Sweet Hotel Continental

For nearly 600 euros for three nights, I expected much more than a place that barely works as somewhere to sleep. The location is the only real plus. There are no windows in the room, no kettle, and the layout is odd, with the bed blocking the closet and a table in front of the outlets. The walls are so thin you hear the pipes and your neighbors talking, and can even smell their smoke. For that price, it feels far below a decent hotel.

The staff were really helpful, even keeping our bags after checkout. The location is handy too: right in Ciutat Vella, with places like Catedral de Valencia, Central Mercado, Ajuntament de Valencia, and Ceramics Museum close enough to walk to, in my opinion. There are plenty of cafés and restaurants around as well.

The room was filthy when we arrived, with dirty towels and bugs. After our second day, we came back to find it still hadn't been cleaned. The receptionist said the cleaner might have forgotten. I had to ask for fresh towels and a bin liner, and was told to leave the old ones outside the room. The receptionist then took a photo of them. When we complained that the room didn't match the photos, she said she'd ask the manager about finding us a room like the one shown and get back to us the next day. She barely acknowledged us the next morning. When I asked, she said the manager was on vacation and that we should have spoken to the morning receptionist instead. We were told to move our belongings into lockers because there was a “90%” chance we'd get another room the following day. We didn't do it. The morning receptionist then said the manager couldn't be reached, there was nothing he could do, and the other rooms weren't much better anyway. When I called that dishonest, he couldn't find any online photos that matched our room either. I asked for a small reimbursement, but was again told nobody could contact the manager to even make the request. The biggest problem for us was how different the room looked from its photos. The shower in the pictures is a small standard one with a glass door. Ours was just a hose on the wall beside the toilet, with nothing to stop water going everywhere. The bathroom was so cramped I couldn't turn around without touching a wall, sink, or toilet. The rest of the room was just as bad. Nothing seemed to work properly: the hair dryer kept switching on and off, the toilet seat was broken, both towel rails were loose on one side, and one of the two tiny bins was broken. Only two of the four lights worked, and they were very dim. The room was so small it felt like a prison. We could barely open one suitcase and had to climb over it to get out of bed. The old air vent barely cooled the room, the sink and shower drained badly, and the beds were tiny and wobbly. I'm 163 cm tall and my feet hung over the end. Charging ports were placed nowhere near the tables. There were no basic toiletries besides combined shampoo and body wash, and not even tissues. The walls were paper thin, so we heard neighbors talking, coughing, sneezing, running water, other noises, and even the soft sound Apple devices make when they turn on. The hotel looked so unlike the photos that we asked if we had the right room. We were told the pictures online didn't have to look like our room, and another staff member confirmed most rooms were like ours, not the photos. Reading other bad reviews later, we agreed with people who said the positive reviews seemed fake. We felt cheated, were uncomfortable the whole stay, and wouldn't recommend it. It was a waste of money.

The room was clean and the location was pretty good, so it could work if you're on a budget, though there was nothing special about it. Our triple room was plain and very small, with a decent bathroom and barely any daylight through its tiny tinted window. They only give you one physical key and expect you to leave it at reception whenever you go out, which I'd never come across before. We arrived a few hours before check-in and had told them ahead of time in case an early room was possible. They said it wasn't ready, which was fair, but the front desk couldn't tell me whether it might be ready soon. After about half an hour of getting clothes out of our luggage, changing in the lobby restroom, and preparing to lock our bags away, we were told the room was ready. It was frustrating that nobody seemed to check when I first asked.