We booked a room well in advance and got a fantastic deal. We were quite excited to stay here based on the generally positive reviews.
Arrival from the Barcelona airport is painless; about 10-15 minutes depending on traffic. Once you arrive to the H10 Montcada you will be swiftly checked in and offered a glass of champagne. Very nice!
Before arrival I made a request for a room with a pleasant view and a double bed. Both requests were granted, though I have to say the room was amazingly small for a purported 4 star hotel. There was room enough for the double bed and maybe 8-10 inches of walking space all around it. Oddly, they built a closet into the room which cut the space dramatically (by about 1/3) but the design offered very little in the way of practical storage space. Poor storage space and little floor space equals a cramped stay. Anyway, we didn't come to Spain to stay in the room so who cares? :)
The room in general was clean and comfortable and had a lot of good amenities like a flat screen tv, mini bar, huge safe (good for a laptop) and tip top bathroom. The hotel roof has a gorgeous deck with a jacuzzi and bar which looked great, though it was somewhat too cold to use it other than to take a peek at the view. The lobby is fairly nice and has a bar that serves drinks and snacks. I have to say, if you get the "breakfast included" option, you will love it. Very good selection of items. Definitely worth the 10 euro's we paid.
Aside from the good stuff, there were a few problems which were never addressed in the week that we were there. First, there was no working phone service! What kind of 4 star hotel has no working phones? We actually needed ours for business, so we were quite disappointed about it. The staff blamed the Telefonica phone company but seriously, if the problem existed prior to our arrival shouldn't it have been sorted out within a few days? In our entire stay they didn't get it working and no apologies were offered or provisions made; we solved it ourselves by buying a Skype subscription.
Second, the so called "high speed internet" is horridly slow, most likely due to the poor router broadcast strength, constant signal crashes, and a crappy overall service. We barely got 0.75 megs at best (and usually a lot less), just enough to check emails but no more. Forget about uploading video, images, or using any site with images.
Third, they claim to have a "business center" but in all honesty, it's 2 old PC's on a table in the corner of the lobby. The facilities were outdated and slow. Hardly usable in this day and age, again, except to check emails maybe.
Finally, for you English speakers, get ready for 3 channels in English: CNN, CNBC, and BBC News. That's it! Other than that you get 200 mediocre channels that show German music videos, Mexican soap operas, and Al Jazeera news. Meh.
I have to add, that the little things here make me feel like the stay was a bit lackluster. First, the staff had a hard time communicating in English. I realize it's Spain and English isn't their first language, but their company says that the staff speaks English here. They really don't. We had some questions about hooking our laptop up to the business center (and it's hard wired internet connection) and it took 5 or 6 tries before we gave up due to vague non-answers. Same with questions about check out, length of stay, etc.
However, despite all the negative stuff, I'd recommend this property to people, mostly because of the amazing location, but also because it's clean, safe and relatively comfortable.
I also have to add, I've been to a lot of 4 star hotels and this property is not really a 4 star hotels by any Western standard I'm familiar with. Perhaps they should list themselves as a 3 star hotel in order to set realistic expectations for the customer, rather than overselling true 4 star hotel amenities they cannot furnish (high speed internet, business center, phones).
In a nutshell:
Pro's: Location cannot be beat. Easy access to the Barrio Gotic, La Rambla and El Born area. Clean. Safe. Stellar roof facility. Good breakfast deal. Good value overall.
Con's: VERY small rooms, noisy (even from an upper floor), appallingly slow internet service, limited English speaking staff, inadequate "business center", lame satellite tv service. read more