Ibaia Et Arramak

The room was awful despite the good location. We travelled all the way from Australia to San Sebastián, and the stay was very disappointing. Room 3 was supposedly a superior double with garden view, but it looked nothing like the photos. The layout was so awkward that there wasn't even space to open our suitcases, let alone relax. I'm now in an 18m2 hotel room in Bilbao that's much bigger, and I don't believe Room 3 was really 18m2. Nothing about it felt superior. The air conditioning didn't work, the curtains were stained, the walls were dirty, and the tiny desk was crooked and couldn't hold anything. The bed was pushed against a wall, with nowhere to hang clothes or wet towels. One day the bed was made, the next it wasn't. We had to reuse wet towels every day because there was nowhere to dry them.

We thought it was good value at 50€ a night. The room had good points and drawbacks: it was large, modern, and clean, with a spacious, very comfortable bed. The walk-in shower was easy to use, clean, and warmed up quickly. We slept really well. There were two windows onto a small, dark inner courtyard, and the sliding glass door between the bedroom and bathroom/toilet didn't give much privacy. Its mechanism was also a bit broken. We only discovered the drawers under the bed when we were leaving, as nobody had told us they were there. The guest house is near the river and city centre in a calm area. The person who greeted us was very friendly and, without us asking, gave us addresses and tips for visiting the city and finding the best pitxos (tapas) area, all in French.

We paid €650 for three nights, which felt like a rip-off bordering on a scam. On arrival, they first tried to put us in a tiny basement room, and we had to push to be moved upstairs to the first floor. That room was small too, with big ceiling stains, no wardrobe, and cheap decor. The air conditioning made a drilling noise every five minutes, so we couldn't sleep. We called the 24-hour service at 3:30am, and they disconnected it. That stopped the noise but left us sweating. They tried to repair it the next day, but left a mess in the room, a tube running into the shower, and water dripping from the ceiling all day. The room was partly flooded, ridiculous when we were paying over €200 a night. The receptionist was rude and unprofessional. It was a shocking stay.

We only met the receptionist at check-in, and they were very friendly. The cleaners were friendly too and did a great job. Still, we didn't think the value matched the price, and this was the most expensive room of our whole holiday. I wouldn't recommend it for couples, even though the location is good. We stayed three nights in the room listed with garden and river views. The interior looked nice, but it wasn't practical or well thought out. The garden is small and pleasant, but the supposed river view faces a pedestrian boulevard/street. You know the river is there, but you can't see it. A big tourist bus parked beside the boulevard one night and idled for almost an hour, adding noise and emissions. The toilet had a tiny bin, so we had to make our own rubbish corner. We couldn't figure out how to sit comfortably on the little chair, and the tiny desk kept getting in our way. It was crooked, perhaps from other guests bumping into it, and things fell off. The shower was roomy but had nowhere to put shampoo, and its showerhead holder kept falling down, even during the night. There was very little privacy in the toilet: the glass door wouldn't fully close. The shower's glass door also left the floor mostly flooded. We could hear everything from the neighbors, and they could hear us.