Best Hotel for Family of 5

[kate23]

Will be traveling to Barcelona in July. My husband and I and 3 teen boys. I am not against two adjoining rooms but it looks like a lot of the hotel rooms are based on 2 occupants.

Any suggestions?

[cruising from Canada]

We are in the same boat..... I have been looking at hotels in barcelona for my group of five. We only need one nite as we are boarding cruiseship the next day. I found a great selection of hotels using booking.com It allows you to enter more than the standard four people in a room. There are all kinds of hotels in all price ranges with family suites. Best of luck. Barcelona is a big town with tons of hotels. Location was important to us as we are only in town one night. I chose a hotel close to las ramblas.
Hope this helps.

[kate23]

We are in the same boat..... I have been looking at hotels in barcelona for my group of five. We only need one nite as we are boarding cruiseship the next day. I found a great selection of hotels using booking.com It allows you to enter more than the standard four people in a room. There are all kinds of hotels in all price ranges with family suites. Best of luck. Barcelona is a big town with tons of hotels. Location was important to us as we are only in town one night. I chose a hotel close to las ramblas.
Hope this helps.

We are only looking for one night as well before boarding. Do you mind me asking what hotel you settled on? When are you sailing?

Kate

[riffatsea]

UNfortunately you get the best prices if you stay a few days. Here is one hotel that families have found comfy:
http://www.hispanos7suiza.com/
You might also use :
www.venere.com which is a European booking engine.
Put in your price range and no. of people and they will show you availability. I like to compare their reviews to the ones on Trip Advisor. I generally book on the hotel's own web site but if you book through Venere you don't pay until you are AT the hotel(unless it says differently)

[cruising from Canada]

I ended up booking petit palace. I liked it because of the location. Booked it thru booking.com. I read the reviews there and also like to refer to the reviews on tripadvisor. We are sailing in July on celebrity. I prefered booking .com to venere. Just found it easier to use.
Best of luck. Hope this helps you.
PS. I also have free cancellation in case I find a better deal.

[kate23]

I ended up booking petit palace. I liked it because of the location. Booked it thru booking.com. I read the reviews there and also like to refer to the reviews on tripadvisor. We are sailing in July on celebrity. I prefered booking .com to venere. Just found it easier to use.
Best of luck. Hope this helps you.
PS. I also have free cancellation in case I find a better deal.

Thank you very much. I will look into booking.com. We are sailing in July too on Liberty.

:)

[Kerry's Girls]

Our family stayed at Hispanos Siete Suiza and we loved the amenities and location - and price. We got a lovely 2 bed/2 bath apartment for the same price as 2 hotel rooms.

Best,
Mia

[marella68]

Our family stayed at Hispanos Siete Suiza and we loved the amenities and location - and price. We got a lovely 2 bed/2 bath apartment for the same price as 2 hotel rooms.

Best,
Mia


Hi, Mia!

Could you please e-mail me offline? I've seen some of your other reviews on this place and had a few questions, if you don't mind my asking. I'm looking at various apartment rentals in Barcelona and had not heard of this place before. My e-mail is my CC ID @yahoo.com. Thanks so much!

Maria

[Emma1]

We are also a family of 5. Looked at Hispanos... but then also looked at Casp75apartments and it ended up being 200euro's less. Many Disney cruisers recommended it.

[cafe rose]

family of 5 here too. In 2008, we stayed at the Hotel Fira Palace, a Summit hotel. Their e-mail is reception@fira-palace.com The rooms were big and the amenities great. It was about 2 blocks from where the fountains are.
Also, we used BarcelonDayTours.com for transportation in a mini van and he also gave us a 1/2 day tour of the city which was fabulous!

[cyclone1985]

We are also a family of 5. Looked at Hispanos... but then also looked at Casp75apartments and it ended up being 200euro's less. Many Disney cruisers recommended it.

Our family is booked there for upcoming cruise as well. 2 bedroom/2 bathroom with kitchen and living area. Sounds perfect!

[H2Otstr]

Our family is booked there for upcoming cruise as well. 2 bedroom/2 bathroom with kitchen and living area. Sounds perfect!


We had 7 in our group and we had the large apartment at the top. Three bedrooms, three baths, living room, dining room, kitchen and very nice porch. We were there one night post cruise.

[hencoll]

Our family is booked there for upcoming cruise as well. 2 bedroom/2 bathroom with kitchen and living area. Sounds perfect!

Our family of 5 just got back from our Med cruise and spent 3 nights pre-cruise at Casp 74 in a 2 bedroom/2.5 bath apartment. We thought it was great. Perfect our family especially the 2.5 baths, we have 3 DDs and the oldest is 15 and camps out in the bathroom doing hair and makeup.:D The apartment are quite spacious, well decorated and clean. Loved having the full kitchen... even though it was only used for quick breakfasts and snacks. It's located in a nice residential area about a quick 10 min walk to Placa Catlunya, there are some very nice cafes and restaurants in the area. It is also about a 15-20 minute walk to La Sagrada Familia (at least that's how long it took us with 3 kids). There is also a ATM at the end of the street if you need to get Euro. The staff was very helpful and they have someone in the office 24 hrs a day.

One word of warning about the washer/dryer. Don't wait until the last night to do laundry! :eek: It's one of those combo washer/dryers where it supposed to run the wash cycle than dry the clothes in the same drum. I suspect it doesn't spin the clothes well during the wash cycle because drying takes forever. We should have done a few small loads while we were out touring instead waiting until the last night to do it all at once.

[Emma1]

To Hencoll,
I am happy to hear Casp 74 was so good. Any other advice - we have DD15, DD13, DS11 - as to where to eat/what to do? We are there 3 nights as well. How about shopping for my kids - we all love to shop - but they all want to get shoes? Anything you can tell me would be most appreciated.

[hencoll]

To Hencoll,
I am happy to hear Casp 74 was so good. Any other advice - we have DD15, DD13, DS11 - as to where to eat/what to do? We are there 3 nights as well. How about shopping for my kids - we all love to shop - but they all want to get shoes? Anything you can tell me would be most appreciated.

Your family sounds similar to ours. Our girls are 15, 10 and 8. We love to shop as well. For amazing one stop shopping and only a 10 min walk from Casp 74 is Placa Catalunya where there is a ginormous El Corte Ingles Department store, it sells everything from designer clothes to home improvement items. DD 15 HAD to buy something from the MAC counter there. You should have no problem finding great places to shop. Link below to a site I used to help plan our shopping afternoon.

http://www.barcelona.com/barcelona_city_guide/shops/women_shopping_in_barcelona

Our plans for our days in Barcelona were pretty simple:

5/26- Since we did not arrive in Barcelona until 5:30pm, we checked into Casp 74, had dinner and shopped for some breakfast items in the grocery store in the basement of El Corte Ingles. We ate at a local restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel... Casa Freixo. We chose it because the menu looked good and the owner offered to seat us even though they were not officially opening until 8:00 pm and it was about 7:30. Since we spoke little Spanish and he spoke little English, he seated us and then he called in an English speaking student to translate for us. :D The food was amazing. Very fresh and delicious. He even made my two youngest DDs (picky eaters) pasta and sauce when nothing on the menu appealed to them.

5/27- I bought tickets online for the Camp Nou Experience (the Barcelona soccer stadium tour and museum). DH loves soccer and two of our girls play as well. Even if you are not a soccer fan (I'm not), it was really cool. We had a very good late lunch at a place between the stadium (can't remember the name), once again a non touristy place, it seemed to attract the business crowd. Got back to our hotel around 4:30, where we basically just freshened up and took 2 cabs to El Tablao de Carmen for the 7:30 Flamenco show. I purchased our tickets online, I just did the show and Drinks tickets. It was fun and not too long. We saw the Adventures by Disney tour group there. After we explored the spanish village a bit and then walked on down the hill and caught the Magic Fountains. We then walked down by the Barcelona congress center and caught cabs back to the hotel.

5/28 - We walked over to La Sagrada Familia in the morning. Explored and took pictures outside. We chose not to go in this trip. Had a quick lunch at the McDonalds across the street. We had 1 day HOHO bus tickets so we caught the bus and took it to Park Guell. Spent a couple of hours exploring the gorgeous park and then caught the HOHO bust again and just rode the rest of the route to Placa Catalunya. Then we shopped! Ate a quick dinner at the restaurant at the top of the Corte Ingles... all I can say is don't bother, the worst meal of the trip. The views from the restaurant are awesome but the food sucks! I took a picture of my DD"s Nachos because I have never seen them made with Parmesan cheese. :eek: Got in early DH, wanted to watch the soccer match. Didn't need to watch it because you could here the city roar every time a goal was made. Luckily, we were up doing laundry because the city and their horns were blaring all night long after the team.

We did not try to do too much because we didn't want to overwhelm our girls. That was our strategy for the port stops on our cruise as well. We picked out a few must dos and worked around that. Barcelona is a gorgeous city and all of residents we came in contact with were wonderful. Let me know if I can help with anything else.

[Emma1]

To Hencoll - Thank you for your information, great help. You said that you did not go into Sagrada Familia on this trip - have you gone before? Wondered if I should purchase the extra ticket to go into the tower.

Did you get the T10 to use? You seemed to have used 2 taxis a number of times - was this expensive? The Magic Fountain - is it worth doing?

CAsp74 - is there anything we should bring for the kitchen ( I assume salt/pepper/sugar/instant coffee/tea). Do we need detergent? Is there enough shampoo/ refilled each day?

This is our first med cruise - some ports I have booked private tours and some we will do on our own. The ones on our own (Corsica, Villefranche, La Spezia - will do Cinque de terrre) , have you been, any thoughts for the kids? My son will be 12 in La Spezia - need to find a cool restaurant for him - maybe the waiters will sing happy birthday in italian!

[quercus alba]

...5/28 ...Got in early DH, wanted to watch the soccer match. Didn't need to watch it because you could here the city roar every time a goal was made. Luckily, we were up doing laundry because the city and their horns were blaring all night long after the team.
....
We disembarked in Barcelona the next day. The morning was almost eerily quiet--we decided that everyone was hungover from the night before! :D It was fun that evening though, when we got to see the kids & families come out for the victory parade as the team returned home.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quercus_alba/5806254751/in/set-72157626903508562
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quercus_alba/5806818670/in/set-72157626903508562/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quercus_alba/5806256223/in/set-72157626903508562/

[hencoll]

To Hencoll - Thank you for your information, great help. You said that you did not go into Sagrada Familia on this trip - have you gone before? Wondered if I should purchase the extra ticket to go into the tower.

Did you get the T10 to use? You seemed to have used 2 taxis a number of times - was this expensive? The Magic Fountain - is it worth doing?

CAsp74 - is there anything we should bring for the kitchen ( I assume salt/pepper/sugar/instant coffee/tea). Do we need detergent? Is there enough shampoo/ refilled each day?

This is our first med cruise - some ports I have booked private tours and some we will do on our own. The ones on our
own (Corsica, Villefranche, La Spezia - will do Cinque de terrre) , have you been, any thoughts for the kids? My son
will be 12 in La Spezia - need to find a cool restaurant for him - maybe the waiters will sing happy birthday in italian!


My DH, DD (15) and I have been inside on previous trips to Barcelona. We just felt our two youngest DDs would not have the patience for the interior vist. They were really excited about Park Guell because it was in Disney's Cheetah Girls 2.

Casp 74 provides dish detergent and a tiny washing detergent. We brought a few of the travel size packages of Tide and Downy. They provide and replenish shower gel, shampoo and conditioner. The bottles are small, so if you have long, really thick or curly hair it may not be enough.

We bought the T10 ticket for the Metro. Very easy to do and there was an attendant near the machines to help. When ever we took taxis, we had to take two because Barcelona taxis are only allowed to carry a max of 4 passengers.

Honestly, we only went to the Magic Fountains because we were in the area because of the Flamenco show.

We cruised on the NCL Epic and our itinerary included Livorno- we did Pisa, Lucca and we toured a Tuscan Villa, Civitvecchia - Rome and Naples - we did half day tour of Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius and Pizza in Naples. All were done with private driver/guides. They were all absolutely wonderful. We also had a private tour guide for Pompeii. He was fabulous and did an outstanding job engaging our children. For our family it was worth every penny. We had complete control of our days and we could adjust to accommodate the needs of our girls. Extra Gelato stops! Our cruise also went to Palma, we just went into town looking around and doing a bit of shopping.

[PBPMOM3]

We had 7 in our group and we had the large apartment at the top. Three bedrooms, three baths, living room, dining room, kitchen and very nice porch. We were there one night post cruise.
I googled the Casp75apartments and it didnt come up? Do you have a website? We are a family of 8 and need to find a one day pre cruise hotel and one day post cruise as well.

Please help???

[Emma1]

THere was a typo , it's actually 74. Casp74apartments. Good luck