Hotel Catalonia Avinyó — Hotel in Barcelona

The location of the hotel was the biggest selling point for us. We had stayed just off La Ramble years ago, and that's kind of chaotic. The Gothic district is very near La Rambla too, but SOOOO much quieter. You're near lots of great shops but also near some key sites. This hotel was 5 minutes from the Cathedral (no Sagrada Familia, which is NOT a cathedral; it's near the medieval cathedral), 5 minutes from Palau Guell, 4 minutes from La Rambla, less than 10 minutes from subway station. It was a 25 minute walk to Casa Batllo, but through some lovely neighborhoods, so that was actually great.||The hotel itself is on a tiny street. When our driver picked us up from the cruise port, one of the first things he said is "this is the most difficult hotel to access in Barcelona." It did prove challenging, driving down some really obscure streets that clearly weren't used to cars, as pedestrians had to really clear out of our way. When we left a couple of days later, the driver could only figure out one way to get to our hotel...by driving backwards down the street! So there's that.||The rooms are perfectly adequate, and our only complaint was the VERY slow functioning of the a/c. Took a couple of hours to drop the temp 2 degrees. But it was clean, the features were modern if a bit sterile, good water pressure, comfortable mattress. We had a single King bed, and it was HUGE. ||The staff was not terribly friendly, but we got the job done. Breakfast is not included, and is quite expensive, so we never availed ourselves of it. But they do have a tiny cafe at the front of the hotel, and another cafe next door...so you won't starve.||The pool at the top is nice, but very small. We were on the same level as the pool, but never used it. It was pretty much ALWAYS in use by someone...someone sitting poolside with their feet in the water. It's not really big...

Gonna say the pros and cons of this hotel. And ohh boy, here we go.

Pros: -Has very good and accommodating workers. -Has a gym. While small, it’s nice enough to get a good cardio session in and work out with a few machines and free weights. -Has a small bakery and bar that you can grab food from and drinks. -Location of the hotel is amazing -Room service has a wide variety of option and is relatively well priced -Has a roof top terrace that’s nice for tanning or just lazing around

Cons: -The pool is tiny. I it’s literally the size of a big tub. No more than 2-3 people can fit in it comfortably -Whoever designed the shower should have their license revoked and be put out of a job. There’s no door to stop the water from pouring out and nothing you do can help. Our bathroom was flooded every single day and we had to keep asking for a bunch of towels. Even the clerk at the desk agreed that the design was the most stupid thing he’s ever seen. -Our ceiling started pouring water. Our bathroom was flooded enough as it is, but now it was flooded from the ceiling with yellow pee water. -The drains in either the sink or shower don’t work well even after using draino. -There’s a air conditioner in every room, but the temperature cannot be controlled. It’s a centralized system with every AC in the hote being controlled by the front desk. Aside from certain hours of the evening, it’s ridiculously hot at all times in the room. (Around 25-27 degrees Celsius) -They have a smart TV in each room. However the TV’s aren’t smart at all because their capabilities have been turned off. You can’t use any of the apps on the TV, can’t connect to the internet/WiFi and you can’t even screen mirror/airplay on them. -They have WiFi at the hotel but it’s only good enough for sending messages or browsing the web. Good luck trying to load a video.

I would not recommend...

Overall a great stay - we were in the superior suite room 603 which has a little outside patio (no view though.)

The room was spacious and clean. All the lights, air-conditioning and other appliances were in working order. Even so, there was a little feeling of "no frills" and the bathroom amenities were cheap, the seal on the shower door was coming off and the plug hole in the shower didn't drain perfectly.

Also when we arrived at our hotel construction work was audible from the reception desk coming from the interior of the building. I had read comments about this elsewhere so I asked the desk clerk about it. She said that we would not be affected by the noise at all as we were on the top floor and we wouldn't hear it. Actually we did hear it clearly and sitting on the patio we could hear builders word for word as the sound carried up.

But this had no impact on our holiday. The workers started late, we were out mist of the day, the noise wasn't constant and they were over by 7pm. I would definitely stay again even with work going on in the hotel. If you were wanting a trip where you spend a lot of time in the room maybe not so good.

The location of the hotel is excellent and within walking distance of many incredible restaurants, tapas bars, patisseries, the harbour etc. The streets are very pretty. Over the road from the hotel is a very convenient mini mart selling regular groceries for snacks,...