Atrium Palace Hotel in Barcelona

[Psoque]

Hi. We are planning to take the 10 day Western Med cruise on Century in November, roundtrip from Barcelona. Our plan is to arrive at Barcelona one day before the cruise, and then stay overnight also in Barcelona one night after the cruise before we fly home.

 

Our travel agent recommended and booked for us at Apsis Atrium Palace Hotel in Barcelona for both pre and post cruise stays. I really trust my travel agent, but I'm just wondering if anybody else have stayed there recently and have any suggestions about the hotel, the city, or anything else. It appears this hotel is one of the "pre/post cruise package" hotels offered by Celebrity Cruises, but strangely, there's not much information about it either on Celebrity website or any of the guidebooks I browsed. By the way, we did not book this as part of the "pre/post cruise package" since we would probably end up paying too much.

 

Since we do not plan to really drive around Barcelona on our own, we are planning to either take a cab or shuttle bus (if anything like that exist) from/to the airport. Any suggestions on this topic?

 

I'm sorry if this information has been posted already...I wish the searching on this board is fixed already.

[ab0si]

It is a very nice hotel. Being rather new, it is still not in all the guidebooks. Plenty of mostly positive reviews and comments both here and on Tripadvisor.com -- including one from me.

 

both the bus and the train from the airport stop close to the Palace -- although with cruise luggage, I would probably take a taxi.

 

There is a hop-on/hop-off bus in Barcelona (actually there are two that interconnect). There is also an excellent public transportation system which is reasonably priced and easy to use.

 

The big negative about Barcelona is its world class pick pockets and purse snatchers. If this becomes an Olympic event, Catalonia will sweep the medals. On the other hand, the taxi drivers are usually honest and mostly know the city. (Athens will win the scamming taxi driver gold while there will be a tight contest with 5,000 potential winners for taxi drivers not knowing the city, but I pick Istanbul to pull ahead of New York at the end).

 

Paul

[cruiseluv]

I have also stayed at the Atrium Palace and will stay again next month at the end of my cruise .

 

The only negative I found was that the beds IMO were really hard. Even with that, I slept well.

 

Location is very good.

 

If you book directly with them in their website they usually offer discounts.

[Lve2Travel]

My husband and I stayed at this hotel in Sept. 06 and thoroughly enjoyed the accommodations (very clean and very modern) and the close proximity to walking to Las Ramblos, the cathedral, gaudi's houses, shopping, and, of course, many great tapas restaurants.

 

I think you will enjoy your stay.

[Psoque]

I thank all of you who have responded to my post already. We are looking forward to this trip. This will be my first trip to Spain and the Mediterranean, and first transatlantic flight/trip to Europe for my partner.

[hcat]

one more positive review. We loved this hotel. Has free internet, great service & nice clean, fair sized rooms on a wonderful street. Our room overlooked a noisy school courtyard but not a problem Hotel has a great location, we walked to everything... gaudi, shopping, Music palace,old city, shops, PLaca catalunya --only place we missed seeing was montjuic--that would require a cab or bus.. Great place to eat at las Ramblas is called the Attic. Also a nice restaurant a few doors down from the hotel had great pizza & dinner specials.. hotel also has a nice breakkfast buffet, bar for tapas & snacks...could not ask for more!

 

On our return we stayed on Las Ramblas-- at a histroic hotel & did not like that experience at all...