Hospederia imar — Hotel in Cádiz

I booked a room at Hospederia Imar on booking.com. Didn't pay much attention to rewievs. I check them here a day or two before I was supposed to check in. I got seriously terrified about how it's going to be. Surprisingly I didn't experience anything of what's mentioned below. The room was clean, cosy and nice in general. So was the bathroom. The people were very nice. The Male-employeer (he told me his name many times, but I just could't remember it :) ) told us where to eat, the Owner was nice and friendly. We got invoice without any whining or anything (which happened before in Spain). The patio in front of the rooms is great (cold at days, warm at nights). You can eat, smoke or just relax with the sounds of bird's singing. I don't know if that place went through some serious changes or if the previous rewievs were the exception. ||If you hesitate if you should go there or not, another adventage is that the ocean is 50-100 m from the hospederia and 30 m away there is a nice cafe/bar with tasty and reasonable priced tapas...

Damp. Freezing. Stinks. Dirty. Expensive (for what you get). Noisy. Scary.||||Now the bad parts:||||When I walked in I was greeted with a strong smell of urine, this only got worse when I opened the fridge to keep our groceries fresh and was then welcomed by an overwhelming smell of rotten milk. To make matters worse there was old food from the previous tenant (from who knows when) still in the cupboards and drawers and all of them were open. ||||The bed sheets felt damp and greasy and the showers were cold and the bathroom was dirty. ||||The windows must have been fitted poorly as the amount of water coming in and the deafening whistling sound from the wind was ridiculous. ||||We bought some cleaning products from the supermarket and gave the place a thorough clean and still the smell would not go. Booked for 7 nights but left after 3. ||||Avoid this at all costs, unless you are the family from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, only then will you like this...

Nothing fancy, just the basics. I stayed in a double room for three nights at the price of €250.

Negatives:

The second lock on the main door for added security did not function properly. As a solo female traveler it made me a little uneasy because it meant that anyone with a key to the room could walk in.

The bathroom door didn’t shut completely.

The staff will try to enter your room randomly at various points throughout the day even if you refuse room service.

There was no safe in the room for me to put my valuables. My wallet which did not leave the room, had €20 missing which I noticed after checking out.

Positives:

If you are looking for a cheap place right next to the beach, this is perfect.

Besides the staff trying to enter your room randomly and my missing €20, the staff were friendly.

The toilet, shower, and sink functioned perfectly. There was plenty...