Review: The Westin Palace hotel, Madrid

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• RIcatti says:

  8 Feb8 February 03:39

  Not sure about appeal of Madrid if you do not need to be there on business.

  • Genghis says:

    8 Feb8 February 05:20

    There aren’t that many sights but it’s a great city to relax in. Wander, cafe con leche, wander, cerveza etc

    • Erico1875 says:

      8 Feb8 February 06:55

      Yes. That’s what we did. Without the cafe con leche :-).
      I prefer Madrid to Barcelona – its a real working city , not just tourists.

  • Crafty says:

    8 Feb8 February 06:03

    Strange. It’s one of my favourite cities in Spain. Brilliant place to chill, eat and drink gin.

    • Mike says:

      8 Feb8 February 07:18

      I’m glad to hear that given the first post. We’re heading there this weekend (first time). Hopefully the weather forecast changes as it’s currently showing heavy rain.

      • Brian says:

        8 Feb8 February 08:10

        The Prado alone is worth the trip to Madrid! Free entrance in the evenings, too, if that hasn’t changed…

        • Liz says:

          8 Feb8 February 08:20

          Great city – we went for 5 days last March – Prado, the Palace, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales is stunning too, the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum, San Miguel market is fun – just general walking – lovely city.

        • Stu N says:

          8 Feb8 February 22:33

          Unless you’re hugely into your art, for the Prado I’d recommend the “50 masterpieces” mini guide. €5 from the gift shops inside the museum, it takes you on a tour from Bosch’s earthly pleasures to Goya’s Black Paintings in about 3 hours. You’re probably skipping 200 masterpieces that 95% of the world’s galleries would kill for but made the whole experience manageable for us.

  • RIcatti says:

    9 Feb9 February 01:04

    Hah! I must add about paying business-level rates for Madrid central hotels. That’s the problem with it as a leisure destination.

    For the authentic experience, there are quite a few large cities in Spain.

• Concerto says:

  8 Feb8 February 04:56

  You’ve really missed something. It’s a great place!

  • Rob says:

    8 Feb8 February 09:02

    I must admit, I’ve never ‘got it’ either. Far prefer Seville or Barcelona (or Lisbon if popping next door).

    • jimmy says:

      8 Feb8 February 19:06

      I guess this is a perfect case of horses for courses. Madrid is a fantastic city, stuffed with culture and fab eateries & bars. Whereas one of your favourites, Dubai, is a bore.

      IMO!

• GK says:

  8 Feb8 February 06:55

  I was last in that hotel on Sept 11, 2001. The room looks exactly the same.

  • Lumma says:

    8 Feb8 February 12:30

    Impressive that you remember the exact date from such a long time ago….

    • Rob says:

      8 Feb8 February 12:34

      Not really, in this case. I know where I slept that night.

      • jimmy says:

        8 Feb8 February 19:01

        I flew from Scotland to Belfast that night. The airport was dead. There were 3 people on the flight, thus plenty were fearful to fly, like that route was a prime target! I recall peoples bebuddlement when I told them during the day that I was flying that night. Crazy.

        • the real harry1 says:

          8 Feb8 February 22:27

          Don’t start me on about my wife, holidays in Thailand x2 and bird flu/ sars!

          lots of people get very irrational

        • the real harry1 says:

          8 Feb8 February 23:47

          put it this way: both times I had to beat her senseless!

          with my logic, of course 🙂

          both times we had been in NZ, first time 6 months with 2 kids in tow, second time with 3 kids as we’d been kind of fecund in the middle – I added on a couple of weeks in Thailand

          I think SARS came before bird flu – can’t remember – in any case it followed the same pattern

          mad irrational wife saying we can’t expose our kids to this awful risk, me saying not much of a risk, her saying yes it’s a terrible risk, me saying let’s look at the evidence, she saying any risk is a bad risk, me saying let’s evaluate the level of the risk, she saying you’re going to kill us all, me saying I want my holiday in Thailand – & there’s no risk

          etc etc etc

          anyway thankfully both times I beat her senseless (with my logic) and we had 2 wonderful holidays with the kids

      • TimS says:

        9 Feb9 February 03:20

        One of my former colleagues was in a lawyer’s office in NYC that morning with a few other senior aviation execs, discussing setting up a new airline! They watched the situation live from the office window.

• Flyingbee says:

  8 Feb8 February 07:25

  On my recent trip to Madrid we went to a bar that only serves gin and tonic. It was absolutely packed at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon!

• Daz says:

  8 Feb8 February 09:02

  My family and I went in Feb 15 and had a lovely time, stayed at the IC. Chilled and casual city.

  I noticed this hotel after walking in the park and fancied staying on our next trip as the IC is quite a walk from anything. Thanks for the review.

  If I remember, we sat outside a bar next to the Mecardo San Miguel in the Febuary sun having a beer, just after eating a load of oysters and calamari, yeah nice.

  • YL says:

    8 Feb8 February 14:24

    I also really like the city, went there in June last year, weather was perfect at the time, for me it is a very nice city to relax and strolling around.

    Also stayed at the IC, although a bit far from some of the main attractions, but it was near the public transportation and I did not mind the walk either.

• Nick says:

  8 Feb8 February 09:09

  I wondered if i was drunk at 0907hrs at work, or if the beside table lampshades are both bent?! Reminds me of an american motel room…

  • Radiata says:

    8 Feb8 February 10:02

    Along with the paintings hung askew – all to the same side..

• James67 says:

  8 Feb8 February 11:34

  I know it’s not new year open forum but in the bigger scheme of things I’m no longer convinced hotel reviews have a place on HFP. This is not a criticism of the reviews themselves, far from it, but rather I would prefer that the space devoted to reviews were given over to much more potentially useful posts such as more bits posts with issues in brief. There are many places to find multiple reviews of each hotel reviewed on HFP albeit many (but not all) lack the HFP detail. I am still in favour of lounge reviews though as on HFP these usually come with useful info on access tailored to the cards and schemes we may hold being UK based. I still like idea of HFP being a single source of reference for all UK lounges once completed. Likewise, I think lounge reviews for the major international hubs we frequently use are also very useful.

  • Rob says:

    8 Feb8 February 11:57

    Hotel reviews probably represent 20 articles a year out of 1,100 – I don’t think you’re drowning in them. This one is admittedly slightly outside the norm because we tend to focus on a) new big-brand hotels, b) refurbished big-brand hotels or c) airport big-brand hotels, but Anika needed a bed for the night so I popped her in there! There is also an underlying Google benefit.

    Knocking out a news article takes about half the time of a review so they are not there to fill space. They are there to help with the ‘spending’ part of ‘earning and spending points’. 85% of the site is still focused on the former.

    • Xcalx says:

      8 Feb8 February 12:15

      How times change, I remember at the start you saying hfp would not turn into a review blog in reply to someone asking for hotel reviews. I too have noticed the increase in reviews. Maybe a need for a head for reviews blog

      • Rob says:

        8 Feb8 February 12:39

        I don’t see how 20 out of 1,100 articles counts as ‘a lot’. Back at the start we were doing 1 article per day so 20 / 363 articles as hotel reviews would have been quite heavy. 20 out of 1,100 is just rounding. There is one more to go from this trip and then that’s it for the immediate future – I won’t be covering the (non-chain) ski hotel we are in next week or the Crowne Plaza Salzburg again as I did that last year. We are also skipping the Radisson in Hamburg where Anika is going.

        If you’re lucky you won’t see any more hotel reviews until the IC Hong Kong in late April! At which point, of course, there will be a glut of Asian properties – IC Hong Kong, IC ANA Tokyo, Conrad Tokyo, Ritz-Carlton Kyoto, Park Hyatt Beijing …..

        • jimmy says:

          8 Feb8 February 16:07

          Rob – unlike the others who simply appear unable to ignore such reviews (seems petty and illogical to rattle on, wasting everyone’s time, when simply ignoring such reviews would solve everything), please feel free to ignore their unconstructive feedback.

        • Rob says:

          8 Feb8 February 17:12

          Always happy to listen to feedback, and I’m usually willing to justify my reasoning on any particular issue. Obviously at the end of the day we make the editorial call though.

    • James67 says:

      8 Feb8 February 12:37

      Thanks Rob, happy with your facts and feedback on this. It just ‘felt’ like the number of hotel reviews had increased of late. To be fair, there have been hotel reviews I have found useful too. These have tended to be those with a particular slant that go beyond a straightforward review. For example, new openings with lower redemption rates (btw, see Hilton Greenwich), and Hilton Syon Park and St Georges Park.

      • Sundar says:

        8 Feb8 February 20:16

        Love the reviews Rob. For me, this is an economical way to “dip-test” these hotels without spending a lot(except my time reading the reviews!) and then pick the best hotel based on such(and other TripAdvisor etc) reviews when I need to go to such places.
        You could also put up a link at the top for all “Hotel Reviews” articles or add it to the Favourites page(which doesn’t exist today as a separate heading)

    • Leo says:

      8 Feb8 February 22:56

      I really like the hotel reviews! I’m bored rigid by all Tesco clubcard posts but I know it’s horses for courses so I don’t moan about them – and yes I do get that it’s a points blog. I also love Madrid but not impressed by the look of this Westin. Much more impressed by the last hotel. I’d give the last one a try on the basis of that review.

• Genghis says:

  8 Feb8 February 12:00

  The hotel seems rather average. To say “The Westin Palace in Madrid didn’t fully convince me” doesn’t really sit well with ” this is a decent place to redeem”. Getting a good pence per SPG point rate is not the same as it being good value for money / points.

  • Rob says:

    8 Feb8 February 12:24

    Unless economic theory has ceased to function, ‘the market’ has decided that the hotel can charge that price, based on a factor of location / quality / service compared to other competing hotels in Madrid and so the comparison is valid! If no-one felt it was worth €250 a night compared to the alternatives then it would be empty.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.