Hotel Icaria Barcelona - Barcelona, Spain     

Stayed at the Icaria during the F1 of Barcelona. I would say that the hotel was just about ok. I checked in on Friday afternoon, stayed at the pool for about 2 hours (you have to pay extra for pool towels) not on for a 4 star hotel, especially when you see all other guests with room towels. Anyway the cost of the room was ?290 a night (corporate rate) in the three nights we stayed the sheets were never changed, no soap was put into the rooms, had to call housekeeping. Worse the rooms were done utill 17.00pm in the faternoon so if you do want to go back to the room for a while impossible. Having said this breakfast was ok even if we did have to pay ?16 extra ahead.... Not close to the city ctr need Taxi, but very close to Barcelonetta, which, for who knows the area is good for going out in the evening.

It was fine for a one night stay before our cruise, but I can't bring myself to say it was above average. A quick rundown: Check in went smoothly and we were able to get our room around 1:00. The front desk staff somewhat answered our questions, but weren't overly helpful. It was a brisk 15-20 minute walk to the Metro, but the bus stop is fairly close. There were 4 of us, so we got the metro multi pass and shared it for our one day which worked out great. Breakfast was fine, but not $25 worth. Could not sleep because the room was so warm. The a/c was making a noise, but nothing cool was coming out. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we were not able to open the window for fresh air either. We asked the hotel to hold our luggage after we checked out. They have a locked room, but because they were busy, we were told to set it aside in the lobby and they would get to it when they had a chance. When we returned several hours later, I was disappointed to see it still sitting in the lobby were we left it. We saw notes that this was an up and coming neighborhood, not sure about that, it was quiet though and a good location for our port departure the next day. On that note, definitly watch out for the cab drivers. We were told by the hotel that the ride would be 20-25 euro, the cab meter said 18 when we arrived at the terminal, then he did some magic and suddenly it was 30 euro. We questioned him and he said it was because of our luggage. Not in the mood to argue, we paid it, but I wish we had been more firm. Heck, we were already where we wanted to be so what could he really do if we had refused to pay that amount.