We stayed here Aug 2008 for a week long trip to Bilbao. In spite of either of Myself or Anna speaking any Spanish (let alone Basque) we felt welcomed and appreciated. The room was modernly styled, blacks and creams if i recall correctly and our stay was comfy. We were at the front of the hotel 1st/2nd floor overlooking the street. we didnt encounter noise issues from this, inspite of the Aste Nagustia festival kicking off halfway through our stay. We did hear some creaking from the floorboards above us a few times alright.

The walls are paper thin, the floor creeks as if it were hundreds of years old, and the windows open to a enclosed atrium (at least our inside rooms did) so no fresh air, but all that could have been overlooked if the AC had worked properly. Unfortunatley, during our 3 night stay, the AC malfunctioned every day. On our first night, the room was so hot and stuffy upon arrival that we turned on the AC and expected to come back to a cool room. Upon return the room was hot, stuffy, and 29 degrees celcius according to my clock's temperature gage. The first manager we complained to was unable to do anything and insisted that the air was getting cooler after she turned the AC unit off and back on in my room. It wasn't until a night manager came on duty that he fiddled with the hotel's AC system and got it working. Power outages caused the machine to fail the second night but on the third day the machine simply failed again and staff admitted tha tthe hotel's AC system was very old. On the first night, the rooms were not habitable and we had to wait outside until past midnight for the room to finally cool down.

The rooms were basic 2 star rooms, clean but with few amentiies (no mini-bar, no in-room safe, only the hotel's main safe). The location inside the old quarter is fantastic and there are a host of nice restaurants and bars just outside the door. The hotel staff were friendly and there's a 5 euro continental breakfast available. For the price, 50-75 euro a night, this place would be great but for the air conditioning problems. In Spain in the summer a 2 star hotel should have a working air conditioning system, especially if the rooms don't have access to fresh circulating outside air. The stuffy, suffocating room made my elderly father ill and we were prepared to sleep in the lobby rather than return to the rooms until the AC was working properly. The AC needs to get replaced.

On a minor note, I felt that the hotel clerk who checked us out early in the morning and called a taxi for us to take us to the airport should have apprised us of the fact that the airport didn't even open until over an hour later. We waited in the dark on an uncomfortable bench outside the darkened terminals for over 45 minutes, without access to toilets, water, phones, etc. We are used to 24/7 airports and had we known the airport was closed, we would have remained in our rooms for a while longer.

Handy location in the old part of the city, but extremely noisy both from the street outside, and from the adjoining rooms due to the paper thin walls.

As well as the noise, there was an uncomfortable bed, rubbish pillow and faulty air-con which meant that this was probably the worst few nights sleep I've ever had.

The hotel was in a good location for restaurants and shop and a twenty min walk along the river to the guggenheim. The room was basic but clean but there was A LOT of street noise. It was a Tuesday night and it was very loud until one in the morning. Free wifi on the rooms and staff was helpful and friendly.