Novotel Barcelona City

The rooms are small for a family and the general mantaince is bad. They close the roof and the pool for private party and you can access us a guess

We'd booked this hotel for five nights for the Barcelona GP, and were expecting something fairly luxurious. This place has plenty of good points including its great location with excellent public transport links. On arrival, the reception area is quite smart, and reception was well-staffed and multi-lingual. Most of the staff were lovely. The rooftop bar is absolutely breathtaking, with views across Barcelona, and to the sea. Breakfast was pretty impressive with lots of variety and choice, including fresh fruit salad every day. Our room was quiet, very clean and the bed was very comfortable. Some things that we were slightly less impressed with: we were quite disappointed with our room. We didn't realise at the outset, but it was smaller than the standard room (no "comfy sofa" which you're meant to get with a standard room) - despite having booked months ago, and staying for five nights. There was only one chair (which my husband bagged), plus a weird stool thing, so not a good space to relax in. The storage wasn't really adequate for two people for five nights, and the bedside tables were little ledges, more like a Travelodge. The bathroom was showing its age, and flooded whenever the shower was used, and the bathroom sink didn't drain properly. Although there was a handy fridge in the room, with a free, large bottle of water when we first arrived, it would have been nice to have been able to top up our water bottles in the hotel, rather than having to go out and buy plastic bottles of water. This might just have been me, but I wasn't able to find any guest info in the room: there was a wooden cube with QR codes on, but it just seemed to take you to the hotel website. There was a partitioned bin in the room with no info on what was meant to go into which section. The loos in the public areas were a little tired and there was only one, unisex, loo in the rooftop bar. Finally, I think reception should explain the lifts to guests when they check in, as we encountered confused travellers every day trying to figure out how the card readers worked.

The staff and front desk seemed really busy, even when there were no lines. Which made it less personal not overly friendly which is fine. But if you’re looking for a personal touch where you feel like they know you or greet you this is not the place. They also do not recommend anything outside of their own hotel. Ask for restaurant recommendations and multiple times they told us to eat at their restaurant. And I understand that of course but you really have no other place to recommend? HOWEVER, the cleaners and wait staff (cafe in lobby and bar upstairs) always greeted us with a smile and were always very nice. The rooms were very tiny. Even for a double bed room. The location worked really well for our family. Near shopping, grocery, restaurants and parks. Super close to public transport. We couldn’t have picked a better location for our first time in Barcelona. The hotel rooftop and bar was nice and great view of the city.