AC Jerez - Jerez de la Frontera, Spain     

stayed here for 2 nights in June For the standard of hotel, it is excellent value - two nights cost €150 (albeit with no breakfast). Hotel is modern, free (non alcoholic) minibar, good faciliities, nice staff, free parking on street. Downside is the location, I know Jerez very well and for a city of its size the hotel is really in no-mans land - it is a 25 minute walk from teh city centre which, in a relatively small city, is too much. Also, there is nothing in the surrounding area, it is purely residential, and all the 'cultural' stuff is on the other side of the city centre. All of this would explain the fact that the hotel was almost empty when we stayed there. In summary - if you going for business, or for a quick overnight, it's a great value option, if you are going for sightseeing and culture, it's too far from the action.

When planning our trip to Jerez, we looked at plenty of hotels - we never go for the cheapest when doing a city break, rather try to find a hotel that has a good trade off between luxury and cost - we found the AC Hotel matched our requirements perfectly. On arriving at the hotel, all seemed ok. Receptionists seemed a little stiff but I put this down to it being quiet. We were checked in efficiently to our 'AC Superior' room. On entering the room, I was a little surprised at how small it was. The photo's on the AC website seemed larger. I'm still not sure what makes the 'Superior' room different from the 'Standard' room. The room itself however was modern and everything functioned as you'd expect. So, the hotel is fine but what happened next really annoyed us and for this reason my opinion of the hotel nose-dived... We went down to the '24 hour coffee lounge' to get some 'complimentary coffee'. But it was closed. Seemingly the 24 hour lounge only opens at certain times of the day! Then, we found out our flight had been cancelled so we went to use the Internet but it had broken down, so the receptionist asked if we would like to use the office machine. Now, bearing in mind we had a critical situation in trying to find another flight back home, the receptionist kept coming to us saying "hurry up, hurry up, you are not supposed to be here". Finally, on our last day at the AC Hotel, we decided to book a table for dinner in the hotel restaurant. The receptionist said "you don't need to book, just turn up" so we deliberately left town early to walk back to the hotel for dinner. You can imagine our frustration when we were told by the same receptionist that "Restaurant closed tonight for footballers, you'll have to have room service". Room service??? On a city break - just what you need isn't it!! We suspected after all this that the hotel is really geared up for Spanish business people - it certainly isn't any good as a service driven city break base...unless you use it literally as somewhere to sleep and don't need a proper hotel. Oddly, it doesn't have a bar either. This was a first for me. I've never stayed in a hotel without a bar. See my review on the Trypp hotel where we also stayed in Jerez...it's a far nicer environment.