Hotel Palacio Del Retiro, Autograph Collection

Friendly welcome and efficient check in. Hotel’s lobby and bar area make good first impression Location perfect for visiting the big 3 galleries and convenient for eating out in the Salamanca district. Staff uniformly friendly, helpful and professional. Room less impressive, which prevented an “excellent” rating. Dull, cheap furniture and bathroom in need of refurb: seals on shower tray needed replacing and sink plug malfunctioning. Very good breakfast in charming dining room.

I cannot say enough good things about this hotel! First things first, by all standard metrics, the hotel excels: Excellent location, beautiful building and rooms, excellent facilities, great food quality and selection. What I absolutely must call out however is the staff who were EXCEPTIONAL. For context, we were due to depart on the day of the country-wide blackout across all of Spain. They did everything that they could to keep us comfortable, and above all, safe. They accommodated us staying an extra night in our room after our flight was cancelled, and they pulled out all the stops to serve guests lunch and dinner despite no electricity. They kept spirits high and communicated well with the guests despite being equally as affected as us, and no doubt feeling stressed about the situation themselves. I must call out Guillermo and Marcos at the desk, and Marimar and Gaspar in the restaurant for their exceptional service and caring for us so well too - a special muchas gracias to you. The Palacio de Retiro has new customers for life now. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone there, and we will see you next time!

I really wanted to like this hotel. I really tried to like this hotel. Unfortunately, after our family’s 5-night stay, we were left disappointed and most likely will not return or recommend. We stayed in two rooms - a superior king (room 407) and a regular king (room 403). I will get into the details in a little bit. But here are the highlights and lowlights. Highlights - Great location. The hotel is right by Retiro park. It’s like the upper east side of nyc. We walked to all the museums, visited the park everyday and taking a cab to centro was easy. - the building is beautiful. Landmarked and recently renovated. There are so many fine details in the exterior of the building and the common areas. - the majority of the staff was friendly and helpful. Special shoutout to the porters and the housekeeping staff. They really go above and beyond to make you feel welcomed and comfortable. Lowlights - Rooms are subpar. Our rooms were on the 4th floor which is the top floor. The top floor in this type of buildings are designed to be servants quarters. So the ceiling is low and windows are small. You do feel like you are in the servants quarter and I personally do not like paying $500+ per night to not feel like the main character. - Superior King room feels smaller than regular King. We had two rooms - one superior king and one regular. The superior king feels smaller. If you plan to pay extra to get a bigger room, I would get the junior suites. The superior kings are not worth it. - the Bed in Room 403 (regular king) is supposed to be a king bed. However, it is two twin mattresses pushed together with a king mattress cover over it and they claimed it king. The front desk did offer us a different room but we had already unpacked and spent a night so my parents didn’t want to go through the hassle of switching rooms. The Supervisor there (Marcos) did comp us with free breakfast for that room but I don’t think he understands the inconvenience it caused us nor the disappointment we had. What bothers me the most was that they tried to justify it was normal and okay to have a king bed made up by two separate twin mattresses. Marcos and the lady at the front desk tried to say because there was a king mattress COVER over the two mattresses, it was okay, it made the bed a king. What a joke. They made me feel like my complaint was trivial and my experience was not valued. - Strong paint odor from the renovation. I am sensitive to smell and room 407 had very strong paint odor upon entering. We had to keep the windows open during our entire stay there. The front desk did offer us a different room when I brought the issue to them. However, the room they offered me (room 309) also had similarly strong paint smell so we didn’t end up taking it. Room 403 was fine. - The towels feel “tired” - it’s the feel that they are laundered so many times that they become stiff and thin. Again, not something you would expect at a 5 start hotel. - the bathtub didn’

We stayed only one night at the Hotel Palacio del Retiro but the hotel was exactly what we were looking for - perfect location for a morning run (in the Parque del Retiro) and some sightseeing (a few minutes walk to the Prado Museum), friendly service, lots of charm (19th century palace) and a very good breakfast. Worth going back!