Hotel Puerta de Bilbao

Friendly staff and a great location that is near Aldi. The room is clean and the bed is comfortable. We had a great first impression of Spanish hospitality! Thank you!

The hotel itself is very nicely presented. A large foyer welcomes the visitor with a large booking in desk and friendly staff who spoke very good English. The room was clean and fresh with clean linen and towels. There were 2 complimentary bottles of water in the mini bar and there is a digital safe for keeping important documents safe. I didn’t use or read the instructions for setting the digital touchpad. The dining room was closed for dinner on the Monday we visited so I cannot review the dinner meal or the menu. However, the breakfast next morning was not what I consider, up to par. The supposed hot food segment, was in actual fact, stone cold, except for the fried eggs, in a nod to a traditional English breakfast. Which was a shame. The rest of the breakfast food was traditional Continental Breakfast with croissants, jams and marmalade, including cold meats, cheeses and fruit. My only criticism would be finding access to the underground car park, situated at the rear of the hotel. It’s not easily found and required my having to ask the desk staff where the car park was. It would probably help guests who are driving to the hotel, to be provided with a map on confirmation of booking e mail. Otherwise, I would stay at this hotel again,should I visit Bilbao in the future. Reasonably priced for the accommodation, but disappointed with the cold (when it should have been hot) breakfast.

The hotel is situated between a motorway on the back and a busy road in front of the hotel. The windows in the rooms have good noise insulation, however, if you will find it difficult to sleep with open windows due to the excess traffic noise, which I had to since the air-conditioning is reportedly only operative during “summer” times, even though the rooms were blistering hot due to sunshine and 25 °C temperature outside. Breakfast starts at 7 o’clock, which is rather late, and a lot of craftsmen and other business travelers were already queuing up before 7 o’clock. The breakfast buffet is good; however, the scrambled egg is served cold in a bowl without heating ☹ I had to extend my stay with two extra days, however, the two complementary bottles of water in the room were not replenished; I was told only two bottles of water were provided regardless of length of stay and that I could just drink tap water, which is O.K. if you like the taste of chlorine ☹ Beware that parking in the hotel’s parking cellar is quite expensive and they don’t advertise the price on the website. The staff were friendly and English their speaking skills satisfactory.

The drains in the shower/bath stink! The whole room smells of toilet/drain smell. The drains in the shower and bath are clean so it must be the central drains of the hotel. I had to stuff towels down the drain to stop the room stinking. Also the hot breakfast was cold! Every day, cold. There are no hot plates under the hot food and the heat lamps above are too high. I complained one day, the chef made me fresh hot eggs but it was the same the day after and day after that (stayed for 4 nights). These things need sorting out, its not acceptable for a 4 star hotel. The staff were very friendy and helpful which was great. The hotel was nice apart from the 2 things i just mentioned. Parking is 15 euro a night which is not mentioned on the listing!! So be aware. However, parking outside is free but you'll be lucky to find a space so its worth paying it in my experience.