Hotel Onix Rambla, Barcelona

[Spike in FL]

I never seen anyone mention this hotel here. Why? Is it bad? Is it good? Is it a secret?

Spike

[CintiPam]

Perhaps because it only has 40 rooms and is just a few years old, the chances that anyone active on cruisecritic has stayed there is much less than at other larger and more established hotels.

BTW, currently ranked #48 our of 580 Barcelona hotels on sister websiter tripadvisor.

[Spike in FL]

Well, I'm staying there in January with DH and his mobility scooter. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Spike

[CintiPam]

Thanks; it is in a good location and gets good reviews.

Enjoy!

[riffatsea]

Hi there, I stayed at the Onix Rambla for 4 nights in October. The breakfast was great and our room was fine.
They helped out with restaurant reservations and a taxi stand is a few doors away. Ask any questions you like.
Usually I am just on Trip Advisor but am taking a cruise in March so have been on here lately.

[riffatsea]

IF you want to read my review it is under my TA screen name Riffsmom.

[Spike in FL]

Originally Posted by riffatsea

IF you want to read my review it is under my TA screen name Riffsmom.

I DID read your review on Trip Advisor. I seldom make any sort of trip anymore without checking that first.

Thanks for letting me know.

Spike

[garylee]

Originally Posted by Spike in FL

I never seen anyone mention this hotel here. Why? Is it bad? Is it good? Is it a secret?

Spike

I heard good things about it from another Cruise critic member. This maybe will be my choose for my pre cruise stay in Barcelona...

[GatorTom]

I just booked the hotel for a post cruise stay in the end of May. We're only there for one day. Since we'll be getting off the cruise ship ( Ruby Princess) early I did call the hotel and asked if it would be ok to drop our luggage off, sightsee and check in later and they said that would be fine. The next day we want to catch the Airport bus which is located at Plaza Catalunya. How far of a walk is it to the Plaza? Also we're thinking of taking the On/Off sightseeing bus. Does anyone know if there is a stop close to the hotel? One last question how far of a walk is it to Las Ramblas?
Thanks

[riffatsea]

The hotel is about 3 1/2 blocks away from where the Aerobus stops AND the hop on hop off bus .
IF you look on a map you'll see Placa Catalunya which is where both the buses leave from. The hotel is on Rambla Catalunya which is up from there.
"Las Ramblas starts from just below Placa Cataluny.
BTW Las Ramblas is "tourist trap central" so watch yourself there. Other parts of the city are waaay nicer.

[daju22]

Originally Posted by Spike in FL

Well, I'm staying there in January with DH and his mobility scooter. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Spike

Hi Spike,
I'd love to know about the accessiblilty of this hotel! My husband has a mobility scooter also. We need a hotel with a walk-in shower and grab bars. Does Onix Rambla have these type of rooms? I'm going to check this one out.
Looking forward to your post about your stay.
Judy

[Spike in FL]

Originally Posted by daju22

Hi Spike,
I'd love to know about the accessiblilty of this hotel! My husband has a mobility scooter also. We need a hotel with a walk-in shower and grab bars.Looking forward to your post about your stay.Judy

Hi there.

The hotel was great. There are no steps between the street and the front desk/lobby, so getting the mobility scooter in and out was easy. The elevators are a little larger than your average European elevators, so DH on his scooter and me with 2 suitcases fit in one easily.

The dining room is accessible too, though the many, many restaurants right outside the front door are better for less money.

I don't know about a walk in shower being available, but there were plenty of grab bars.

The room itself was very comfortable (we had a different room on our 1 night pre-cruise stay) and overlooked the private courtyard, which was very quiet. For our pre-cruise stay we were in a room overlooking the street, which was not very noisy, but may be on a Friday or Staurday night. Otherwise, the 2 rooms were alike, and there was room for the scooter in both rooms.

BTW, the easiest way we found to charge the scooter was using a U.S. power strip plugged into a European converter. When we plugged the scooter right into the converter then into the wall, the transformer got unusually hot. It did not get any hotter than usual plugged into the power strip. You do not need any burnt-out fuses 5000 miles from home!

Spike

[daju22]

Hi Spike,
Thanks for your review of the hotel. Sounds like you really were able to use your scooter in the hotel. Glad it was so accessible for you.
Did you have a tub in the room? The reason we need a walk-in shower is that my husband can't step over a tub. I'll have to email them about the shower.
I think our transformer is dual voltage. Just have to have the right kind of plug.

I hope that your cruise was wonderful.
Thanks for helping!

[Turtles06]

We spent three nights in this hotel at the end of January prior to our cruise on the Jade. We picked it based on the good reviews on Trip Advisor.

The location is excellent -- a very short walk to Plaza de Catalunya and Las Ramblas, and easy access to Metro. Also very close to Passeig de Gracia. In fact, we walked just about everywhere except to Sagrada Familia (could have walked there too, if we'd wanted) and Montjuic. As someone above has already observed, there's a taxi stand just at the corner, so it was very easy to get a cab the morning we left for the ship. The hotel is on a very nice block, and there are plenty of good tapas places around. We found no need to have the very expensive breakfast in the hotel.

Our room, facing the street, was large, clean and comfortable, though fairly spartan in decor (hardwood floors, no rugs -- but from photos of other hotels in Barcelona, that seems to be very common). Large bathroom with combo tub/shower (and the ubiquitous bidet).

The front desk staff ranged from very helpful to polite.

I have only two complaints about the hotel. First, our room was too warm in the middle of the night. Altho it was January, it was in the high 50s outside during the day, and we did not need the heat on in our room. But we did need some fresh air (just the plain fan option); although the room's HVAC system supposedly had a plain fan option just to blow unheated air, the front desk people could not get that to work. All they could do was get hot air to blow, which meant we had to turn the HVAC completely off. Since it was too cold to leave the window open all night, the upshot was that the room got fairly stuffy by the middle of the night.

The hotel has free (wired) internet in the rooms. I was able to get this to work with our Netbook only once, but never again. The front desk person who was really helpful tried very hard to get things going for me, to no avail. They did have a computer you could use for free on the first floor (but no way will I put passwords into a public computer, so this limited what I could do). It is possible that some quirky security stuff on my own computer blocked the hotel's internet access, so I can't say for sure that the hotel is to blame here, but I will note that I was able to connect one time in the hotel and had no problems at all getting connected to the internet once we got on our ship; also, the hotel staff told me they'd had problems with their internet provider the week before, but claimed they'd been fixed, and in fact the internet was working via Firefox on the hotel's free computer. So who knows what the problem was.

Again, can't beat the location. After seeing the zoo on Las Ramblas, and the confusing streets in the Barri Gothic, we were very happy to be staying at this location.

[Olivares]

Gator-- I am a huge fan of Google Maps to check walking routes; just Google the hotel address (choose maps) and Get Directions (walking) to the other spot. Priceless.