W Barcelona

First: if you are a party person who enjoys a very young hip and happening hotel and likes to "see and to be seen" - then this is your place. If you are looking for a quiet relaxing hotel, then you will be disappointed. We stayed for a long weekend at the W hotel in Barcelona. The location of the hotel, right at the beach, the facilities from lobby to pool to restaurants or spa etc are absolutely fabulous. Beautiful modern rooms with fancy design with top to bottom left to right sea view windows. The service however, on all fronts, is really a shame and here are some examples: Check-in: we arrived at 5pm to check-in. 45 minutes later we still had no rooms as they could not manage my first credit card work and I had given a second one, which took ages to manage the change as my booking had happened on th eother one. At 5.50 pm we get one room but the second room was not ready yet and they could not tell us by when we might get it, - remember it was 5.50pm alerady. Mind you check-out time is 12.00 lunch time and their websites claims check in as of 3.00pm. I asked for the manager clearly frustrated alaready after all that hassle and another 30 min later we got 2 rooms. At least they offered us a beer at the bar for the inconvenience. Cleaning the room: Day 1 in Barcelona we return at 6.15pm after a full day of sightseeing to find our room not cleaned. To be able to shower at all we had to call for towels and shower gel to have a shower, bringing those took 20 minutes. Day 2 we arrive at 6.30 pm - room not clean so we decide to go to the pool for a swim and call "whoever whatever " to have the room cleaned. At 7.35pm - still the same - room not cleaned, and we had to ask for towels and shower gel yet again... when I complained I got 6 macrons and a note that they are sorry, at least that. Also, they have a nice Nespresso machine in the room. Cleaning coffee cups though is on you as a guest for the duration of your stay, the cleaning lady wont do it... Breakfast on restaurant first floor: Staff seems to be higher because of Loks and not because of skills. Extremely amateuristic team. One day we arrived (3 people) and asked to be seated. I requested a table I could see was nice and in the shadow but I was told this needs to be kept free in case a party of 4 shows. All right? We got a different table only to see that 5 min later two people nicely sat at the table I had requested which had been a "no go". Or... a waitress comes to offer orange juice and spills the juice over the plate so that bread and eggs and bacon and all is soaked. She did not even apologize or react if I had not stopped her. She brought a serviette and was never seen again. Bar: if you wish to order at the bar you need to have patience if you don't look like from The Vogue. If you look like a normal person you might still stand there waiting to be served... All in all, if they got their service and attitude of staff in order this place could be fabulous, but with that team - no way. ADVUCE to the manager: Hire professional and skilled people and you can be legendary - today the hotel leaves a bitter taste behind...

Rooms are a great size and very modern with plenty of amenities. The pool area is great with different pools to choose from - although was difficult to get a sunbed after around 9/10am. The staff were very friendly and couldn't do enough for you. The food and drinks at the hotel were slightly more expensive than other places we have previously stayed in Barcelona, but we didn't have a bad meal whilst at the hotel. I would stay here again if I returned to Barcelona - was a nice relaxing break. The restaurants along the front by the beach (under the hotel) were also very nice if you want a change from eating in the hotel.

Had a great stay here as the room was amazing, the pool with surrounding lounge area was fun and relaxing, the hotel beach area had a nice setup, and the restaurants had great food. The only drawbacks were the ugly dark red colors of the hallways leading to each hotel room and the W rooftop club, which had the feel of a high school party with groups of girls and groups of guys staying separate from each other as though they were too timid to make the initial approach. But other than those two drawbacks, I highly recommend this place.

Went to the eclipse bar in the W Hotel with 12 others for a civilised stag do. Views were superb from the top floor bar with great cocktails and music. Pool party on the ground floor also great with lots of good views of the beach. Highly recommend

I have never written a review during my holiday but this was definitely an exception as things were so bad. Check in was chaos, long un managed queues. As our room was not ready until later on we had to change in the shower room which stunk of urine and had a broken toilet seat. We then went to the top sun deck to lounge and eat/drink. We then ordered a W burger and Chicken wrap, both of which were barely edible, soggy bread, soggy old lettuce and dried out fries. Cocktails were watery and full of ice. We then checked in to our room and it stunk of smoke. Last time we stayed here the same happened and we had to change our room, this time we just didn't have the energy to go through a room change yet again. The safe also didn't work so we had to call an engineer. We slept in until around 11am as we were on holiday, BIG MISTAKE! Not one sunbed around either pool or top deck was available, we tried to book a Cabana but they were also reserved. We then went to the beach where they had run out of towels and we could not have a sun umbrella as the rest were broken. By this time we were really hungry so we tried to order food from the only place that was available to us, loungers next to Salt on the beach (in the sun, the reason we are here) but alas the kitchen does not open here until 1pm. So should we starve until then? Or rely on 5 star 'W' customer service? Neither, we had to sort it out and be proactive, so we ran up to reception and explained the situation, they said you can order room service and have it delivered anywhere in the hotel, great! So we ran back down to Salt, we were then told 'No this cannot happen' ' you wait until 1pm or go and eat in the late breakfast room in the hotel' we explained the hotel has approved this but it took a phone call to confirm this. They then billed us and demanded payment before we had even eaten. We said we pay only after eating and we want to put it on our room, which seemed a big problem. We have another 2 nights here, lets see what other difficulties may happen in that time. Definitely Italy next we think.