Barcelona Hotels

We are booked in on a Eastern Med cruise next year out of Barcelona. Can anyone recommend a Hotel for a one night stay before a cruise there ? Looking for somewhere central perhaps on or near to the Ramblas so plenty to see ,do and find somewhere decent to eat.A hotel not too expensive but clean and friendly. Thanks for any reply.

If you do a search on Barcelona Hotels in the Spain ports of the Ports of Call board you will find quite a few recommendations.

I agree with OzKiwiJJ.

This link will take you to the Spain Ports Of Call Board.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=596

Keith

We are booked in on a Eastern Med cruise next year out of Barcelona. Can anyone recommend a Hotel for a one night stay before a cruise there ? Looking for somewhere central perhaps on or near to the Ramblas so plenty to see ,do and find somewhere decent to eat.A hotel not too expensive but clean and friendly. Thanks for any reply.

We have enjoyed Hotel Jazz several times.

The Hotel Continental on La Rambla. Lots of CCers seem to like it. It's a relatively cheap 3-star hotel that shares the building with a hostel and a 2-star hotel. Stayed there once when traveling with friends who did the booking. If you like the color pink, and Rubbermaid plastic drawers, you'd be right at home. It has a "24 hour buffet" - be sure you only eat when things are put out (saw things sit there for hours as we sat there watching a football match).

The Hotel Continental on La Rambla. Lots of CCers seem to like it. It's a relatively cheap 3-star hotel that shares the building with a hostel and a 2-star hotel. Stayed there once when traveling with friends who did the booking. If you like the color pink, and Rubbermaid plastic drawers, you'd be right at home. It has a "24 hour buffet" - be sure you only eat when things are put out (saw things sit there for hours as we sat there watching a football match).

I agree with the above poster. We stayed at the Hotel Continental and while it was quirky, it was clean and the staff were very friendly. The location was great and we were really only in it to sleep - too much to see and do. It has a lovely little courtyard out in back and we met so many others from CC who were going on the same cruise as we were.

I also stayed at the Continental last year for 3 nights. Can't beat the free beer and wine. It is very convenient for walking and there is a metro station just a few steps out the front door. I had a balcony room and enjoyed sitting out there watching all the action on Las Ramblas.

The Hotel Continental on La Rambla. Lots of CCers seem to like it. It's a relatively cheap 3-star hotel that shares the building with a hostel and a 2-star hotel. Stayed there once when traveling with friends who did the booking. If you like the color pink, and Rubbermaid plastic drawers, you'd be right at home. It has a "24 hour buffet" - be sure you only eat when things are put out (saw things sit there for hours as we sat there watching a football match).

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Book that one early. Friends stayed there and like it but it will be fully booked months in advance

We're staying at Quatre Naciones which is on Ramblas, close to the port. Gets good reviews and not too expensive.

Been to Barcelona many times... stayed in various areas... usually off the beaten path... our favorite is the Hilton Diagonal Mar... been there twice, going again in October... right on Mediterranean....there is another Hilton in the business district. We have stayed out at the airport, at the The HOtel Arts a Ritz Carlton... really dependso n what rates we find. Love Barcelona.

Hi all!

I'm also a fan of Hotel Continental Barcelona. You can't beat the location, right on the Ramblas. close to Placa Catalunya where the airport bus drops off or you can get the HOHO bus. A short walk also to Boqueria Market & the beautiful Cathedral with the Geese inside.

Hope this helps.

~ Jo ~ :)

We stayed at the Hotel Continental last May .We got a remodeled room . No plastic containers and a fantastic bathroom with a huge shower . Except for the free wine and beer and the soft serve ice cream the 24 hour buffet was of poor quality enough for an okay breakfast but that was it . The location is great .

Try the Las Ramblas Hotel--seventh floor--rear balcony. Step outside the main entrance, take a left to the first street, another left will lead to a Turkish grill with excellent, low cost food.

The last tme we stayed in Barcelona was at the Ritz-Carlton. Great hotel and 15 minutes from Las Rambles.:)

Loved Hotel 1898 on Las Ramblas.

We stayed at the Hotel Continental last May .We got a remodeled room . No plastic containers and a fantastic bathroom with a huge shower . Except for the free wine and beer and the soft serve ice cream the 24 hour buffet was of poor quality enough for an okay breakfast but that was it . The location is great .

Good to hear that they got rid of those plastic dressers!!! Hopefully they ditched the pink flocked wallpaper, too! It screamed "bordello" ;) The buffet - yuck. We (me, my BFF and her hubby) sat in the dining room all one night, watching the Champions League final game on the TV that a TV station had put up to show the raw feed (they were they to capture the post-game action on La Rambla if Barca won). Never saw an attendant at the buffet - nothing replaced, nothing added.

The one thing it had going for it was the location. If I had picked the hotel in Barcelona, I would have been at either Le Meridien for La Rambla or the Four Points Diagonal for price alone.

You can also check out recommendations on TripAdvisor.com

I recommend the H10 chain, we've stayed at placa catalunya and Universitat. If you join their free club first you get 5-10% off.

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Thanks for all the suggestions. We have lined up a few hotels that we like and all have mixed reviews on TripAdvisor but thats life what suits one person etc etc.Will keep an eye on them but as we have difficulty in booking them yet will,as someone suggested try at the end of September.One hotel after emailing them wanted a credit card number with expiry by email to book .I really didn't fancy that . I feel that it is safer using a booking agent like Hotels.com .

Thanks for all the suggestions. We have lined up a few hotels that we like and all have mixed reviews on TripAdvisor but thats life what suits one person etc etc.Will keep an eye on them but as we have difficulty in booking them yet will,as someone suggested try at the end of September.One hotel after emailing them wanted a credit card number with expiry by email to book .I really didn't fancy that . I feel that it is safer using a booking agent like Hotels.com .

You are wise to not rely on TripAdvisor. The hotel rankings are very false. Some hotels have employees write 5 "dot" reviews to boost rankings. Some guests will deliberately sabotage a hotel with a 1 "dot" review because they did not get a free upgrade. Hotels can get bad reviews removed. A hotel that gets inundated with soccer team families for a week will get lots of 5 "dot" reviews while the luxury hotel in the area gets maybe one or two - the Holiday Inn Express suddenly bolts within the top 5 hotels in the area while the Ritz Carlton drops from #2 to #13. Just like Forbes (who is "pay to play") - be aware of rankings and reviews...

I'm not sure why you are uneasy at a hotel asking for credit card info - how else can they take advance payment to hold your room? As a manager at my hotel, I have full access to the hotels.com/hoteltonight/expedia.com extranets and I can see everyone's credit card info. How do you think a hotel gets that information from the website? A hotel's reservation agents will ask for CC info over the phone, including dates and the "magic numbers." An unscrupulous agent could copy them and either use it themselves or sell it. Every hotel I've worked will send a "third party CC Authorization" ( to be filled out if someone other than the person staying at the hotel is paying) and have it sent back via email or fax. So, you have to have some trust here. Instead of email, ask if you may call and give over the phone.

As far as using an OTA - I hate them as a person who works at the Front Desks and in the past in Reservations. Every darn week, regardless of the hotel I worked at, there was at least one case where the OTA screwed up a reservation (wrong dates, wrong name, wrong type of room, incorrect/expired CC given) or we never even received the reservation request. In fact, I had one Saturday night. Guest arrived at 10pm - booked through HotelTonight. We never saw it. Hotel at 95%. No clean rooms. Had to get the houseman (HK gone at 9pm) to clean one of 3 rooms remaining - that took an hour. As the guest had a confirmation from HT, I went ahead and manually made a reservation for her, and matched the rate. She was exhausted from traveling - I felt so bad for her that she got stressed because 1)we didn't have the reservation and 2) she had to wait another hour to get to sleep because we had to clean a room. You are far better to book directly with a hotel or, if a chain, it's website or brand phone agents.

Many thanks for that reply slidergirl .You certainly posed some interesting comments there to ponder . Obviously someone with a great deal of experience in the hotel business .( I don't mean to patronise ).