daniel T.
Google
Motel One Barcelona is a perfectly adequate shoebox hotel, which might be praise if it didn't cost north of €200 a night. At that price I was expecting at least one small delight.
I dutifully completed the online check-in beforehand, entering passport details, dates and credit card details. None of this matters. You still queue up, hand over your passport, and do the whole thing again in person.
The guy at reception is buzzling with excitement about the rooftop bar. It's only open until 7, he says, so we should hurry up and catch the sunset. This sounds lovely. We drop our bags, head upstairs, and discover there is no bar. Nice furniture though. I get it, it's winter, but I don't understand why we were mislead.
We realise we were meant to get complimentary water. After a bit of checking at the front desk I'm sent to the bar to collect some. The bottles I bring back to the room don't have screw tops. This feels deliberate. We funble to find something to open then then accept tap water rather than going back downstairs again.
The room itself is okay. Predictably small, as the advertised 17m² should feel. There's no mini-fridge, kettle or amenities but there's two paper cups that claim to be saving the environment. I can't help but thinking that a real cup might actually be better for the environment.
The rooms come in two flavours: with a view and without. I'm glad we paid the extra €30 a night for the view. The breakfast offering looks like continental-plus so we're glad we skipped it without regret.
It's fine. Clean, quiet, efficient. But if this was the entirety of your Barcelona experience you'd be missing out on some of the charm.