Confortel Almirante - Barcelona, Spain     

Positives: useful location for sightseeing. on the other side of the gothic quarter from the Rambla, close to the cathedral. Quiet room as facing other flats, not the main road. Friendly staff. Negatives: Certainly not value for money. Bathroom, albeit spacious, was poorly finished, had cracks in the tiles. The shower didn't stay up, the toilet paper holder had disappeared. No iron available. Not what I would classify as a 4 star hotel considering rooms were circa ?150 per night. View was awful, looking into someone else's appartment and lots of drying clothes.

Having read some of the previous reviews I really wasn't sure what to expect of this hotel. We stayed here for 4 nights (Mon-Fri). We didn't arrive until just before midnight on the first evening, but we we found the staff to be very polite and welcoming when we checked in. We had requested a non smoking room with a balcony, well we got the balcony, but it was definitelty a smoking room. We rang down to reception and politely asked if it would be possible to move to a non-smking room, we were told this should be fine but would have to wait until the morning, so we spent the first night in the room. The original room was on the second floor and at the front of the building, very, very noisy! I don't normally complain about road noise, we were in the centre of the city after all, however, as it was so hot you really needed to have the doors open. In the morning we were moved to a non-smoking room at the back of the hotel, no balcony but that didn't really matter as the room was fresh and very quiet, a vast improvement. Nice large bathroom with double basin and bath/shower and very clean. If you plan to stay at this hotel I would suggest you ask for a room on the 5th floor as it's completely non-smoking and specify a room at the rear of the hotel if you want to avoid the noise, clearly the downside to this is that you wont have a view, but then when you're in a city like Barcelona the hotels only really a bed for the night, you'll be sightseeing all day anyway! In summary we were very pleased with this hotel, and its staff, and would stay there again.