HA Aparthotel Retiro Suites

Everything feels new and is very well kept, and once we’d arranged access, the system worked smoothly and securely. Service was excellent, and they even had the sofa bed ready for our little one. Check-in is tech oriented, especially after 7PM, when you need access codes to enter. During the day, the lobby is open during regular reception hours. Book under your own name and contact details, since the hotel contacts you to arrange the safe deposit, which is just a card hold, not a charge, then sends the codes. This takes follow-through. If you land at Barajas at 3AM without checking your email or texts, or book for family and leave them to work it out overnight, the process may not suit you. This is MADRID, get on with the schedule.

The building entrance smelled awful, and the lift was terrifying. Despite the photos suggesting renovated rooms, our unit was filthy, with a visibly broken and dangerously dirty air conditioning unit whose filters were completely clogged. Noise was unbearable: several bars below us kept things ear-splitting until 3-4 AM, and we didn’t sleep a single minute. Hallway noise and the lift echoing constantly added to it. The beds were rock hard and gave me severe back pain, and the sofa bed for our child was very uncomfortable. The so-called breakfast was misleading and awful. For €15 per person, we found a box in the fridge on arrival with inedible food: a stiff, untasteable ham and cheese sandwich, a tiny crushed, rock-hard thing meant to be a croissant, and a bruised apple. The coffee machine was broken. Staff tried to fix it, but when that failed they said they could do nothing and we’d have to manage without coffee or milk. When I called the breakfast “garbage,” an employee agreed it was bad and told me to complain to Booking, saying it wasn’t their problem. That makes me think the Booking reviews must be guaranteed fake. This was a complete rip-off. NEVER AGAIN.

The room was dirty and smelled horrible, and the area was terrible. Breakfast was advertised on the website, but what you actually get at the property is cheap sandwiches delivered to your room.

The location is nice, though there’s a bit of a walk to the nearest metro or bus stop. Our rooms were spacious but nothing special, and the shower was hard to adjust. At arrival, we were charged a €150 deposit that was only mentioned in small print on the booking site, so it was an unexpected extra cost. The night before our last day, we had a serious issue with the key code and couldn’t get into the building or our room. Some kind people helped us inside the building, but it took quite a while to reach the property staff and get a new code. We were very tired and upset, especially after paying €520 for the stay.