Hotel Maria Cristina, a Luxury Collection Hotel, San Sebastian — Hotel in San Sebastián

Overall we had a wonderful stay at this hotel, with a few things that were not up to what we would have expected from a luxury collection hotel.

The hotel is easy to find. The location is near most of the attractions and depending on room you may actually have sea view.

Upon arrival you can leave the car with the valet. He actually double checked our names with the reservations and parked the car, after unloading the baggage and giving us the two receipts for baggage and car. Baggage handling is efficient and safe from what we could observe.

The checkin process was fast and friendly. We were escorted to our suite, and got a quick explanation. Baggage arrived shortly afterwards and was well handled and the room offered enough capabilities to place it well for unpacking.

Breakfast. The room is very nice, and depending on the seat you may actually see the sea gushing up against the harbor walls. The service varies. We found some very friendly servers that were attentive, we also found ourselves asking for water or juice multiple times before getting it. Once we actually had a place were waiters bumped into my seat a few times in passing, before appropriate comments made them more careful. You can get fresh eggs and potentially other stuff ordered from the waiter. Would have appreciated a list of suggestion what they are offering from the kitchen, as english can be a challenge. Coffee is from a machine that does not create the best. The only way the cappuccino taste is when applying a lot of cacao on top, and then it taste only like cacao. Nice selection of fresh fruits as well as the bread selection and various different sweet items were very good.

Room service: tried it once, found the quality to be very good, the friendliness as well. When fetching the main dishes from the warming cabin, found one to be the wrong, but stayed with it. Got an apology alter for this which is fine by me. Still not sure the chicken we got was the same price as the beef we ordered.

We had done an upgrade with Suite night upgrade awards. The suite is very well maintained. Size is very good, furniture very nice and functional at the same time. Bed quality is great. On arrival we found some small alcoholic present for us on the dining table. nice touch we know from luxury collection and even some other SPG properties. Would have expected for it to be removed after emptied, but that took two days to happen.

The climate control is a charm. Working very efficiently while being silent to the point you are wondering if it is actually working, wish that would be in all hotels. The explanation we were given for it when shown to the room was wrong though, and the guy who showed it to us could also not figured out why it did not work, promised to send someone to fix it, who never came. But closing the window did the trick.

Housekeeping was good. Turn down was excellent and super friendly.

A couple of things that we would have expected to see better:

Room cleaning forgot to empty the bathroom trash twice. On being shown to the room, we were informed that the minibar was included. On checkout we were supposed to be charged for it, but a short explanation got the charge removed. On another note neither were the items or the glasses used from the minibar replaced, except for the last day (we stayed five nights). Despite having taken breakfast as the platinum amenity, and showing the card every morning, it showed up on the invoice, but this was easy to clarify. The concierge has a map of all the pintxos bars in the old town, and can help with restaurants, including the michelin star ones. But when asking for a rather non touristy restaurant the choices went slim. Despite that , I have to say the concierge was very friendly and very helpful all the time. The message light was blinking on the phone when we arrived, but could not fetch the message. Getting this cleared took three requests. Service quality variation at breakfast (see above).

Bottom line: great hotel, great location, some very friendly staff, but some minor issues should be taken care to truly make this a five star service in a five star hotel. Should I be in the area again, I will definitely consider returning...

We were traveling through Northern Spain with another couple (also a platinum member). They were only able to stay in San Sebastian for one evening, while we were very fortunate to be able to stay for two delightful evenings at the Maria Christina. They were upgraded to a corner suite on the top (5th) floor - an amazing room with a "wrap around" balcony. We were upgraded.to a junior suite. I cannot add much more to the previous eight reviews on this site as to the positive aspects of this hotel: great location; spacious room with elegant decor and furnishings; extremely comfortable bed; excellent, quiet a/c; luxurious bathrooms with great amenities; courteous, friendly and helpful staff; three free computers for use in the lobby; definite recognition of platinum status. However. I would like to comment on some of the negative comments that I have seen, especially on Tripadvisor. #1# "Difficult to find entrance" - the entrance is on Passeo Republica Argentina #one way street#. Yes,it is a very small driveway and entrance #especially compared to most American hotels, but not abnormal to European City Hotels#. There usually is a doorman or valet in front and a place or two to pull the car off the street to check in. #2# "High cost of parking" - yes there is a daily cost of around 23 euros for parking #and 8 euros more for valet# - but that fee is within a normal range for European city hotel parking. Even with the extra cost, I would recommend using the valet parking, as it is not an easy self park option. #3# "High cost of wifi, especially considering the room charges". As a platinum member, I do get free in-room wifi - but I find it very "interesting" that most of the high-end Starwood member hotels charge for in-room wifi.The reception on our friend's 5th floor room was fine. In our room ##119# the reception was so poor, that we went down to the lobby area #free wifi here for everyone# or I used one of the three free computers. #4# "Poor work out/exercise facilities" - I cannot comment on this, as I did not use them or see them #5# "Poor concierge service" - the personal at the concierge desk were very friendly, knowledgeable and able to answer all my questions satisfactorily #6# "Even though just remodeled, a lot of water leakage under the glass door enclosure of the shower". We also found this problem in our room. It seems like they need a thin rubber gasket or lining under the glass door frame of the shower. But since everything is tiled, no real problems, it just takes an extra moment and uses up a towel to dry it off so you don't slip on the wet floor.#7# "Even though just remodeled, adequate insulation around doors and windows seems lacking, so fairly noisy". We did have a little traffic noise once in a while #motorcycles, police sirens, etc#, but nothing more that one would normally expect in a city hotel. I would request a room not facing the street if you are overly sensitive to traffic noise. 8) "No club floor lounge" - true, but platinum members can select free breakfast in the dining room and part of the fun in San Sebastian is taking a pintxos crawl in the early evening and not staying in the hotel for happy hour at the club! #9# "Poor food in the restaurant' - I only saw two poor reviews while there were many positive reviews for the restaurant. We just didn't feel like having Chinese, when there are so many more exciting regional food options available in San Sebastian. We have stayed in a number of the luxury hotels - the Maria Christina is one of our favorites. We will certainly plan a return trip to San Sebastian, even though before we arrived, this was our fourth and we thought, final...

So, this was the worst service I have ever experienced in a five-star hotel. When we arrived, our rooms weren’t ready yet, which wasn’t a problem since we were early. But the receptionist told us that the rooms would definitely be ready by 3 PM, that we could go into the city in the meantime, and that he would contact us as soon as the rooms were ready. However, that call never happened. Then, when we got back to the hotel at around 3:30, the rooms were still not ready. After waiting in line at the reception for about 15 minutes, another staff member approached us and asked if he could help. We explained the situation, saying that we would like to check in and that the rooms still weren’t ready. He took our names, said he would take care of it, and disappeared through a door behind the reception. After another 15 minutes, we realized he didn’t seem to be coming back, so we spoke to the other staff at the reception, who told us that the rooms simply weren’t ready yet. We mentioned that they were supposed to be ready by 3 PM, as that was the check-in time, but the only excuse we got was that they were fully booked, and that’s just how it was. We made quite a fuss, and suddenly, within about five minutes, all five rooms were magically ready, which was pretty strange. That was one situation that really bothered us. On the second day, in the evening, I was in my room at around 10 PM and wanted to order something from room service. The phone was broken, so I went down to the reception and asked if they could just send up a few slices of bread with some butter. They said it was no problem and that they would send it up to my room. After about an hour, I realized that no one had come, and nothing had happened. That’s kind of the situation in this hotel: the staff is friendly, but nothing they say actually gets done, and it just doesn’t live up to the service you would expect in a five-star hotel. What also happened to us was the following situation: we were standing in line at the concierge desk, wanting to speak with the concierge. Someone in front of us was talking to the concierge, and we got distracted for just a second. Suddenly, when it was our turn, there was no staff member at the concierge desk anymore. We waited for about ten minutes, and no one came back. The reception was staffed, so we went over to the receptionist and asked if they could please let the concierge know that we had a question and would like to speak with them. The receptionist said, “Sure, I’ll take care of it,” but stayed at his desk, finished with his current customer, and then another ten minutes went by without anything happening. After waiting another five minutes, we went back to the reception and spoke to another staff member, explaining that we had already informed their colleague and that we still needed to speak with the concierge. This time, the staff member went to the back, and within a minute, the concierge finally appeared. This was yet another example where we thought, you know, you speak to someone who’s working there, you tell them, “Hey, the concierge isn’t here, we’ve been waiting for ten minutes, could you please get them?” They say they’ll handle it, but then do nothing, forget about it, or whatever, and you end up standing around for another ten minutes. It’s just not worthy of a hotel of this category, this kind of...