The hotel is located close to old city. The people were really friendly and the room was clean, comfortable with a really cool and nice design. It was really quiet and the services fantastic. We loved it and we recomend everybody to prefer Bilbi for nice holidays!

Firstly, we arrived by bus and caught the tram to Ribera. We then turned left and walked up to the pedestrian bridge over the river but that took us through a slightly seedy area. We recommend you turn right and walk over that car/pedestrian bridge, it's a much safer feeling walk and about the same distance (although you avoid stairs going this way which is helpful when you're lugging suitcases!)

The hotel does have a slightly seedy feel to it fluoro blue-ish lights, room numbers written on the doors in permanent marker, and a creepy red light next to the door which turns on when you've got electricity on in the room) but we were on a tight budget and it did the job.

Room, linen and bathroom were all clean (bathroom not too long ago renovated by the looks of it). Small room (our twin beds were practically touching).

Did have a top taken when housecleaning came and then no one at reception spoke English that night or the next morning when we checked out so we couldn't notify them. The man at reception who spoke English when we checked in though was very lovely, gave us a map and showed us how to get everywhere.

At first blush, I went back out to the rental car and looked at other nearby possibilities. The best thing I can say is that the Bilbi isn't as bad as I feared. This hotel is borderline in every sense of the word. I mean that literally as you would not want to head west from the hotel as you are getting into the neighborhood with drug dealers and prostitutes.

Conversely (and not surprisingly), this is a chep hotel by Bilbao standards. While you will probably have an uneventful stay, why take the chance? Open up that wallet and pay a little bit more for something in old town or along the harbor front, I know next time I will.

I stayed here as part of a group, and did not pick or book the hotel myself. So doing what everybody does I googled it to try and get an idea, bad idea - I saw some pretty bad reviews of the hotel and the area. However I was pleasantly surprised, the area was fine, a short stroll (3-4 mins) from the old town. The rooms were clean and had decent enough bathrooms and showers. rooms were cleaned each day and the towels replaced. I felt comfortable and safe here.

The downsides were the breakfasts, which were atrociously bad. We ended up popping into the shop next door for food as the breakfast and even the coffee was terrible. The other bad thing was the fact that each room only had one key, no matter how many people were staying there. That was a bit annoying.

No wifi, however there was a PC in reception where every room got 20mins free per night.

Staff were surprisingly tolerant of us coming back each night and drinking all the beer from the vending machine :-)

If you are on a budget I don't think you will get better value to be honest.