Review: The Westin Palace hotel, Madrid

Here is my review of The Westin Palace hotel, my second stop in Madrid.

The Westin Palace was a short taxi ride from the Gran Melia Palacio de los Duques (my review of Gran Melia Palacio de los Duques is here) and is located on the other end of the main shopping street in Madrid at the Fuento de Neptuno.

My stay was not organised by Westin / Starwood which is why I didn’t get a tour of the hotel and can only discuss my own room.  I didn’t have breakfast included and, given my continuing cough, decided to rather have a lie in rather than go hunting for food in the morning.

The entrance hall is quite impressive and sets you back in time. It looks like even though the hotel has been refurbished in its 100 years of existing, the style has been preserved.

Check in

It didn’t start well.  When I arrived the doorman decided not to open the door for me and no one came to offer to help me with my luggage.

I went up to one of the check in desks and had to wait about a minute until I was even greeted.  I can understand that some things might be more important than checking in a guest, however a ‘welcome, I will be with you in a second’ would have been nice.

My room at Westin Palace Madrid

The booked category was a Deluxe with a king bed and I was upgraded to a Premium View room on the back of my Starwood Gold status.

My first impression was that everything was little bit too yellow and looked kind of dated.

The TV was on top of the minibar and looked out of place. It did however have English, Spanish and German TV.

There was one solitary socket at the desk. Next to it was a tiny bin with a compartment for recycling. However I wasn’t able to figure out which side was which ….

The coffee table with armchairs was cute and a nice place to have coffee – more on the coffee further down the page …

The view from my window was onto the Fuento de Neptuno with a fairly busy roundabout. Though I was on the third floor and therefore quite close to the street, noise was limited.

The bathroom had two sinks with brownish marble. Toiletries were the standard Westin brand.

The shower was inside the bathtub and had good water pressure. The shower curtain was slightly annoying as the inside layer kept moving towards the water stream – and let’s face it, it’s also not very pretty.

There was neither a coffee machine nor a kettle in the room! Instead I found a little note saying that I can order one coffee or tea per person per day for free.

I called Service Express and got the tray below delivered to my room. This is a great service, but I like to be more in control of my coffee intake ….

The hotel

This is a picture of La Rotonda, the hotel’s restaurant.   It is the focal point of the entire hotel and undeniably impressive.  The globe and chandelier are very pretty and if I had been feeling better I would have loved to enjoy a drink here.  Here is a PR photo:

There was a rather smart sitting area outside the elevator which caught my eye.

Outside the spa area with gym (sorry no picture as too many people were working out and I just couldn’t walk in to take a picture) and sauna (a tiny sauna room inside the changing room) is a balcony where you can order food and drinks.

To give you a better impression of what you can expect, here is a short YouTube video of The Westin Palace in Madrid. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel via this page – this is the same link to visit if the video does not automatically appear below.

Conclusion

The Westin Palace in Madrid didn’t fully convince me, especially after my stay at the Gran Meliá Palacio de los Duques the previous night.

In general I love it when hotels preserve their style from former decades.  The Westin Palace certainly has an impressive entrance hall and a gorgeous restaurant, but my room was rather disappointing.  It was dated, the bathroom was boring and the furniture looked out of place and randomly put together.  Having butler service instead of a coffee machine and/or kettle might be a plus for some people, but I would have appreciated at least a kettle to make a cup of (herbal) tea.

I would go back to have a drink in the beautiful La Rotonda, but I wouldn’t necessaily choose to stay at The Westin Palace overnight again.

In terms of cost, I used 12,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points.  Cash rates for a standard room seem to vary between roughly €215 and €285 per night.  Given Rob’s valuation of 1.5p for a SPG point, this is a decent place to redeem.

The Westin Palace Madrid website is here if you want to find out more.

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