The main purpose for our visit to Barcelona was a retreat organized by Couples
for Christ. We decided to extend our
stay a couple of days longer to revisit this gem of a city that is so dear to
us.
Having done all the touristy places on our first visit, we
were not very keen to get aggressive on touring the sights anymore. The game plan was to have a laid back walk on
Las Ramblas and to wherever else our feet take us. With this thought in mind, we wanted a hotel
that is close to Las Ramblas, preferably walking distance so we can come and go
as we please. This is also very
convenient since we are travelling with our little one.
Browsing through the recommended hotels from booking.com, I
picked this hotel for its location, the pool that I’m sure Bee would really
enjoy, and the very hip and modern design.
After booking the hotel through booking.com, I discovered quite late,
after browsing through the Hotel’s website that it’s like a “Gay hotel” or
something. Alarm bells started to ring
through my head, “what have I gotten ourselves into?” But it was too late to cancel for the rooms I
booked are not cancellable and I cling on (for dear life) to the reviews of
families with children who stayed in this Hotel and said a little prayer that
everything will go well.
On the day of our check-in, I was so nervous thinking that
this hotel might not be suitable for families, much less a child. But when we got there, we were greeted by the
very nice man in the concierge, he gave us our key and informed us of the
amenities available. Whew! So far so
good.
Now, onto the rooms, they are very well appointed, clean,
decent amount of space and I love, love, love the style of the room. There is one poster of a man half naked on
one corner of the room but it was in good taste, not at all offensive or
anything. The bathroom was clean, well
organized and well lighted. The beds are
so comfy and the pillows are so fluffy, just the way I like them. Haaay… we are looking good!
The day we checked in, it was too cold to take a dip on an
outside pool. Good thing the hotel had a
sauna and spa service that has an indoor heated pool (more like a big
Jacuzzi). However, when we got there,
the receptionist from the Spa told us that the indoor pool is only for adults L. We asked her very nicely, while showing off
Bee (she normally has this charm of persuading somewhat into something that
they don’t normally allow J). In the end
she agreed (yey!) with the disclosure that we will be responsible for Bee and
that we shouldn’t stay very long because apparently some babies are sensitive
to the warm water (what? That I didn’t get coz Bee always bathes in warm water
– otherwise it’s too cold), we agreed.
Good thing the lady allowed us to use the pool, Bee had so
much fun and we were alone in there, well there were two other people in the
spa but they were in the sauna so we had the pool all to ourselves. It was really fun and the warm water was so
soothing in that cold weather.
All in all, I would definitely recommend this hotel, some
people might get intimidated by the way it promotes itself as a “gay hotel” for
families with children thinking that kids are not welcome but we didn’t get
that feeling at all. We only stayed in our
rooms most of the times and we only used the spa once and all was well, we were
well rested at night and we were close to everything that we want to visit.
This hotel delivered what I was hoping for during our last
stay in Barcelona .
