“It was comfortable and fine”

This is a long one but hear me out as it addresses a lot of the concerns I had before coming here, so may help you. I booked our stay in June for the end of October. We were staying three nights on a budget and I was travelling with my 17 year old daughter. I did lots of research and this looked li… more

This is a long one but hear me out as it addresses a lot of the concerns I had before coming here, so may help you. I booked our stay in June for the end of October. We were staying three nights on a budget and I was travelling with my 17 year old daughter. I did lots of research and this looked like a good bet, so I went ahead and booked it. Just before coming out here I looked at the reviews again and was horrified by the more recent ones. As we were arriving late at night we agreed to stay the first night and if awful we would move on and sort out a possible refund later. On arrival, I was expecting a back alley but it was down one of the wider streets of the Gothic Quarter - on the corner of Carrer D'en Gignas if you need to find it. The entrance is to a shared building and it's not obvious, but we knew it was number 39, so looked for that and then saw the SHS sign above the bells. We went in the shabby hall and climbed the few stairs to the first floor - there is a lift available - and had a warm welcome in the SHS hallway which looks like the picture and were shown to our room by the manager - a lovely Japanese woman. Okay, this is not a hotel, they missed an 's' out of the word, it's definitely a hostel, though I've seen it labelled as both on the internet. Our tiny room was squeezed into a corner of the place. It was clean though a little dusty under the bed, the beddingwas spotless. There's a low double bed in a corner with a small table and lamp next to it, there's a mirror and a coat rack on the wall, no drawers or wardrobe. We managed to hang a few things on the coat rack, including the two towels provided by the hotel, but otherwise lived out of our suitcases. There is presumably an apartment somewhere and I think this must feature in quite a few of the photos as not a lot of it looked like the photos, though as we were leaving I spotted room H over the manager's shoulder - much bigger with its own full balcony and a shower and toilet in the corner, but only a curtain to cordon you of from the rest of the room; €50 a night - email directly. This was obviously quite a grand apartment at one time, but as many rooms as possible have been shoehorned into the space and it is all a bit cramped. What was obviously once a double door out onto a balcony is now a single door, split by an internal wall, creating two rooms. This means you can just walk into the balcony door of the room next door if open, and while I couldn't imagine for one minute that a raging axe murderer was staying in the room next door, it would make me reluctant to leave our door open. And you can't leave it open anyway due to the street noises below. This is the Gothic Quarter, the streets are very narrow and things are open late, there are busy shops and bars and the noise travels up. We'd read about this, took ear plugs and slept well. The ceiling fan cooled us off a bit though I don't know how comfortable it would be in the height of summer. There aren't curtains at the windows, but a frosted film provides enough privacy. This means a little light gets in late at night and early morning but it's not a lot as the buildings are very close together, so it shouldn't affect your sleep, it didn't ours. The bathrooms - four of them - are cleaned but could do with a deep clean. The grouting needs whitening or redoing as it's all a bit stained, but it was clean. Where hooks and shelves once hung there are just fixings in the wall - it could do with a once over just to make it more user friendly. The two bathrooms furthest from the entrance were bigger, though in the biggest one you had to handhold the shower as even the holder for that had come off. Toiletries left behind are put on a shelf in the hall and you can just help yourself. We didn't bother with breakfast here just pre packaged croissants and the like, though did use the tea making facilities late at night - there were some nice herbal teas, and even some PG Tips and there's a fridge and microwave in the reception area guests can use, too. I didn't feel threatened or unsafe in this area. As in any city, keep your wits about you and hold on to your bag. We were so central with some fabulous places to eat on the doorstep - try Ria and Mirilla - and it's a busy, buzzy neighbourhood that sometimes has a slightly seedy side. It really is all about what you pay vs expectations and value for money. We paid £104 for a double room for three nights. So while there were things that weren't brilliant, I'm giving it a 5 as, for us, at this price, it was great. All things considered, would I recommend it? 100%.

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