Hostal Balkonis

Staff were nice, attended to our questions and problems, and stored our baggage for the day after we checked out. Rooms were decently clean, beds made daily and towels exchanged. Location was great with a two minute walk to many shops and the subway. Facilities however were left wanting. The photos in the advertisement are not consistent with what we experienced in the “economy” rooms. The cheaper “economy” internal rooms look fine at first glance, but deferred maintenance is starting to show. Shower screen was held up with putty, towel rack was missing (mounts were present), several bits of moulding were missing or severely damaged, etc. Bed was very hard, and we felt sore backs and bums each morning due to this. The walls are fairly thin, and you can hear everything happening on the floor from conversations to doors closing. *note for American and Canadian travellers* “Air Conditioning in all rooms” in the advertisement means that they have central AC, which we were told was set to 23 degrees Celsius; we never saw it turn on. The hostel associate reminded us pretty quickly that they were meeting the legal bare minimum which is to have the temperature below 27 degrees Celsius. Being from Canada and being used to much cooler sleeping temperatures, we found it very difficult to sleep due to the heat. We opened the windows to the interior quadrangle, which provided some relief, but this compounded the noise issues as people on the floors above returned, cooked, ate, talked, and showered at all hours of the night until about 3am. Being in an internal room near the Bottom of the building, we could very loudly hear all of the water from the above room’s toilets and showers trickling down the pipes like an inconsistent but heavy rain all night long. I would advise Western travelers to consider booking the premium suites or looking elsewhere to avoid the issues that we experienced.

Not much to complain about here. A simple but cozy 2-star hostel that is very well situated. The room, although a bit rundown with swelled wooden panels and doors, was very clean and hygienic. The cleaning staff did a good job cleaning our room every day with new towels waiting for us when we got home. One con with the room was its layout and overall furnishing. It had a double-bed which is nice but way too big for the room, leaving little space for anything else like hanging beach clothing out to dry. The room had only one window facing some kind of inaccessible inner courtyard (don’t know how else to explain it), leaving the room with little natural illumination. Maybe even a bit claustrophobic for some but did not bother us that much. Another con was the thin walls. You could clearly hear the neighbours talking or doing stuff like visiting the bathroom. Not enough to wake us up or keep us from falling asleep but something to think about if you are a very light sleeper. The staff was wonderful and spoke good Catalan, Spanish and English. 5 stars to them!

I was very surprised after my stay at the hostel. The cleaner cleaned the room every day, changed sheets and gave us new fresh towels every day. The only thing I would complain about is that you can hear everything because of the thin walls. The location was good. The hostel had a cozy cafe just over the streets (cafe latte + croissant for 2,5€). It was a very good hostel when having the 2star in mind.

Great location and wonderful staff! The rooms left things to be desired- we found stains on our bed sheets and we were not supplied with hand soap. The walls were quite thin and some nights we were woken up by people coming back at 4 AM.

Hotel located in nice area close to metro. Standard of the room dated but alright. Unfortunately walls are paper thin and it was not the most pleasant experience. We could hear literally everything from rooms around including people talking, tv playing, children screaming etc Loud snoring every night from room next door made us unable to sleep. We had room next to personal room so even unloading dishwasher at 7 sounded like it was in the same room. Cleaning service was also very noisy. Moving beds, riding trolley with supplies. We were also disturbed with knocking although we had no disturb sign on the door. It wasn’t significant for us personally but the reception is closing for the night and people were trying to contact by calling ( no one answered) and also they were standing by the door downstairs for long time. Overall for me the most important in hotels is sleep and I didn’t have much chance. Came back tired from trip