Rainbow Sitges — Hotel in Sitges

I stayed here for 6 nights in August. ||This is not a hotel. Terminology is important as this sets customer expectations. This property is a curious cross between a hostel - without the indignity of bunk-beds or sharing; self catering - without actual catering facilities; and a hotel - without any of the required services. I’ve since seen it described as self-service. But there are no services to be done by self or anyone else. Basically, this is just 5 rooms above a ground floor bar. ||My room, a double, had a lot of potential, but it was compact. Apart from one of the wardrobes being too close to the bed so that it couldn’t open properly and the other with a clothes-rail that kept falling down - without any clothes on it, the room was reasonably well apportioned. My room had no bath, but had a shower, toilet, bidet, and sink, a flat screen tv and WiFi. The Bluetooth music / audio system (Fonestar) didn’t work, which was a shame. My room overlooked a ‘courtyard’; but as the photos might suggest, that description told barely half the story!||There is no housekeeping. |Sitges is a hot town in the summer, so customers may want to shower more than once a day. Towels don’t get changed and the rooms don’t get cleaned. On the fourth day of my stay I had to send a text to the ‘manager’ (I’m unclear what she actually manages), she appears to be the only member of staff. Anyway, I asked for the room to be cleaned; towels to be replaced, complimentary items (e.g. shower gels and toilet roll) to be replenished; and the tiny bin to be emptied. She left the towels in a plastic bag on my bed and a promise that the rest would be done the next day. Of course, it wasn’t. The towel radiator in the bathroom was filthy dirty on arrival, with an orange coloured grime, so I couldn’t use it. The interior of the shower unit was clean enough, but the bathroom lighting highlighted the un-cleaned grime on its exterior.||There’s no reception. |I arrived after midnight and received the main door entry code by text. The room key was left in my room door lock. Not secure, but adequate.||As for the location, this is great. Everything is within walking distance. It is close to the beach, train station, bars, restaurants and shops, including a supermarket. It’s close to church too! ||Breakfast is served in the ground floor bar. It consists of tea or coffee, a cold croissant, and orange juice. Butter (cold and hard from the fridge) is available on request. Unsurprisingly, I ate there just the once!||When I was invited to provide feedback, my gentle constructive criticism was met with a tirade of aggressive justifications from the ‘manager’, rather than listening to, and addressing, the above issues. That exchange confirmed my worst fears: lazy management and lackadaisical ownership focused solely on revenue generation as a metric of success. ||In terms of value for money; hotels charge their rates for their location, amenities and service. Without amenities and any genuine attempt at service; this is just a cramped, overpriced, unmanaged, dirty room in the centre of Sitges. ||In summary... Potentially great; reality awful. Expedia and EBookers must stop promoting...

I booked this hotel on expedia.com. The information provided about the hotel is hardly an adequate description. First, I didn't realize I booked a non-refundable reservation. I tried to cancel 35 days before my stay because of a medical condition that requires surgery. I was required to submit valid proof from my doctor, and was given only two days to do so, which was not possible in so short a time frame. The lady I communicated with via email told me she was trying to be "flexible". I don't consider her request flexible at all, more than month before my stay.||||Rather than lose $441, I decided to go ahead with my vacation since my condition could be treated with antibiotics, and postponed the surgery until my return home. I told them I would be there between 3 and 4 pm on my check-in day, but I arrived about an hour early, thinking I could at least store my luggage and enjoy Sitges while I waited to check in. There is no one at a front desk most of the time. We had to call a number posted on the door for check ins and emergencies. After several attempts, someone finally answered.||||I was told we would have to wait until 3 pm to check in. We had an hour to kill and babysit luggage, so we found a place to get ice cream and sit in a cool place to wait. It was a very warm day. We went back to the hotel right before 3 pm. The guy that came to check us in finally showed up at 3:17 pm. He spoke no English, but fortunately we had Google translator on our phones, so we were able to communicate. He tried to check us in as a different guest, so that took some time to sort out. He had guest information in text messages.||||What I found out about this place after we checked in:||||1 - it's a 4 room boutique hotel with virtually no front desk presence||||2 - While the rooms are comfortable, clean and nicely decorated, they only clean them every 3 days, but they don't provide enough towels and soaps to get you through those 3 days. We had to ask them to change out the towels after 2 days, and they did clean the room then.||||3 - not having a person at a front desk, at least during the day means no service, and they are not very good at answering the posted phone number||||Had I known how little they care about their guests, I would never have considered staying here. At the price they charge, I expect much more in the way of service. If they are going to be a self service hotel, they need to make that explicit, and substantially lower...

Casa Rainbow Sitges has a number of good things going for it, but for me it wasn't a good value considering the price I paid. Let me start with the good: Central location, clean rooms, friendly staff, bright white rooms, the Madonna Pentouse room has a nice rooftop terrace, mini fridge, better views and a more generous layout. The cons: No reception desk, may need to climb up to 3 flights of stairs, Lady Gaga room is too small, has a too-small showers that flood the bathroom no matter how hard you try to keep the water in. It had a small Armoire with pressure-held rod that kept felling down once I hung a few shirts. A previously done shoddy repair to the curtains left them flying off the curtain rod one evening (but they fixed it once reported). In the end, if you can get a good deal on the room, it's a nice, convenient place to stay. The Madonna room is nice. It's too complicated to explain, but in the process of rebooking my room I lost the original booking of the good room (Madonna), but paid about the same price for a much smaller and more frustrating room (Lady Gaga). So given the good reviews on Booking.com and the higher price, I thought I was booking one of the nicer properties in Sitges, but it seems for the price we paid, we could have had a larger room and/or sea views. I should have asked earlier, but on the last evening, I asked to switch to a better room and was given the Madonna. So while I may have given the Lady Gaga room a 2-star review for its problems relative to it's price, I would give the Madonna room a 4-star review at the same price as it was...