Great location, lots of space but it didn’t look like the photos on Airbnb, or smell like the photos! 😬
The good:
- lots of space, 3 large bedrooms and 2 large full bathrooms
- an amazing location in between the Plaza de Sol and Plaza Mayor and very close to the Mercado San Miguel. You can easily walk to everything including between the Palacio Real de Madrid and the Prado/Parco Retiro within 10-15 minutes.
-right near wonderful shops and restaurants including the world famous Chocolatería San Ginés.
The bad:
-The smell! Unfortunately there seems to be an issue with either the plumbing or something else. Every time when we returned from sightseeing there was an awful smell of what we could only assume was sewer gases.
-While overall most of the apartment was in relatively good repair, there were a few issues. •The futon sofa was broken and while they said they were coming into fix it, it didn’t seem to be fixed.
•The beds were pretty hard, not a deal breaker but just a note.
•The dishwasher top rack seemed to be either very fragile or broken.
-The stairwell lighting could be improved for better safety. The stairs are very uneven and a bit of a trip hazard especially when the lights don’t turn on automatically (must hit the switch when too get near the landing) but they do turn off automatically.
- Either we had very loud neighbors or the walls/ceilings were very thin so we could hear all the neighbors around us.
One additional note:
Another disappointment to us was that the windows all look into interior courtyards with no view. We had hoped to look out to the beautiful Calle mayor. This might have been a blessing in disguise however because, while we could hear our neighbors, we could not hear the street noise at all.
We appreciated the efforts Luis made to get us into the apartment earlier than the 3pm check in. However, this added a very large problem for us as we asked a week in advance for an early check in due to our very early 8am arrival in Madrid and Luis kept saying he wasn’t sure and wouldn’t know until the day of our check in. After asking many times, Luis finally told me to just take our bags to lockers located just south of the plaza de Sol which was quite an ordeal for us as we were walking with four kids and their bags. There is an unmanned front desk that could have been used to offer a bag storage option. That would have been a HUGE improvement for us as we were all jet-lagged from a long flight from the US and hauling our luggage around the city while waiting to hear if we could get into our room was not a great welcome to Spain.