Hotel de l’Aqueduc

We’d booked this hotel for our trip and had a really good stay. The staff were very friendly, and receptionist Alejandro deserves a special mention. He’s lovely, speaks more than seven languages, and gave us amazing service. We’d come back just because of him. The location was good, not too far from the landmarks, and the rooms were clean enough. Breakfast was basic but tasty. I’d recommend the hotel for a weekend trip.

The staff were kind, and the patio looked nice. It’s also good value compared with other hotels in the area, with a location near a large station and easy tram access to the city centre. But my room had obvious water damage: bubbling wallpaper and what I think was mold by the bathroom door. The bathroom smelled unpleasant. Breakfast was mediocre, with limited choices and too expensive for what you get. We ate there once, then went elsewhere for the rest of the stay. The neighborhood could feel scary to walk around at night, and my parents complained about the trains waking them.

Reception was friendly, but the hygiene problems made me leave immediately. The bathroom door was rotten along the bottom, and there was mold on the ceiling and above the shower. When I lifted the bed covers, I found a strange substance on the sheet and two tears in it. To me, that meant the sheets hadn’t been changed before we arrived, and the substance was left by a previous guest. I was horrified and couldn’t stay because of these hygiene concerns. The hotel didn’t refund me. What was shown online was misleading, and the place wasn’t fit to stay in. The hygiene was disgraceful.

The room was a letdown compared with the decent looking pictures on booking.com. It was absolutely tiny, the wallpaper was peeling and damaged, and the train station noise came through very clearly. The shower head wasn’t mounted properly either.