This was our first time booking through AirBnB and we were impressed with our experience. We stayed for 9 days, from mid to end of September 2022.
Check-in went fairly smoothly, however there is not a lot of flexibility if you end up needing to change your check-in time within 12-24 hours of your arrival.
Communication with host was decent, but could have been better. Turn around time for message response was usually within 12 hours during our stay. Prior to our stay (after booking but before arrival), communication was hit or miss. Sometimes we got an answer quickly, once we ended up waiting for a week.
The weather in Madrid at that time of year is beautiful. with temperatures being between 12-16 degrees C in the morning,
going up to high 20’s by mid afternoon.
The location of the apartment was absolutely perfect. Very close to everything we could possibly want or need. It was on a beautiful little side street, just around the corner from a bigger street filled with restaurants and shopping.
The apartment was exactly as described, and depicted in the photos. It’s a beautiful little place - and was very clean when we arrived. We especially loved being able to sit out on the balcony every morning for tea, and every evening with a glass of wine. There is a nice view of the street below.
The one thing we really missed was a good coffee maker. The apartment only had the metal stovetop coffee maker. While ground coffee was provided, we didn’t have much luck making a good tasting coffee. We would have loved it if there were a small Nespresso.
The only real consumable “essentials” provided were ground coffee and salt. So if you plan on cooking (which we didn’t), you would need to buy everything else.
There were basic cleaning supplies (including dish soap for washing dishes). However, it would have been nice if even one or two pods of laundry detergent were included. Otherwise you end up having to buy a pretty big package of laundry detergent at the store.
I love my sleep and am happy to say that we both found the that the bed was super comfortable.
The only challenge we had was the noise. During the day there were no issues. It was quiet. At night, it was very noisy. There are two restaurant/bars within about 15-20 m to the right and left of the building - and they were very busy and very loud from about 9 pm until 2-3 am. Because of the noise was impossible to sleep with the windows open. With the windows closed, it was still quite noisy at night.
However, we each had an app called “Better Sleep” on our phones which allowed us to play “white noise”. We positioned one on either side of the bed, and it muted the noise enough to be able to sleep. If you don’t have something like that, and you require relative quiet to sleep then bring ear plugs.
One more comment about the noise: we didn’t really see it as a negative because if your AirBnB is anywhere in or near the city centre it will be loud at night.
A suggestion if you are travelling from North America: make sure you buy an adapter that is also a voltage converter if you are travelling with hair styling appliances. I completely forgot and ended up overloading and ruining my hair straightener.
Overall, we absolutely loved the place and would definitely stay there again. We highly recommend it!