High Tech Arturo Soria Alcala - Madrid, Spain 

Our family of four stayed in a room at the High Tech for one short night, gettin gin at 8 pm and leaving the next morning for the airport. The room we had was plenty large enough to accomodate us. As the name implies, the hotel is (for now) high tech. There is a laptop in the room, and the showers are modern as well. One of the beds was a fold out couch, and still comfortable. There was also an exercise bike in the room. There is some parking out front. The lobby and lounge is quite modern. A major plus for this hotel is that it is one block away from the metro stop, so getting in to and back from downtown is trivial. The hotel is also 10 minutes from the airport.

I stayed here for four nights in the mid July of 2008. I stayed in a double room with an elderly (my grandmother). For a background, I could consider myself a frequent traveler around Europe and have quiet an experience to compare one hotel with another. High Tech Arturo Soria would certainly be one of the best hotel Ive been in terms of good balance of money and quality. The room looks new, clean and modern. I was surprised that the room has a laptop and at least 32 inch LCD TV with full cable tv access. Another surprise was the shower which has a hydro massage shower... although It didnt work as I thought it would. There wasnt really a view from the room since our room was facing a brick walled building -- but this didnt concern us very much. The staff speaks enough English to accomodate most of your needs although I didnt ask them about any guidance in exploring Madrid. Now time for the not so pleasant aspect about this Hotel. First, the check-in was long. The receptionist took around 15 minutes just to get me a room which I pre booked in advance via Hotels.ca. She showed a relief with saying 'Finally!'. I was puzzled since they already charged full on my credit card and I already called them to secure my room with a credit card -- I cant imagine if they were not able to find me a room. Another let down is the fact that it does not have a bathtub, a kettle to boil water and that the bed quality could have been improved. The hotel location is very close to Metro Ciudad Lineal maybe less than 10 minutes walk. If you are heading straight to the city, you dont need to change line at all. The hotel is also reasonably close to the airport. It took around less than 15 minutes to travel with Car but with Metro it took around 40 minutes since you need to change train 3 times. With what I paid for (62euro per night) I think this Hotel is a rare find. Most hostels cost around 10 euro cheaper but you got massive drop in terms of quality. There are certainly other hotels at similar quality costing you 60 euro but I found all of them located in depressingly remote location. I suggest you to look no further if you dont mind the hotels to be outside a city little bit, but smackingly close to metro. I would certainly recommend this hotel to other travelers.