1. Location
2. Price
3. Stars
4. Breakfast included
5. Reviews

1. Location of the hotel

We wanted to have good access to the beach and city center. There were some excellent hotels close to the beach and others close to the city center which we didn’t choose.

The ideal is something between the two to make it convenient for our transportation. In the picture below that I took from my Google Maps you can see most of the places we wanted to visit were in a vicinity near the location we wanted to find our hotel. That is how I decided about the location of our hotel.

2. Price per night

Most people have a budget in mind, how much you want to spend for a trip.

Conscious shoppers don’t intend to throw out money. Besides, If you love shopping and at the same time thinking about a luxury hotel, this can suck up most of the budget. On the other hand, if the flight tickets are expensive, the budget almost is gone before you even try to calculate more about the food and transportation. Summer holidays you know! Everything is more expensive because of the supply and demand! Conscious shoppers are not happy about buying things for more than they are worth.

3. Stars of the hotel

It matters in the overall performance of a hotel how many stars they have. I was actually trying to search a lot for the cheapest 4-star hotel as I was quite sure there would be a lot of competition between 5-star hotels and it is almost impossible to find a cheap 5-star one.

4. Breakfast Included or not

Prices are usually without breakfast when I search websites. Later I will share the ones I used to find prices. But this was a problem because first we thought what a good price and then we would see it is without breakfast, and breakfast actually adds quite something to the price. You might think it is breakfast and it should not be expensive, but I should say it is not cheap at all! Around 20 to 35 Euros per person per day.

5. Reviews on Google Maps and travel websites

My recommendation is always to read low-rated reviews to know the problems and complaints of people who have experienced using services or products. Sometimes the overall rating is very good but suddenly some reviews can change your mind completely. The lowest ratings have more effect compared to the highest ratings. Because the highest ratings can be faked, but no one can fake low ratings.

And the process of finding the right hotel…

For your search to find the best hotel, you can use the existing filters based on what you are looking for. Checking filters can be a time-saver and helpful although some options may remain hidden from the search even when applying filters, so you may not always be able to find the best on your own. That is why you need my service! The second problem is the amount of time you need to take to go through each option’s page to read more. Contact me to help you choose the best you are looking for.

My Experience and Guidance For Finding The Right Hotel

Using filters based on what my client was looking for, a couple of hotels that I found, looked very fine in the pictures, but the location was far from either the city center or the beach.

One of the hotels with a good location is Hotel Gotic.

I found fine options but a lot of them were far from the budget or the ideal location. Sonde Casa Luz looks like a cozy option but the price and location were not compatible. Sonder Paseo de Gracia is far from the beach, otherwise not very expensive.

My clients’ hotel budget was less than 580 Euros

Casa Elliot by Bondia Hotel Group is one of the hotels that showed up in search results, looks unique and cozy, but price-wise was far from the budget, and far from the beach of course.

One of the high ratings on booking.com, with a very good rating for breakfast, is The Corner Hotel, but the location is far from the beach and not within the budget.

I liked the pictures of Nobu Hotel, The location is fine but the price was not within the budget.

Aparthotel Mariano Cubi Barcelona looks very fine in pictures but is very far from the beach. The price though is not far from the budget.

Casa Bonay Hotel was one of the very first options I read about in a few articles searching for the best hotels in Barcelona. At that time budget was unknown. My clients liked the pictures’ atmosphere and coziness. They were almost sure they would consider it. When I saw on booking.com that this hotel is pet-friendly, I started to revert. Not that they did not like animals but, pets have germs and traces that are not easy to clean up, especially the hair and bacteria as they have their own microorganisms. So my clients did not want that.

Another problem with this hotel is that rooms seem to be very small and without a view to the outside, only to the inside yard of the hotel. The location is also far from the beach.

I liked the pictures of Hotel Condes De Barcelona, but the location is far from the beach. The price is completely off-budget. But it was 4.8 / 5 on Google Maps so it was very attractive. It is a 4-star hotel.

I also used search on Google Maps and filters to find hotels based on location and budget. It is true that when you are looking for something online, you need to know a couple of the right tools that can help you in finding the right choice.

Alexandra Barcelona Hotel was one of the high ratings on Google Maps but the location and budget were not what my clients wanted.

We actually managed to find one that was aligned with what my clients were looking for.

Acta Voraport Barcelona Hotel and Paxton Barcelona Hotel have high ratings both on Google Maps and booking.com. They were so quick in answering my question about the bicycle renting possibility. The problem is that they are far from the city center and a bit off-budget. Otherwise, I was interested to try one of them. I even was close to booking Paxton as in the room details, I could see the size and view seemed great.

A search problem on booking.com is that it showed hostels, although we were not looking for a hostel. They might be cheaper, but cleanness and quality of service are also questionable. You may need to spend a lot of time searching and reading reviews to be able to find a semi-good one. You can never be sure if you have found the best choice before you hire an expert like me!

TOC Hostel Barcelona was one of the hostels with a high rating on booking.com.

I saw this hotel and thought even if the price and location were fine, I didn’t like the columns or whatever that is on the roof in the pictures. As an architect, I always care about design.

Talking about the design, I found Sercotel Caspe just after we booked the hotel. The red color in the design is attractive. The price is really fine with the budget, but we actually managed to find one hotel closer to the beach.

Anba Boutique with a higher price close to the Sercotel Caspe, seems to have a high rating but was not budget-friendly for my clients.

We finally decided on the best location for the hotel. Hotel Del Mar is one of the third options to choose from. It is a 3-star hotel. The pictures were nothing special. but the location and price were fine.

Although my clients are conscious about price, at the same time they demand quality and comfort. Although I thought about checking Airbnb prices were not cheap, and with almost the same prices we could find a hotel. At the end of the day, a hotel feeling is definitely more exciting than an Airbnb feeling for traveling.

The hotel we finally chose

There are a few hotels in the same region we considered. Hotel Oasis is 2-star, H10 Port Vell is off-budget. Adante Hotel was also an option but a bit far from Barceloneta Beach.

We chose Hotel Ciutadella Barcelona, which is 4-star, with good access to the beach and the city center.

My clients didn’t want to pay a crazy high amount of money for the hotel, knowing that flight tickets were triple the regular price! And because they love shopping they thought to save the budget for buying things.

My clients ended up liking the location of the hotel we chose, which is perfectly aligned with what we wanted, close to the beach and city center, with very good breakfast included.
The rooms had an attractive red color theme because of the bed sheets, a theme perfect for a couple on their honeymoon. Nonetheless, a four-star hotel can be exciting to try out.

Helpful for hotel search

I found hotelbully.com by reading a lot of Google reviews and used it to find the best deal.

Finding the best options is within my area of expertise after 14 years of shopping experience. Book your consultation today. Contact me to find the best options for you.