Grand Hyatt Barcelona — Hotel in Barcelona

From start to finish, I had a very disappointing experience with Grand Hyatt Barcelona.

It all started when I was booking my stay - I did this directly via the Hyatt's website. I received an email from the hotel 24 hours after my booking advising that they've been unsuccessful in charging my credit card. I did check with American Express and they confirmed that there were no attempts to charge my card. In that email, Hyatt didn't advise me of how I can make a payment -- they just advised that, if no payment is made within 3 days, my booking will be cancelled. I rang the hotel direct -- they could not assist. I rang Hyatt -- they told me I need to call the hotel. Then, they spoke to the hotel directly and told me to call the hotel after the weekend. I rang again on Monday, and ended up talking to the original person, who had sent me the email -- she then emailed me a link, allowing me to directly make a payment. I'm unsure why this wasn't provided in her initial email to me, sparing me all the stress and time invested.

Upon arrival, I felt like I was in a Vegas hotel -- long queues in front of the check-in desks. Only two of the desks were operating. It ended up taking exactly 35 minutes from the moment I lined up until I got checked in.

When I got to my room, I went to wash my face, and the water was boiling hot. I turned on the shower -- same thing. I ended up just changing and not washing myself. On my way out, at around 3:30 pm, I advised the front desk, and they told me that this will be addressed straight away. I returned at 10:30 pm -- 7 hours later. The issue hadn't been fixed. I went down to Reception and got told that someone will attend to the issue straight away. At 11:20 pm, a guy came, spent a few minutes checking everything, and confirmed that there's an issue -- there's only boiling hot water -- and that he'll be back in 10-15 minutes with tools to fix it.

I had been travelling from the other side of the continent since 6 am, it was approaching midnight, and I still hadn't had a shower. I was struggling to stay awake.

At 0:45 am, after not hearing anything, I rang the Reception to follow up. They called me back at 1 am, confirming that the issue cannot be sorted and that I'll have to get moved to another room. I asked them why this wasn't communicated through to me earlier -- they disregarded the question. The front desk manager came to my room, waited for me while I was packing all my belongings, and then escorted me to my new room. Sadly, the gorgeous view I had was gone -- I now had a view towards the university buildings.

I was in the new room at 1:20 am! There was no formal apology, no offer of an upgrade, or drink credit, or anything! By the time I had a shower and went to bed, it was 2 am. I had to get up at 8 am, as I had stuff booked around the city.

A couple of days into my stay, I was in the lift, going down towards the ground floor, when the lift abruptly stopped. I kept on ringing the alarm bell and nobody responded. It took 7 minutes until the lift started moving again. I am extremely claustrophobic and this was a very traumatic experience for me. Of course, the hotel staff cannot be blamed -- these things happen, however, again, there was no apology, no acknowledgement; just nothing!

The final point I'll make is about the housekeeping. I stayed at Grand Hyatt for 5 days. During that time, my complimentary water was replaced once, and the complimentary coffee pods -- twice. Also, the coffee mugs were left unwashed by the coffee machine.

This is a gorgeous property, however, the service is very poor. Following my stay, I received an email from the hotel to post a review, which I did. I received a response very promptly apologising for everything, once again, without any offer towards future potential stays.

Considering the premium cost, I would expect a better quality service.

I wouldn't stay at this property again, nor I'd recommend it to...

⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆ (3/5)

I first stayed here back when it was still Hotel Sofia under the Hyatt UB series — flawless experience, five stars without hesitation. Since the March 2024 rebrand to Grand Hyatt Barcelona, my August 2025 stay was an enormous letdown. Honestly, 2.5 stars would be more accurate, but I’ll round up to 3.

This is a mediocre, money-first, loyalty-last Grand Hyatt. As a Hyatt Globalist who has stayed at Grand Hyatts across five continents, I can say without doubt this was the worst Grand Hyatt experience I’ve ever had. At every fork in the road between guest loyalty and revenue, this hotel chooses revenue.

The few positives:

Stylish, modern design.

Instead of standard Balmain toiletries, they use the excellent Spanish brand Natura Bissé.

Staff are consistently smiling, warm, and professional.

Some rooms offer views of the Sagrada Família.

Breakfast quality itself is solid (eggs benedict were great).

Hop-on hop-off bus stop right downstairs.

But the negatives outweigh everything:

The Grand Club is a disgrace. Grand Hyatt’s signature feature worldwide is its Club Lounge. Here, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen — uninspired food, poor execution, and embarrassingly low standards for a food capital like Barcelona. Management clearly hasn’t visited other Grand Hyatts to see how it should be done.

Suite upgrades are a joke. “Junior Suite” is basically just a larger king room — nowhere near a true one-bedroom suite. Even applying a Suite Upgrade Award only gets you this “fake suite.” A complete waste. To move to a Grand Suite, they tried to charge me €82 per night. Yet Hyatt’s own website shows the rate difference at only €42. Greedy and shameful.

Penny-pinching at every turn. They begrudgingly provide just two small bottles of water per day. Asking for more is like pulling teeth. Their excuse? “You can drink in the lounge.” Except the lounge closes absurdly early, and the lobby water station is filthy, with guests refilling jugs and bottles.

Can’t handle high occupancy. Everything gets blamed on “peak season.” Sorry, but that’s not an excuse — it just proves management can’t run a busy hotel. Back when it was Hotel Sofia during the World Mobile Congress (also peak season), everything was smooth. What happened since?

Breakfast chaos. While the food was fine, the experience was humiliating. Guests forced into long queues just to get eggs, like a soup kitchen line for the homeless. This in a supposed 5-star hotel. The chefs themselves were wonderful, working hard under impossible conditions, but the setup is shameful. On top of that, I noticed clear differences in service — non-Asian guests got asked if they wanted coffee or drinks, while I (Asian-looking) had to fetch my own. Not “discrimination,” but certainly differential treatment — and disgusting to experience.

Location is inconvenient. Far from Barcelona’s major attractions. Expect €30-40 taxi/Uber rides daily just to get in and out. Fine for concerts or business at the conference center, terrible for tourists.

Pool and gym overcrowded. Pretty pool, but too packed to actually swim. Fitness center also jammed.

Communication style is defensive and patronizing. Raise an issue via email and instead of a solution or apology, you’ll get lectured about policy. At other Hyatts, issues are solved first, explained later. Here, it’s all excuses.

In summary: As someone who spends 1/5 of my year in Hyatt hotels, it’s a disgrace that this Grand Hyatt fails so badly. It’s shameful for Barcelona and shameful for Hyatt. If you’re a Globalist, expect to feel undervalued and nickel-and-dimed.

Would I ever return? Maybe, if I needed to burn points or meet stay requirements. Otherwise, I’d recommend staying elsewhere — Hyatt Regency Barcelona is far better, with real suite upgrades and genuine GM engagement. Or just book one of Barcelona’s many excellent hotels or serviced apartments. There’s no need to put yourself...

The service has been the worst by far. Last week, we stayed for 2 nights and thank god we did not stay any longer. The day of arrival we tried to call the reception twice (1hour gap between the calls) and nobody picked the phone in any of the calls. We arrived at midnight and on check-in we were allocated to a different room without notice. In the morning we were confused as the room was very different from the one booked in their website. When we expressed our concern, the staff stated that we should appreciate they upgraded us; and we needed to explain that the room was bigger; however, it was not even finished as the decoration was not matching with the description of the room and even more that we both work in the UK as Doctors and if we wanted to pay for a bigger room we would have, however, the reason we booked that room was because we found the design very cool. It was so embarrassing feeling that we needed to explain ourselves for their mistakes. They became unfriendly but accommodating to our request to change to the room we originally booked. However, we wanted a compensation for the hassle. My boyfriend complained to the reception and their answer was: “we have already swap to the room you wanted, what else you want?” So savage That morning, during breakfast we were allocated one table in the terrace by the waiters in the buffet, we went to get some food afterwards and when we came back with our plates and sat on the table allocated another waiter came quite agitated instructing us that we needed to be moved as that table was allocated to someone else; his approach was not friendly and he did not apologise for the inconvenience. Really embarrassing. My boyfriend complained at the reception several times about the treatment and they only gave it to him 2 wine vouchers as compensation. We ordered this as room service and it took them 45min to deliver it to the room. We also ordered two gyn tonics on the same order and they brought just the gin. He asked the waiter how he thought we would drink the gin without the tonic and if he thought we ordered two shots. At night I complained in the reception stating I would like to put a formal complain in the complains book to the hotel as the service is not the expected for a 5* hotel. We set an appointment with the person in charge (Christian) at 10am the next day; however, at 7:30am a member of the staff walked in to our room without knocking. In the morning with met with Christian and Raul (his superior) and they agreed to give us 1 night for free and 1 night of parking; they also knew about the incident at 7:30am which was very surprising for both of us as we did not inform anybody about this. On checked out they wanted to charge us for the room service and we told them we would not pay for it due to the whole inconvenience the room service caused at the night and they made me pay in reception for the parking which I did. On the receipt they charged in the total amount for the parking, 1night in the hotel, and 2 days city tax- I have been on emails with Christian since I checked out asking to refund the parking as I already paid it apart before we left at the hotel and 5 days later I have not received any answer back from him when I provided him the evidence that I have been charged twice. I am Spanish, it was meant to be our holidays and the first time for my boyfriend to be in Spain; it has been such an embarrassment for me to receive this kind of treatment in my home country in a 5* hotel. I was expecting far more from Hyatt brand however, it is so sad to say that I would not recommend to anybody to go to this hotel ever and I will question myself twice before I book any stay with any Hyatt hotels...