Hotel Santiago Plaza Affiliated by Meliá — Hotel in Santiago de Compostela

This is one difficult review to write as I always like to say as many positive things in my reviews. However, this has to be said if only for the hotel to improve their service and/or re-evaluate their culture. I was excited that this hotel was a Melia hotel because we've stayed in Melia hotels in Spain before and were very happy with our experience. Here is one beautiful, modern hotel that we looked forward to staying in especially after our Camino Walk. I checked in our group of 9 ahead of the others and was efficiently attended to by Pilar and Lourdes at the Front Desk. The hotel offered a lovely breakfast spread.||||That's where all the positives stop, I'm afraid. That night, we booked for a late dinner to celebrate my son's birthday and the end of a tiring Camino Walk. While seated at the long table in front of the bar, we were subjected to very rude treatment by the waitress named Marta. When one of our companions asked for an extra soup bowl, she said it was impossible. To give her the benefit of the doubt in case there was a misunderstanding in language differences, my friend asked our Spanish tour escort to ask the waitress for our bowl. The next thing we saw was our tour escort being rudely treated by the waitress speaking to our tour escort at the bar, telling him off. We understand some Spanish but what we saw from the body language and our tour escort backing away from the wait staff spoke volumes. He was being harassed by the wait staff. All we asked was for our tour escort to ask our waitress, Marta, in Spanish for an extra soup bowl. And we saw very aggressive behavior directed at our tour escort. She handed our tour escort a sauce dish, not a soup bowl, that's how offensive she was. When he told Marta that he wanted to deal with another waiter Christian (the other wait staff who was also there with Marta) told him, pointing at Marta, "she's the boss". Where was customer care in this scenario? If Marta refused to attend to our needs, why couldn't Christian attend to us? Two of us went up to the bar to talk to Marta and Christian when we saw what was going on. When I asked her what her problem was, Marta glared at me and said she didn't speak Spanish and went away. I took out my phone and typed on Google Translate: "Be kind. You are in Customer Service. Where is your manager?" I showed it to Christian since Marta refused to deal with us. A bit later, Pilar from Front Desk came and talked to my friend and me. We told her that we didn't want trouble but that this massive, massive failure in customer service must be addressed. Pilar was very defensive of the wait staff but she did listen when we insisted. When we asked for a manager, or the Officer-In-Charge, we were told that there was no manager on hand. All the staff, all, covered for one another. It made us wonder about the culture of the company. To make things worst, 2 of our orders were not served and we were charged for the orders. It is a good thing my son (whose birthday we were celebrating) checked the bill before he paid. He noticed the discrepancy and had Christian make the necessary correction. You should look at the footage on your CCTV/camera that monitors your premises and see for yourselves what happened. ||||The next day, my friend talked to Susana at the Front Desk about the matter, again asking for our side to be heard, insisting on speaking with management. She eventually admitted that she was in charge. She said that Marta had been with the company 6 years or something and Pilar 18 years or something. That makes their failure in attending well to customers more egregious and unacceptable. My friend asked Susana if she would listen to us. She finally did. Incidentally, from the night before, none, none of the staff apologized! Pilar may have done to my friend upon hearing our side but she went back to the Front Desk and sent a report to whoever, taking the side of the wait staff, that our tour escort was rude ~ again, to cover up for the bad attitude of the wait staff toward our group, toward our tour escort. We know this because our tour escort went to the Front Desk to talk to Pilar but Pilar insisted on sending a report about him! This was unacceptable to us. Pilar just took the side of the rude wait staff, none of our side was taken into account.|| ||If this is the kind of customer service Hotel Santiago Plaza has, your reputation will suffer. We in our group travel extensively and have been doing so for decades. This is the first time any of us have ever, ever experienced a total failure in customer service. ||||I hope this account of our experience urges management to re-visit your company values and improve your customer service. You need an overhaul in this side of...

I wasn't planning to stay at this hotel for my trip to Santiago, but as I travelled alone and couldn't share costs I looked for a more affordable option than my original choice, and this seemed to fit the bill.

First thing to note is that hotel is a 20 minute walk from the historic centre (and I am a fast walker) close to the renfe station in a mostly residential area, but this suited me as I was leaving Santiago by train anyway. There is a large El Corte Inglés almost next door and a few restaurants just past this.

The hotel isn't in the most beautiful building but the check in staff greeted me warmly at check in and explained everything that I needed to know. Reception and corridors had been refurbished and were quite pleasant and modern. My room was at the back of the building so there was no view to talk of, but there was no noise from the road. The room was clean, warm and spacious and had been partially modernised, but did retain some elements that I consider to be a bit dated (doors and those pink granite sinks...). Initially I thought the bed felt a bit hard, but I actually slept very well on it, so I can't complain.

I had breakfast at the hotel. The gentleman running the breakfast area was friendly and helpful and there was a good selection of hot and cold Spanish breakfast items on the buffet to choose from. It seemed to be fresh and good quality and I enjoyed the breakfast at this hotel.

Check out was easy and efficient.

All in all this hotel was a solid, good value for money option and I would very happily stay here again when...

I like this hotel. The reception staff are very helpful. The staff at the restaurant / breakfast room are also very nice. The rooms are very clean. The only problem I experienced is night time. It happened for a few nights I was there. You can hear people talking from your room, like really loud. I thought it would pass but no. It carried on till 1am or longer. One day I could hear a lady shouting at, probably her husband. Next minute she was crying so loud. I rang the reception. Within 10 minutes later it stopped. The hotel to the city centre is probably 25 to 30 minutes walking to the beginning of the restaurants and another 10 minutes further to the Cathedral. There are buses which are very cheap to the city centre from the hotel. I walked many days I was there. Good exercise I guess. If you don't mind walking it's a good hotel to stay. Hopefully less noise the next time I go...