Urban Vida Ribera

This is not a hotel but an apartment. Even given that, there is several points to be improved. To get access your room, you have to obtain two key-codes in advance. However, you are not provided with this important information unless you make a contact to the property owner autonomously. If you go there without obtaining the key-codes, you will be locked out on the cold street! Fortunately I could get my codes just a day before I leave my home. But there was a girl who came to this property to stay without codes and she was hopelessly alone at the gate of the property in a late winter evening until I came back there after my business. She made several phone calls to operating companies but no body responded. The room is equipped with a nicely-looking kitchen. But there is no salt, sugar, oil, etc. So you have to buy or bring everything if you want cook there. Of course you can buy them at near supermarkets, but you will waste much unless your stay is long enough. The nicely-looking electrical ovens have a quite confusing unintuitive interface. However, no operation manual is provided. It took 15 minutes for me to figure out how to use it. There is a built-in laundry machine, but there is no detergent, of course. You can find no towels and no tissues, of course, although another apartment in Madrid where my colleague stayed provided them. The water drain in the shower booth (no bath tab) is very clogged. So you can easily flood the booth.

The code provided for the lock box was not right. If it wasn't for the house keeper on site in another apt. we would have never gotten into the apt without it becoming an ordeal. They never provided info about parking in hotels.com. Parking was 25€ in a nearby garage a few blocks away, this should be disclosed so families can plan accordingly. Very noisy on Saturday night. The bar on the corner goes on all night. On Sunday morning there is a farmers market on this block so you can't pull up your car to load luggage, you will need to wheel or carry your luggage several blocks to that garage. They don't provide the password for the "free Wi-Fi" up front. After several requests, they responded back advising the Wi fi password is behind the door, long after we checked out. For one night it was satisfactory to get the little ones to rest from the overseas flight, but can't say would do it again. The bed was not comfortable. Finally, there was a little kitchen with all kinds of utensils, but no wine opener.

Great place to stay close to all the action. 15 minutes walking to the Plaza Mayor. The famous market El Rastro takes place on thei very street every Sunday. The room was clean and well equipped. Great communication and easy to access.

We stayed 5 nights in this apartment. All very satisfied, esp. with the location, which is walking distance to most of the sights. The nearby grocery store makes very convenient for us. Be aware there's no reception there. You need to check in online one day before to get the pass code to get in the apartment. I didn't know about that, had to call them, but they were very helpful. The apartment has washing machine, dish washer & kitchen. Would be a big plus if they provide simple salt, pepper, oil, washing powder. We had to buy everything ourselves in order to use these machines, all in big amount that we couldn't bring with us. All in all, we're very satisfied.

The apartment was very comfortable. The neighborhood was very cute and safe.