Don Pio - Madrid, Spain     

Don Pio is an nice, upscale hotel that is well suited for business travelers. The rooms are very large and exceptionally clean. They are air conditioned and internet accessible. The breakfast is one of the nicer buffets we've encountered in Europe: variety of breads and pastries, fresh fruit and juices, local delicacies, eggs and ham, cereal, yogurt, and churros with hot chocolate. The hotel is also fairly convenient for tourists. It's directly across the street from a metro stop and a bus stop. However, it takes about 30 minutes to get down to the main tourist attractions. We did run into a few significant bumps that would never have been so easily dismissed in the US. We requested wake up calls for two rooms on our first morning. They failed to put through the calls and so part of our group was several hours late for meetings. The hotel staff was quite unapologetic about this. Fortunately for us, there were no significant ramifications. We also had a mix up with laundry services that took more than a day to "iron" out. The hotel staff kept returning laundry that wasn't ours while our laundry was M.I.A. Finally, we had a huge problem with a bathroom sink that wasn't draining. It was filled with little hairs. I asked the hotel staff to take care of it while we were out and we never had another challenge. These little things were significant enough to note, but did not detract from the rest of our stay at Don Pio. We enjoyed the friendly staff and the local restaurants in a completely un-touristy neighborhood. The hotel is also about a fifteen minute taxi ride or a 20 minute subway ride from the airport.