Macado,
Thanks for the reaction. It is a nice place for a couple of days of guided diving. We would also like to dive over there without a guide. But this is their cave and this are their rules. The guided dives include more than just the dive. It includes the safety briefing, the tank fillings, the storage of the material. I don't want to be rude, and I don't know how to say in nice English (I am so German and a lot of Dutch): if you have problems with their rules, don't dive there.
Have a nice day, Andrea

[macado]

Dear Macado,
Thanks for the reaction. It is a nice place for a couple of days of guided diving. We would also like to dive over there without a guide. But this is their cave and this are their rules. The guided dives include more than just the dive. It includes the safety briefing, the tank fillings, the storage of the material. I don't want to be rude, and I don't know how to say in nice English (I am so German and a lot of Dutch): if you have problems with their rules, don't dive there.
Have a nice day, Andrea

This makes sense. Thanks. It might have gotten lost in translation. I enjoyed your report. I certainly don't have a problem with their rules, as you said, it is their cave and they can do whatever they please.

I would happily pay for a couple days of guided dives as it looks like a very nice facility with good support. I just wouldn't spend a full week there to do guided dives is all I was saying.

[IanBrit]

Mike,

Hungarian laws consider and treat the Molnar Janos system as a state park and require the use of a guide. The term 'guide' is a little disingenuous ( not picking on anyone on this thread ) and shouldn't be compared to tourist guides on dives who follow a standard path every single dive and get bored. Team Leader is a better description - yes, they'll be in the dive team but once they're comfortable with the visitors, the routes in the cave will open up and present any number of challenges and variety. This yields a number of benefits - the guest count is limited on a daily basis which means there are no crowds and you'll get to see many parts of the caves that match your skills. At 2-3 dives a day, you'll prob have enough routes to maybe fill a week but if not, Budapest is a beautiful city for visiting and there's always the flooded basements across the city, operated by the same company. My experience a year ago indicated that the guides/leaders are passionate about the cave and bring that passion and excitement to the dives. Bottom line - visit the site. It's beautiful.

Consider the leader to be included in the entrance costs of the site - As a visitor, you have to pay to get in anyway so factor that into the cost of the trip. On the plus side, Budapest is still very reasonable when it comes to visit/living costs compared to Boston

[Germie]

I have also been there, we did 1 day of diving, 2 dives. That was enough for a first time. If we visit Budapest again, then another day of diving. But it was the first time with a guided dive that we couldn't decide any navigation decisions on our own. In this case it felt like a tourist guided dive. I had no time to take time for some pictures. It was always swimming (but slow, so I could place divers in the right position for speedpicture and then swim fast to follow the guide again). The same path for every group that dives the cave. It had nothing to do with our group, the guide was in front, so haven't seen any of us diving. On the way back the guide was in front again. So I have mixed feelings with it. Yes, I understand that you have to dive with a guide here due to accidents in the past. But this was extremely overorganised. I have never seen this before. It also is really expensive, 50 euro for a 50-70 minute dive if you are in a team of 3, with 1 or 2 it is 70 euro per dive. Based on own equipment (rental prices are ok and material is safe). I have paid for guided cavediving in the past, but then we paid for example 50 euro per dive, but we could decide where to go and how long the dive would be (Opal mine Slowakia) and at what time in the water. I am also not a fan of commercial guided diving. But sometimes it is the only way to dive there. Then I do. This was such a reason to do. The divecenter is ok. No long walks, place to put your gear on, etc. They can fill tanks. Have rental tanks, etc.
It is a must visit if you visit Budapest, so yes I will come back for some dives in the future. But I think 3-4 days behind each other is enough, a week will be too much. But I will have the same if I have to dive 7 days Devils Cave system and then you can dive without guides on your own. In Mexico you also choose every day another entrance. Molnar Janos is not the best cave I ever dove in, but it is a beautifull cave. And it also are the surroundings. The water temperature of 20 degrees during most part of the time is also nice.
We also dove Kobanya cellar system. The divesites are not big, but I got the time to take the pictures I wanted to take. And you go by car in the mine. That is also nice. I think I prefer Kobanya over Molnar, but this is also because of the special dives we made there. We got a special invitation to dive here.
Budapest is a really nice city. We did the cavediving as part of a cultural trip. And dove another lake in the country. Visited a horse studfarm, visited Agtellek and its drycaves, etc. It was not a cavediving only week.

So yes, I agree with Oceancurrent and Macado that guided diving is not the best way to dive. But if you don't want it, then you can't dive here. 1-2 days is nice and doable. And you get some logistics. So do it if you visit Budapest. Budapest itself is quite cheap.