Me Hotel, Barcelona – Spain

For the first time in a while, I was on a leisure stay with Mrs Travel Freak!  Best of all the Junior Travel Freaks were somewhere else.  We were alone for a whole weekend!

I had booked my stay at Me Barcelona almost by chance.  It was a Hotwire adventure and having Googled the area, start rating and amenities for a while, I was pretty sure it was the Me I was booking.  I pressed the ‘book now’ button and waited, feeling just slightly nervous.  It was indeed the Me Hotel Barcelona.

With a confirmed booking I explored the website – seems that Me is a funky hotel for the cool and sophisticated… not sure that’s me but I decided i’d try my very best to fit in.  I started an email conversation with the hotel and ended up agreeing to pay for an upgrade to The Level which gave me a bigger / better room, a Nespresso machine and access to The Level Lounge with freebies.  Normally I get sort of upgrade free with my many loyalty cards so I had high hopes…

I had received an email from the hotel a few days before my arrival asking for my arrival time, any special requests and trying to sell me a car pick-up (for 95€ – I paid less with J and G Elegance cars who were great).  I replied informing them of my arrival time and requesting a specific brand of Nespresso pods; a manageable request I thought.  I hadn’t heard back.

Our journey (with Ryanair) was great – we arrived early and then waited a bit on Passport control.  We pulled up outside the hotel around 9:30 on a Friday night.

The hotel was modern and funky and we could see that the bar was fairly busy.  There were no guests at reception so Laura (staff member at front desk) greeted us at once.  She welcomed us, took us through the normal hotel stuff and informed us that ‘as it was out first stay at Me, we had been given a complimentary upgrade to a Level room’.  I didn’t say a word and thought, that perhaps I would get my upgrade for free…  I had also ordered something from Amazon.es to be delivered to the hotel and Laura knew of this and disappeared for a moment behind the sexy velvet curtains to fetch it from the back.  We were soon on our way up in the lift to the 27^th floor and I was feeling good about our trip so far.

Our room was nice.  Smaller than I had expected but still nice.  Evening turn-down service is offered for Level rooms so the room was ambient with mood lighting and some Me lollipops on the bed.  There was a mini bar that had the normal stuff but also some branded Me merchandise; t-shirt, cap and mug… I wondered who bought such items?  There was also a ‘Love Me tender’ kit which had some condoms, lube, massage oil and a ‘tickler’ – a real clever way to charge 30€ for the condoms!

Bathroom was big enough with a huge sink that was easy to share.  The shower was hot and powerful and (despite some other reviews that I had read) there was the ability to close the door while you visited the commode.  Toiletries were sufficient – if anyone can tell me why the shower gel is marked ‘adult use only’ I would be delighted.  It did say stimulating but I don’t think it had drugs in…?  Mouthwash was included here which I thought was a nice touch.

We dumped our stuff and went up to The Level Lounge for a drink.  The view here was awesome; you could see a lot of the city including the infamous not-quite-finished church.  There was a staff member here who smiled and kept me in drinks throughout my stay but didn’t really speak much English which was a shame.  He tried hard though.  We were the only guests in here, which I thought was a little strange.  We used the Lounge a couple of times during our stay and there was never more than one other couple.  Makes me wonder if the hotel was very busy…?

As far as the lounge goes – it was standard really.  There was a huge commercial Nespresso machine, some really posh tea and chocolates and the normal selection of beers and spirits.  There was some cheap pink ‘fizz’ (which was actually a Lambrusco…) and half bottles of white and red wine.  We tried the white; Mrs Travel Freak thought it was too sweet, I thought it was terrible. We didn’t drink any more wine after this, however we did try the hot food available the next evening.  Think of a small potato chopped into cylinder shapes with the centre gouged out and filled with something that was tomato like and spicy, then topped with cream cheese.  They were amazing, 18 amazing… yes I really had that many.  I think it was the hotels take on Patatas Bravas.

Only other point to mention about the lounge was that one of the ladies who worked there on the Sunday afternoon was grumpy.  Really grumpy and obnoxious; she clearly thought she was better than the guests who were paying her salary.  This was a real shame actually because most of the staff we encountered were pretty good.

After a quick drink in the lounge we decided to venture to the funky bar downstairs as Mrs Travel Freak was after a cocktail.  We chatted with the barman who told us to try Bilbao for some great Pintxos that are a bit like tapas; small snacks served on top of bread with a spike (or Pintxo) through them.  You pay after the meal based on the number of sticks you have left – very cool and very good.  You can read the review here.  We never actually managed a cocktail as we decided we were much more interested in the yummy food he was describing!  Great asset though, to have a staff member who doesn’t just point you in the direction of the hotel restaurant.

On Sunday afternoon we did stop by level 6 of the hotel.  During the night there is a trendy club here.  During the day it’s a ‘pool’ but not really (think paddling pool with some funky jets of water) with a bar and a DJ!  We stopped by and took up a seat in one of the sexy booths.  I ordered a beer and the cocktail of the week (a Mai Tai) and we waited.  We waited some more and my beer appeared.  We waited almost 20 minutes before someone was found to make the cocktail of the week…  When I asked for the bill I explained how disappointed I was about the time it took for the cocktail to appear and it was not charged for – a fair outcome given the situation I think.  I would go back though as there was a pretty cool vibe here.

Checkout was non eventful – although I was indeed charged the 160€ for my ‘free’ upgrade.  Shame really – it would have been a great blag.  I didn’t get my nice coffee either.

The hotel is just a touch more than 5 minutes walk from the nearest Metro which links to the city.  There is a tram stop just opposite the hotel that is handy if you want to go east.  There are loads of local places to eat and drink around the hotel – take a walk towards town and explore.  The walk into ‘Town’ or La Rambla took about 45 minutes which could be fun if you had a drink and some tapas in each bar you pass along the way.  Join the hotels frequent guest program called MAS and get 50% off breakfast and 25% off the upgrade price.  If only I had known that earlier…

Our rate was around £90 a night on a Hotwire rate.

 Me by Melia Barcelona, Carrer de Pere IV, 272, 08005 Barcelona, Spain.  Website