Just about every aspect of our stay at Pension San Vicente was awful…read more
Pension San Vicente is uncomfortable, disorganized and poorly run by a dishonest owner.
Their website indicates that all the rooms have air conditioning. This is fraudulent advertising by the owner. Our room did not have air conditioning. It did no even have a fan. We stayed in mid September and the room was hot, muggy and very uncomfortable. The only way to get any ventilation was to leave the windows wide open, which presented another problem-extreme noise that lasts until the early morning.
As for the noise-- Old Town San Sebastian has (literally) countless pintxo bars on every block, many of which stay open until very, very late. This means extraordinary amounts of noise in the very narrow streets, which San Vincente is located on. You can either leave your windows closed, turning the room into an unbearable, un-ventilated steam bath, or you can leave them open, making it literally impossible to sleep (even with ear plugs in) due the the many, very drunk revelers walking the streets below until well into the early morning.
Getting to San Vicente if you are driving is a nearly impossible task without jedi-like knowledge of the streets of San Sebastian, especially Old Town. Even our friends who live there say that the streets can be very difficult to navigate even for them. The owner does not make this task any easier. She provides zero information either on her website or by email about how to get there, where to park to unload luggage or where to park overnight. Parking overnight is literally, practically impossible in Old Town San Sebastian and the most expensive in all of the Basque Country. We drove around for over an hour just trying to find a place to park and unload our luggage. After scouring San Vicente's website for any information, we found a phone number and called it, The owner answered and vaguely mentioned something about a building on the other side of the river then said check your email and hung up the phone on us!! We checked our email and found nothing. After a while, an email finally came through with the name of a building. We looked on Google Maps and discovered (from Google Maps, not because the owner informed us) that this building has underground parking. We drove around some more then parked there. We then hauled our luggage across town (because the owner gives no indication of any place to unload your luggage) to Pension San Vicente.
We then hauled our luggage up three flights of pitch black stairs. There were no functioning lights in the stairwell. We had to use our iphones for flashlights.
We go the the Pension and found that, contrary to the listing on the booking website, there is no 24 hour desk. There was just a person and his girlfriend waiting in our room. He handed us keys to the room and front door, told us there's a discounted rate for the parking then left. We were given no information whatsoever on anything. He never told us how to get the discounted parking. He never told us anything about the room, how to check out, how to pay, nada! There's no staff present at Pension San Vicente. Pension San Vicente consists of only a hallway and several doors to several different rooms. That's it. Again, the owner is advertising this place as having amenities and services that it does not have.
As for the room-- hot, one towel for two people, mildly clean bathroom (lots of black mildew in the shower), cheaply decorated, dirty towels in the kitchen, hard, uncomfortable bed, no air conditioning, extremely noisy and, at 130 Euros for a double, extremely, extremely overpriced.
We ended up leaving in the middle of the night. There were zero instructions provided anywhere by anyone on how to check our so we just left the keys on the counter in the room and left. The owner, despite providing zero information or means or methods to pay for anything, then started sending us threatening emails about paying for the night, telling us she was going to contact the authorities, etc. It was unbelievably insane. We told her to have the booking website charge our credit card and she became belligerent about that because she wanted payment by cash or by money transfer to her bank account.
Pension San Vicente is basically an extremely, extremely poorly managed Airbnb. Run by a very unscrupulous owner who has no qualms about providing false information about the amenities and services she provides. It is not well maintained and is absolutely the worst value for the rates charged of any accommodation, in any price range, that we have ever used anywhere in the world. The owner tries to get away by charging as much as possible, in cash, while providing as little as possible and flat out lying about the Pension to unknowing visitors.
If you want (for the same 130 Euros) exponentially better, friendlier and more comfortable accommodations, closer, easier and cheaper parking, go a few blocks up the street to Parma Hotel
