I recently stayed one night at La Moraleja in Alcobendas, Madrid, and was severely disappointed from my stay.

It is obvious that this hotel has not been properly maintained for a very long time. As such, I find it outrageous for them to charge 185 EUR and up per night, for the low standard of quality delivered. This is not a four star hotel, it is at best 2 stars.

When I reserved on the hotel website, I asked for a suite with 2 double beds, non-smoking. I was instead given a smoking room with one double bed.

It went pretty much downhill from there. In a sad way, it became almost comic, to see what else could possibly be wrong with the room. Some examples:

Both phones in the room were unplugged, I had to crawl around on the floor to reconnect them. At which point I realized the room had not been vacuumed in weeks, judging from the huge amounts of dust and dirt which quickly accumulated on my knees and socks.

At least one window or sliding door per room could not be locked -- as the locks were completely broken. Very reassuring.

The air conditioner did not function at all. When I went to the circuit breaker to check the switches, the cover fell right off -- it wasn't evenly properly attached.

The complimentary pen next to the phone was, yes, out of ink.

It was very hard to get to sleep as there was a loud, persistent buzzing coming from the bathroom, or just above the bathroom. Continued straight thru till morning.

The room service club sandwich was equal parts mayonaisse and bread (no exaggeration). I had ordered a bottle of water to go with the meal, but it was not delivered. When I put the tray outside of my room for pick up that evening, it was still sitting there in the hallway, after breakfast the next morning.

The minibar could not be closed, because the freezer had about 6 inches of ice in it, which no one had bothered to defrost in a very long time.

No kleenex or tissues in the bathroom.

The weather is already quite warm in Madrid in May, so I thought the outdoor pool would be open. Nope -- the water was murky, and covered with many, many dead, decaying leaves.

There are a few more incidents, but I can't recall them now. Suffice to say, I will stay somewhere, anywhere, else next time around!