I stayed in the hotel for four nights over New Year. The staff were helpful - Racquel was particularly good, she recommended us where to go for chocolate and churros and how best to get to the various museums we wanted to visit.

The location however, is not great. It's around a ten-fifteen minute walk to the nearest Metro station (Delicias) and then a ten minute ride into town. It's not ridiculously far, but if you're only in Madrid on a short city break, you do spend quite a bit of time just getting into the city centre. It's also not so close to Atocha station - that's around a fifteen-twenty minute walk along a busy main road.

I didn't eat breakfast in the hotel as I found it rather overpriced - there are coffee shops nearby, but I ended up buying some ham, cheese and bread in a supermarket and eating this for breakfast each day.

The rooms were pretty average. They were clean and the bathroom toiletries were fantastic - sponges, shoe polisher, a razor, toothbrushes and toothpaste, cologne - along with the usual shampoo, body wash and shower caps. The shower was powerful and the bathroom was spotless. My room was also clean - the bed was comfy enough, but the carpets and curtains were outdated and the view was...well, there was no view. But the room was clean and the bed was comfy enough - if you're only staying for a couple of days, it's perfectly adequate.

when we arrived the morning receptionist was rude and not very helpful at all. she indicated that the room was not ready and that we had to wait. which i understood however she did not offer us with breakfast at the hotel's restaurant or indicate where we could have breakfast at that time. she did not provide any information concerning local transportation, banking etc. She told us we could not use a calling card in the room to make outside calls and it turned out this was not true. the room window was facing a brick wall and we could see people's laundry hanging. there was no view and we could not tell what the weather was outside. the neighbor hood was dirty and we had to walk 5 blocks to the nearest subway station. the bartender recommended a restaurant that turned out be a disaster the food was awful.

We visited Madrid for a long weekend on 8th September and stayed at this hotel as the reviews were pretty good. The room was fine, nothing to complain about there.

The area was not. Firstly, it says on their website that they are next to Atocha station... they are nowhere near Atocha station! The closest underground station is 5 blocks away and it's not as far as Atocha station. There are very, very few restaurants in the area and we were told that the hotel restaurant was closed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, although it advertised in the hotel that it was open every night. This meant wandering around trying to find a decent place to eat. In the end we used taxis to get to and from Central Madrid to find some decent food.

The night before we left we asked at reception if we could use the computer to check in online and the receptionist gave us a voucher with a password on, all well and good. When I asked if we could print out our boarding passes he said there was no printer although he was standing next to one. We tried to check in anyway but the website was in Spanish, obviously. Having very little Spanish we clicked the facility to translate the site to English, but hey, guess what, it didn't work. We checked in next morning at the airport!

If we aver return to Madrid, which I doubt, we will certainly not be staying at the Atocha.

We stayed there twice on our way to / from Morocco. Both times the rooms were excellent, spotlessly clean and of a very high standard for a 3 star hotel. I've stayed in some 4 star hotels that haven't been as good as this, its at least 3.5 stars. Fantastic bathroooms complete with lots of free toiletries, and rooms were well insulated from any street noise.

Location is a 20 minute hike straight up the road to the main railway station (also an historic icon) and the cultural precinct with all its parks and the Royal Botanic gardens, as well as the amazing Prada museum. If the walk is a bit much, it's easy to get a taxi.

WiFi is available but you have to buy it, although you can get it for free in the foyer area. Breakfast isn't included and seemed very expensive, so we ate at cafes in the street.
Staff are helpful and friendly and were very efficient organising a taxi to the airport - which is a looong way away.

In summary, I'd definitely stay there again.