Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Programs: MR LT Titanium, IHG Plat.,UA Premier Silver, & PA/OH Turnpike Million Miler
Posts: 2,343
Post Spain Report
We had a great time in Madrid and hiking in the Pico's. Wound up going with Sobek's hotel recommendation, Hotel Gaudi, 9 Gran Via.
Pluses:
- Relatively large and very clean room for Spain.
- Real Queen/King size bed (not sure which, later on in the trip while in the Pico's we had many rooms with two adjoining twin beds mated into a king bed. No where near as nice).
- Nice marble bathroom.
- Even though the room wasn't truly non-smoking, it didn't have a smoking odor or residue.
- Good location very close to Peurta Del Sol. Easy walking distance to Plaza Mayor, the Prado, and the Thysssen museums.
- Good rate 69 Euros/night (didn't include breakfast, but it was very easy to get a reasonably priced breakfast at all of the nearby bars and cafeteria's)
Minuses:
- Spa in the basement was out order (cold water).
- Called in advance to see if they had a self service laundry. Was told they did, but turned out they only had a valet laundry. Found a laundromat not to far away and solved the laundry issue that way.
- Front Desk/Conceirge staff were reasonably friendly, but not to helpful on making recommendations on the area. E.g. when we're considering a side trip to Toledo they just wanted to push a bus tour instead of giving advice on how to get their by public transportation. Not a big deal, we found plenty of things to do on our own using Rick Steve's and Lonely Planet Guidebooks.
We used cabs to and from the airport. Cab driver on the way to the hotel was great and the car was spotless (19 Euro's including a generous tip). Cab driver back to the airpot was okay. Car was not in as good a condition and unlike the first cab, he didn't have all of the rate stickers posted inside the cab. He did have a meter, but it was an older one that didn't print receipts. Cabbie definitely did drive straight to the airport. Not sure, but thought he might haved added in a bit more than was permitted for supplements (added a bit over 5 Euro's to the meter total). Sure would have helped to have the rate stickers up :-) Even so the fare was only 21,40 Euro's. For us the fewer extra Euro's for direct cab service was well worth it.
By the way if you like walking, the walking tour described in the Lonely Planet Spain Guidebook was a lot of fun. We only did about half the tour and spent a full day doing it.
Thanks to everyone for their advice and it helped us to enjoy our trip more!
--Jon