Splendom Suites Gran Via

This hotel is super convenient to the metro and to touring the city. We have a 2 bedroom suite which sleeps 5 and is very comfortable. Kitchen, washing machine – only disadvantage was that is was 1.5 baths — one extra shower would have been beneficial for 5.
The staff is very nice and very helpful. Highly recommend.

Is this the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at? No. But for a European hotel (and traveling with kids), it was pretty darn good. The staff was very nice, and the housekeeping service was really excellent. Loved the play room on the first floor, which we didn’t use all that much but it was nice knowing it was there, if that makes sense. Also love the small kitchen… we bought a package that included breakfast in the room and it was extremely nice to make toast and have fresh squeezed orange juice in the mornings for the little ones. The location was also extremely good, close to the metro and lots of restaurants and shops. I found this place through a parenting blog and would recommend it to anyone with kids.

In general this is a very good hotel, but there are a couple of negatives. There is a professional 24 hour staff at the desk by the front door and it is always locked to the street. Security is very good. A simple RFID key card unlocks the door. The hotel is located a block away from Gran Via, which is a major thoroughfare in Madrid with many shops and restaurants. In addition, one adjacent side street is a pedestrian area for many blocks and also has shopping and restaurants. There are a couple of small mercados within a block, to pick up simple groceries. There is a Metro station a block away and the Hop on Hop off bus also stops a block away. The Plaza Mayor is about a 15 walk. The rooms are modern and clean, and the maid service is good.
The washer in the room does not spin the clothes very dry, and there is no clothes dryer! This is a major oversight. Tourists don’t want to put laundry on the roof or wait two days for clothes to dry. There is a laundromat about 6 blocks away. Also, the room seemed be designed more for form than function. The bathroom sink is very wide and shallow. It looks nice, but things on the narrow perimeter tend to slide into the sink. The bathtub has a pretty, fixed glass partition, but it is held in place by a metal bar over the middle of the bathtub. It is 6feet above the tub, which is a big problem if you are 6 feet 3 inches tall (or if you want to raise your arms in the shower)!
The worst thing is the noise. The management used outer shutters on the windows and double pane glass on inner windows. A lot of street noise comes through. People talking and yelling in the street, cars, and what sounds like garbage trucks at 11:30pm every night. They should replace the attractive shutters with another set of double pane glass and this would fix this problem. Unfortunately, it is also easy to hear noisy people in the hallway outside the room. This could easily fixed by adding another door to make an entry area to block the noise.
Overall, this hotel worked very well for us.