Hi everyone! My partner and I lived in Maria and Alex's apartment for the period of August 17-24. The stay was alright. It's a good quiet place for two adults.
PLUSES:
1) The apartment is really close to Park Guell, literally, 7 minutes on foot. It's a picturesque place with lots of shadows, benches, fresh air, and Gaudi's architecture seen even without getting to the paid part of the park (paid part is still recommended for the visit, it's worth seeing but up to you to decide:)).
2) You can live among the locals and visit the nearby cafes where people are friendly and nice (El Mirador and Okey are strongly advised for the visit). The food is affordable and comparatively cheaper than in those cafes in the downtown or the beach).
3) There are also some tents with fruits and vegetables in case you don't want to spend money on cafes. They are fresh, ripe, and extremely delicious.
4) The apartment is also in good condition. It's small but alright for two people. The pictures line up with reality. You can also find everything you need for a stay.
MINUSES:
1) There are steps to the apartment and the staircase/hall is pretty narrow. This automatically means that it's really hard if you're traveling with small kids.
2) This can be our particular experience and not the commonplace situation, still, here we go. This won't be short, I should warn you.
We were contacted by the contact person who is the representative of the renting company and not Maria or Alex themselves. Everything was alright until the moment we were late for check-in at 11.30. The reason for our 40-minute delay was our try to get to the living place by public transportation but whoever we asked for the directions at the airport/in the streets/at the bus stations/underground told us different directions in Spanish.
Finally, when we were (as we thought) close to the place, the renting manager said us that we were out of time and should hurry up, otherwise, no one knew when we could check in. After the nth suggestion from the renting manager to get a cab - just find somewhere in the streets, I must admit I lost my temper. The point is there was some feast in that part of Barcelona and there were no cabs in the streets; literally no cabs. The service we tried by recommendation from the locals offered us a car in some 30 minutes, and it was not an option for us as we had 20 minutes and that was it. To the honor of the renting manager, he never lost his temper but could not help us anyhow as well. So we contacted the renting company itself, switched from one department to another and then we calmed down and said that we could get to the place and the very same renting manager was waiting for us. Again, thank you for being professional at this point. it was really appreciated. All in all, we made it through and checked in.
BUT the cleaning was done at 4 pm!!! By that time we were sleepy and impatiently waited for the cleaning lady to finish. She was really sweet and did everything well, so thank you for that as well.
After these two incidents, everything was alright and we enjoyed our stay until August 24.
3) Few people understand and speak English. Don't know if it's a minus, but should warn you nevertheless.
In general, Barcelona is a beautiful sunny city definitely worth visiting!