We'll be travelling with 3 people and for us the hotel is a big part of the vacation. At first thought we'd take a suite in either the Claris or Majestic but subsequently thought 3 of us sharing a room didn't sound great. Claris will only interconnect suites and Majestic will only guarantee interconnecting if you book a suite and a room (they have interconnecting rooms but won't promise till you arrive!)
So, our dilemma comes down to the following
Apsis Atrium:130-150eu/rm/night
Avenida Palace 170-190eu/rm/night
Duquesa de Cardona 170-265eu/rm/night
All 3 can guarantee interconnecting non-smoking rooms. I like the look of D de C but am a little concerned that the location isn't as good for just walking around.
We could theoretically splurge on either the Majestic or the Claris, but the price is 2-3x more so it would have to be REALLY worth it. PLEASE...I need help!

eleanorw,
I would chose the Apsis Atrium Palace because it's well run and a very good value, also a great, central location.
(better located, IMO, than the Duques de Cardona facing the water).

eleanorw,
Forgot to mention that the Apsis Atrium Palace has a nice indoor pool.

Barcelona is such an easy walking town that all of these would work. I love the harbor area AND I love the other location. If you are there in the summer you should pick the place with a pool as it can be hot and humid.

I'm just back from Barcelona and we stayed at D de Cardona. We booked a standard room and they gave us one overlooking the harbor. The room was a plain modern design, a little worn but attractive, with an nice large modern bathroom. The rooms with a view will have some street noise, so ask for an inside facing room if that bothers you. For us it was worth it because of the view.

We wanted to be close to the Gothic Quarter and El Born so the neighborhood worked well for us. Though if price/availability hadn't been an issue for us I would have liked Banys Oriental which IMHO was the best located hotel we saw.

The pool and roof deck was VERY nice, tasteful and attractive with large outdoor sofa to lounge on. Because we were there in December it wasn't relevant but I agree with jnjfraz it would be a big advantage at a different time of year.

WE ate breakfast everyday at the Boqueria Market every morning so I can't comment on the food. It's very well located for a number of good tapas places and we found it very easy to navigate Barcelona by Metro.

We booked through lastminute.co.uk and got a good rate. I can't compare it with the Apsis but we picked D de C above the Avenida Palace...look at the tripadvisor reviews.

Hope this helps!

Hi Eleanor,

My Mom and I stayed at the Apsis for 4 nights in '05, and it was quite lovely and well kept. Very easy to walk to everything and a great concierge staff. Excellent choice. Have fun!!

Thanks for the help, we've booked 2 rooms at the Apsis (although they needed to be bullied a little to confirm interconnecting rooms, initially promised to "give their best try&quot. i think D de C would also have been nice, connecting rooms aren't actually connecting but share a hallway that can be closed off which we've had alot in Europe and is very nice, but opted for location. For the meantime i've convinced myself that the Majestic can't be worth 3x the price, and it's annoying that at that price they won't guarantee connecting rooms. I'm done thinking about it, sure we'll have a great time.

topping

Thanks to all for their help, the Apsis was great, comfortable nice sized rooms, fabulous location, exactly what I was looking for.