"We stayed five nights at the hotel, which is in an old building but fully modernised in recent years. Its location is excellent – within easy walking distance of the three major art galleries in Madrid, the Parque del Retiro, the railway station (for bus connection to the airport), two minutes from a metro station, and on bus routes. In fact we never used the public transport because we were able to reach everything on foot.
Note, though, that the hotel is up a hill and therefore difficult to walk out without a climb. We had not realised that Madrid is so hilly!
The buffet breakfast was spectacular, and earns the fourth star - otherwise we would have rated the hotel three stars. The range of dishes on offer was huge, including hot dishes. And the staff were energetic and efficient replenishing dishes promptly and quickly removing dirty plates from your table. The orange juice was freshly squeezed, and they would bring freshly cooked eggs to your table to order. Outstanding.
We had a standard double room looking out over one of the building wells, so pleasingly quiet. It was fairly compact (ok for a city centre hotel) and impeccably clean; the bed was comfortable and there was sufficient storage. But the room was poorly designed, with much wasted space in the entrance/wardrobe area, and an A/C unit that blew chilly air directly over the bed. The chair (only one for a double room!) was extremely heavy and difficult to move and, because of the poor room design, got in the way of the bed when in use. The basin in the bathroom was trendily square but with a horizontal bottom so the water never drained out fully. All in all, another triumph of pea-brained interior design over common sense functionality.
We had two specific issues while we were there – the plug in the basin did not work (a missing rubber washer) and it was not possible to switch inputs on the TV (see below). The hotel staff were unable to fix either of these issues, which was disappointing.
The TV is set up with an offering of channels curated by Catalonia Hotels, including their own publicity. They provide a special remote controller to navigate this, which means that it is not possible, without a TV manufacturer’s controller, to select other ‘inputs’ – e.g. HDMI. We like to watch our own DVDs while staying in hotels using our portable DVD player. This was therefore not possible, and the local hotel staff were unable to fix the issue. This would have been a simple fix, so very disappointing for us. So if this matters for you, be aware."
