The location for this Airbnb is great. We walked to most of our destinations. La Rambla was a 25 min walk, and La Sagrada Familia was a 30 min walk - the bus V13 also stopped right in front of the Airbnb.
Ola living is not the typical Airbnb with one host. It’s a company with people at the reception.
Unfortunately our stay wasn’t the most pleasant. We checked in and found out our keys only worked for our room, but not for the reception or main entrance. It took two receptionists to figure out how to fix it, and it took around 35-40 min (we checked in at 8pm and this delayed our dinner a lot)
We got new keys, but later found out they gave us master keys (keys that worked for every door and room) so we had to get it fixed again the next day.
We also had no hot water which is not practical for a family of 7. The water was ice cold and we had to boil water and pour it into a water bottle mixed with cold water to shower. We called the reception and they sent someone up, but he couldn’t fix it. They had to call in someone from another company- only problem was he couldn’t come until the next day.
Therefore they had to give us a separate room that wasn’t booked for us, to go down there just to shower (we couldn’t get a whole new room, because all the big family rooms were booked). So all 7 of us had to one by one go down to another room to shower. This gave a hostel vibe.
The next day, the new worker came to look at the water and he couldn’t fix it either. He said he needed special tools which he could order till Friday (we had to check out Thursday). So for the rest of our stay we had to go down to shower in other rooms (always before 11 am because someone booked it - which meant we had to plan and time our showers since we were 7 people who needed to use the shower)
Other than that this Airbnb doesn’t allow parties, it’s in the contract. However on the first and last night we couldn’t sleep due to noice.
The first night it was yelling and knocking, we didn’t open, but it really affected us. We didn’t sleep, and a free a long day of traveling that really sucks.
The last night someone rang our bell and knocked on the door, yelled and had loud music. We opened the door and it was 7-10 people asking if the “party was here”. We looked out from our balcony and saw they had a party upstairs, and someone was holding the main door open for people from the outside to come in. We called the emergency number the reception gave us, and they said a security guard would come, but it was noisy this whole night.
The whole floor smelled like smoke from weed, which wasn’t pleasant. And we had to go to the nearest pharmacy to buy earplugs.
Trough out the stay the receptionists tried their best and apologized for the water issue, but it still effected our trip a lot and over all it really felt like a hostel. For that price it shouldn’t.
We got 20% of our stay refunded back (because we asked for it - and when we first asked they offered 10%, but we felt like that wasn’t enough) but they agreed.
The Airbnb itself were clean but missed a few things like cutlery (there was 2 teaspoons, 5 forks, 7 tablespoons and 6 knifes - just random amounts), few holes in some walls and wholes on the couch as well. The door couldn’t shut completely in the master bedroom.
The best thing was the location. And again, the staff was very pleasant and tried their best