FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Hampton by Hilton Alcobendas Madrid {ESP}
Old May 20, 2025 | 3:44 am
  #6  
Cymro
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15 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Gloucestershire
Programs: BA Gold (ex-GGL, future Silver), Hilton Diamond
Posts: 6,467
Originally Posted by Dick Ginkowski
My baseline for hotel reviews is one question: Is it clean and does everything work as it should?
On that basis, my stays at this hotel have worked really well.

I agree with you entirely about the location. If you are driving/renting in Madrid, parking is free for electric cars (or was last year, anyway), and electric cars tend to be cheaper as they're less popular. You just have to make sure you have time to charge it to return it full. A shuttle and/or better public transit integration would transform this hotel. I agree with IAN-UK about the location of the bus stop, but regardless, the buses are fairly infrequent and cash-only, not exactly friendly for international travelers on short overnight stays.

I'm not sure I agree with you about the staff - the front desk have always been excellent and the breakfast interactions have not been memorable, although I do always seem to show up at peak times. That said, social media snark (including in response to reviews) isn't going to help either the customer or the business.

I disagree fundamentally on the microwave and business center. The cost of the microwave isn't the 55 euro; it's the staff effort, the opportunity cost of F&B sales, the maintenance, the hygiene risk, etc. These might be justifiable but it's perfectly reasonable for a limited service hotel with a snack shop and a bar menu (at somewhat reasonable prices, at least by international standards) to use F&B to drive direct revenue, rather than microwave facilities to sell accommodation. Meanwhile, business travelers are largely paperless now, will have their own devices, and absolutely cannot afford the risk of logging into an untrusted, unmaintained third-party device. This stopped being acceptable ten years ago. The business center is going the way of the phone next to the toilet and the in-room fax machine.
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