I found the Marina hotel through booking.com and read the reviews on trip advisor before booking. I was using the hotel as a base to explore the area in particular to make visits to the two nearby Dali museums ( his house and the main museum in Figueres). Also my partner had her birthday during one of the nights we stayed there and we wanted to try the local places to eat which I am also reviewing. The main things which attracted me to this hotel from the previous reviews (most of them) I had read were 1) the fact this was a 'real Spanish hotel' with a local feel 2) it was friendly and 3) well located by the beach 4) the breakfast was good 5) it has a gym and sauna / hamman. 6) it has its own parking. I was not disappointed, this was how it was. It did indeed have the local feel, there was nothing of it which was a typical boring chain or a grand lobby which after you pass through you are disappointed with a small and stuffy bedroom.

It is a simple/basic and mostly very clean place, the bedroom was spacious and the bathroom had a bath and a shower and was clean and new(ish). The reception staff took time to explain things, I think we met four different receptionists whilst we stayed there and all of them were equally helpful. There was a lot of choice for breakfast, all the normal stuff PLUS ample fresh fruits and many Gluten free products, which my partner and I like. It was also well located to walk to the local restaurants, the parking was very easy ( some people said the garage was small , well it is but of you can drive OK you can get in almost any of the spaces , my car is 4.8m long and I made it OK !

Now the above were the good points . In the reviews a fair few people said it was nosiey and they are right. My three adult daughters had a room (223) which they could hear a lot of things during the night, this room was well down the corridor away from noisey stairs and doors, its just the walls are not so thick and things echo in the corridor. We had a room 201 and had what I think is normal noise, from people walking up and down the stairs , the doors shuting in the stairwell near our door and the traffic noise from the busy road in front of the hotel. None of the noises really worried me, because I knew that was one could expect if one books a older hotel on the beach front by a road. However we had two VERY terrible nights of noise because the room above (301) was full of people who must of been jumping up and down , we though perhaps they were playing WEE or something else, anyway with that and the music playing well past midnight we lost all hope of sleep and called the reception just before 1am. Very quickly the receptionist / manager went upstairs and spoke to them and they stopped. Then we had a very nice but short sleep until 7.00am. The beds by the way are ( in both rooms we had ) on the soft side but really OK. When I got down to reception I talked with them about the night and they said they understood, I asked them to make sure it would not happen on our second night ( if it should /could I would prefer a different room ) and to check if the people above were staying again , they said the people had apologised and it would not happen again, if it did the lady added they would call the police. Well it did happen again and we went through the same scenerio , in fact I found myself half dressed standing in the stairwell with the night porter trying to work out what was really going on (of course the police were not called). When I came to check out I was very unhappy and I explained everything to the day reception team , they knew about it and were very sorry but those people did not keep their promise to stay normally quiet. I paid my bill and went to my car. But in fact before I drove off I went back to reception to say I was going away feeling that this experience had spoilt was would have been otherwise a nice stay and it was a bad feeling and I should not be responsible , certainly on the second night once we had notified the hotel of the problems the previous night. They agreed with me and refunded my the parking cost (14e) , which was a nice gesture, because at least it took some responsibility and the cost beyond easy to say words. However I don't think it went far enough, as our second nights sleep was also very distrurbed and when we got back to our holiday house in France ( four hours drive away) at 4pm that day we had to go straight to bed for a few hours to catch up the lost sleep.

I dont know if I would stay here again, but we and friends will go back to Roses, we LOVED the place and the Dali visits............ I would like to try but I think I would be too worried about the noise levels. On the plus side the hotel has a good ambiance and the staff are very friendly.

PS if you like local food and old fashioned cooking visit the restaurant BBQ ( Barbeque) which has the most unpretentious well priced very tasty food at only 10e for three courses with wine. Although the food is basic it is tasty and about the onion soup on the 10e menu I dont think it is even possible to buy such a good soup in Paris anymore as so man of them are using processed ingredients , but this place has a real Mum preparing the dishes !