Review: Hotel Bagues, Barcelona

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There is no shortage of travel content about Barcelona. You’ve probably read or seen news stories about how the city is overrun with tourists, that the locals hate those tourists, and that if you are one of those tourists, you will get doused with water. You’ll also get advice like don’t stay in the Gothic Quarter it’s too crowded or don’t eat near tourist attractions it’s pricey bad food or don’t go to Sagrada Familia it’s nothing but tourists taking selfies.

Well, we booked a hotel in the Gothic Quarter for the week before Easter, found cheap cafes and restaurants near the beach and Park Guell, and the first place we went was Sagrada Familia to take selfies. And guess what? It was all fun and fine. We also broke our own rules.

Every major hotel chain has several options in Barcelona. Most of the time, I find you’re better off selecting a slightly cheaper option from among a brand’s choices if it’s not that much farther from what you want to do than the more expensive one. An example is the Waldorf Hilton, which, though a fine hotel, is expensive, and you’re better off going with a cheaper London hotel even if you have to ride a few more tube stops to get to Cakes & Bubbles. For most of this trip, that held true, and if we end up reviewing all the hotels from our journey, you’ll see us make a huge mistake by trying to stay someplace fancy in Italy, proving high-end hotels aren’t always better.

Nonetheless, in Barcelona, we chose a fancy-looking hotel from the Hilton website because it was really really close to La Boqueria and museums. It was more expensive than our original choice, meaning we’d have to cut corners elsewhere (I’m missing a Canelo Alvarez fight while writing this in order to save $60), but we loved the location, so we rolled the dice. We made a good choice.

Arriving at Hotel Bagues

Hotel Bagués (hereafter written without the accent because it’s easier) is an independent-ish hotel that is part of Derby Hotels and a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which is why it could be booked through Hilton’s website even though it isn’t really a Hilton. From the airport, we were able to take a train to Place de Catalunya, which is close enough to the hotel to walk, but far enough to be annoying since the La Rambla area was crawling with tourists there for Easter week.

The number of stars a hotel has is a number that, in America, means absolutely nothing. You can call your bathroom a “47-star resort” if you want. But in Europe, they take these stars seriously, and customers will quibble with hotels who claim a star rating that isn’t actually provided. That’s why I was excited to see the five stars out front of Hotel Bagues, as I felt they might be trustworthy. Would this be a five-star experience? I don’t know because I don’t know what you have to do to get that rating. So we’ll see, I guess.

Immediately upon arrival, we were offered a welcome drink of coffee and juice. These days, the check-in experience is almost always too fast to have a drink made and delivered and have time to drink it before going to your room. The welcome drink is often just a way to differentiate hotels that offer it from those who don’t. You may not care about this, but I really appreciated it. It felt like they could see we’d had a long day getting there and wanted us to feel at ease.

After checking us in and going over the rules of the house, the desk agent showed us a pamphlet about pickpocketing and discussed how big of a problem it was in Barcelona. She said we shouldn’t carry our passports around with us because we wouldn’t need them, and should instead keep them in our room safe. She also said (and the pamphlet recommended) that they could photocopy our passports and put a stamp on the back so we could show that to police if need be.

This sounded like a great idea to us; we always bring photocopies of our passports on vacation for this exact reason. So, as the pamphlet suggested, we put our passports in the room safe and took our photocopies to the desk to get a stamp from the hotel. Two new people were at the desk at this point, and they seemed stunned at the suggestion, like I was asking them to have the mayor of Fartsville, Maryland bring me an iced Martian blurg juice.

“You know,” I said. “From… the thing you gave us?”

They had no idea what I was talking about. Maybe they don’t show that to everyone? At any rate, they stapled the hotel’s business card to our passports in an attempt to appease us. We spent the entire time in Barcelona freaked out about pickpockets. We didn’t get our pockets picked, so either our vigilance was rewarded, or pickpockets aren’t as big of a problem as the initial lady had suggested. We’ll never know.

After our welcome drink, we were shown around the small lobby, small waiting area with couches and books, small bar, and small spiral staircase that Eriko thought was cute. The bellhop (is this a demeaning term? The gentleman of bellmaking) then got us in the elevator to take us to the room, where our bags were positioned for us as he gave a full tour, pointing out all the elements and how they worked.

That may seem silly, as you probably think you know how everything in a hotel room works. But you’d be wrong. Sometimes, the power button to the TV is on the backside of the remote, and you can’t find it. Sometimes, the hair dryer is hidden under some towels and you think there isn’t one. Sometimes, you can’t figure out how to shut off one of the lights and just give up and go to bed with a light on. I’m not saying all three of these things have happened to us, but they have.

And then there’s the questions: is this water free? Is this coffee free? If I can’t sleep, will someone sing me a lullaby? He answered all those helpfully, and as the tour dragged on, I realized something: oh no, this is the kind of swanky hotel where I have to tip this guy. I don’t want to pull a Buzz and spit my gum in his hand because I don’t have any gum. I guess I should use money.

I tipped 5 Euro. Is that fair? Too much? I’ll never know.

Guest rooms at Hotel Bagues

Let’s start with the good news: yes, the water was free, and they replaced it every day. The stuff in the mini bar was also free, and although the only thing we wanted in there was the juice, it was the first time I’d seen a complimentary minibar, so it felt thrilling to drink that juice, baby.

The room had a Nespresso machine, which was great, but brings up something you should know: Nespresso machines are made by different companies, meaning they are all different. They’ve got their quirks, and the quality of the coffee they produce can vary. The Nespresso machine in this hotel room was SO LOUD it startled us every time we used it, but it produced better coffee than we had just about anywhere we went on this trip. (Hot take: Italian coffee is overrated. Fight me.)

The bed was big and comfy, and the room had just enough space for us to move around without bumping into each other. I’m an “unpack and use the drawers and hangers” guy, and this was a hotel where I absolutely would be doing that. We could already tell that Hotel Bagues was much fancier than we were expecting, so I wanted to get the full experience.

I also did some laundry during our stay, and not only was it cheaper than at other hotels we’ve stayed at, it was faster, too. Normally, if you send out laundry before 10am, you’ll get it by 7pm that night; if you send it out after that, you’ll get it the following day at 1pm. Well, I sent mine out by 10am, and it had already been returned by 1pm that very day (when we stopped back in to drop off some shopping bags). Fastest hotel laundry service I’ve ever seen. Most hotels deliver laundry late; Hotel Bagues delivered it early.

The bathroom had a bidet and toilet, and a shower with a clawfoot and overhead shower. One wrinkle was that the bathroom had all-glass doors, so don’t share one of these rooms with someone you don’t want to see naked. The bathroom was good, designed to keep water off the floor (which I like), and had enough towels for us. The flowers and all that little stuff made the room feel special. We hadn’t expected this hotel to be so nice, so we were giddy taking it all in.

The room (I think we were upgraded but I can’t remember) had a balcony with a view of La Rambla below and its many, many people. This made for entertaining viewing on Good Friday when the scary religious parade went by. Yet I don’t remember the noise being too big of an issue compared to other places we stayed in Europe.

While Eriko got ready to rush out and see Barcelona, I perused the room service menu. We were scheduled to visit Mirador Torre Glories at sunset, which meant we might be getting back rather late. It was possible we’d get back after most local places were closed (it was a weeknight), so there was a chance we’d need to do room service. After seeing that the menu included tomato bread and fancy Iberico ham, I made sure to do whatever it took to cause that situation to occur.

Room Service at Hotel Bagues

Upon returning, we found that the hotel does full turndown service. They put slippers by the bed, along with a sheet to put your feet on before getting into your slippers so that you never put your bare feet on the floor. Eriko really liked this addition. They also offered a pillow menu like at the Conrad Koh Samui, and put chocolates on our pillows. This is, of course, the most important part of turndown service - so much so that on another day, when we were in the room when they came by, the lady who knocked just said “chocolate?”

Like a lot of room service menus, this one was expensive, but not too expensive, putting us in that conundrum of “Should we do it? Should we DO IT?” just like Homer and Mindy. Because we’d just spent several days in Brussels eating our faces off, I decided NOT to get the foie gras. We went with the tomato bread, Iberico ham, and a salad to be healthy.

The salad was fine, but I don’t remember it. I do remember the ham and bread. We fell in love with both these things while eating at Gracia in Tokyo, and I’d say this version wasn’t quite as good as that one. It was tasty, but one thing you learn when visiting Barcelona is that Iberico ham is EVERYWHERE. It isn’t the rare delicacy you might think, and while there is certainly a variety in terms of quality, I didn’t see this special brand standing out in any real way. One nice thing about it, though, is that because it’s sliced thin, 80g is a lot of ham.

We also got hot tea, because our room had no kettle. This is the only mark I can think of against the room. They should put a kettle and tea in there. Other than that, there’s not much to complain about. Because of the placement of the bathroom door, the TV was set to the left, so it was a little far for Eriko while we were in bed. But the first night, I turned it on, and Aliens was on TV. The second night: The Quest. Night 3? Spider-Man 2 with Alfred Molina. Barcelona is a cool place.

Breakfast at Hotel Bagues

There isn’t a dedicated breakfast room at Hotel Bagues; the breakfast buffet is served at the lobby bar, with just a few tables. We never saw more than one other table eating at the same time as us during our stay; maybe people like to go out to breakfast, or this is more of a “room service breakfast” type of hotel. I don’t know, but some of the other guests struck us as the “complainy rich people” sort, so perhaps they preferred to eat in their rooms away from… us.

The buffet was a good size, with standard European fare like granola, pastries, fruit, cold cuts, and a separate menu where you could order hot food. I can honestly say I was stunned by the quality of the scrambled eggs (not watery!) and bacon (first crispy bacon I’ve had outside America!).

The guy who served us and brought our coffee was incredibly nice and friendly. He remembered who we were and chatted with us and was genuinely pleasant the entire time we were there. If that doesn’t sound remarkable to you, spend some time in Europe, and you will see that smiles are rationed around there.

The one thing that bugged me about breakfast was what was waiting at the end of the buffet: tomato bread and Iberico ham. The same tomato bread and Iberico ham we’d just paid like 50 bucks for the night before, offered for free at the breakfast buffet. I sure wish we’d known that before we ordered it.

If you don’t have Hilton status providing free breakfast, this buffet is 35 Euros, which is crazy expensive. Actually, now that I think about it, that may be why no one was there. It’s a nice buffet, but not worth $40. Get a Hilton Business Card or go out for breakfast. La Boqueria is right there.

The rooftop pool at Hotel Bagues

We were initially hesitant about visiting La Boqueria, Barcelona’s famous food market, because of a bad experience at London’s Borough Market, which was so crowded we were nearly crushed to death on our way to getting a cold pie and disappointingly bland Scotch egg. But it turns out that if you get there early enough, La Boqueria isn’t too crowded, meaning it was actually fun. We got some burritos and juices and brought them back to the hotel. But where to eat them? Why not the rooftop pool area, which we had initially thought would be useless but now proved clutch thanks to the unseasonably warm weather?

Like the lobby bar, the rooftop lounge is quite small. In fact, the pool itself is comically small. They are not expecting a ton of people up there. But that was fine because there weren’t many people there. Our only competition were a couple old people who’d fallen asleep with their drinks in their hands. It’s a quiet and relaxing place.

And that view. Oh, man. Nice weather and a gorgeous view. What could be better? That’s why it doesn’t matter that the pool is small. That pool is for chilling and admiring the view, not for actual swimming. We enjoyed our time up there so much, we came back the next day for some mid-day coffee and book time, my favorite. (They don’t actually serve coffee up there, but you can bring it up from the lounge bar.)

Unless you’re a lazyboi like me, a quiet rooftop area where you can chill with your Kindle probably isn’t going to move the needle on this hotel, but it’s just one more thing that they did extremely well. The hotel doesn’t have restaurants or night clubs or waterslides or whatever makes a hotel cool in your opinion, but it maximizes its small space to provide - dare I say it - five-star service.

Conclusion: should you stay at Hotel Bagues in Barcelona?

For three nights, we paid 1,244.73 Euro, not counting laundry, room service, coffee from the bar, and the 16.5 Euro daily city tax (8.25 per person, per day). That’s $468.90 per night. Even though we were there on Good Friday, that seems to be a decent rate. For random weeks in September and October, it’s much more, and the Hilton Honors points rates for those random weeks are astronomical. Maybe we just got a good deal. I don’t know. If you want to go the second week in November, it’s only $323 or 70,000 Hilton Honors points, so grab that deal now if you plan to visit Barcelona this November.

$468 is a lot for a hotel room. It’s enough to make me wonder what possessed me to book Hotel Bagues in the first place. I honestly don’t remember. There are certainly less expensive hotel rooms in Barcelona (less expensive SLH rooms on Hilton’s website, as a matter of fact), and if you’re the type of person to be like, “hey, I’m not gonna spend much time in the room anyway,” you might not get value out of Hotel Bagues. You also might not want to be smack in the middle of the busiest area of Barcelona. To each thine own, etc.

When you’re on vacation, the thing that matters most is location. You don’t want to spend your precious holiday in cabs or on busses, and while Barcelona’s public transit is quite good (you can use a credit card to boop your way onto a train or bus instead of having to buy tickets at a machine), it’s best to stay at a hotel that’s near the stuff you care about. Hotel Bagues is close to the Gothic Quarter, Casa Batlló, La Boqueria, great restaurants like Cinc Sentits as well as cheaper options, the Moco Museum and other art attractions, the Corgi Cafe, shopping, & the crazy Good Friday parade, and is walking distance to Place de Catalunya, where you can get a bus to BCN or to Park Guell, meaning changing trains was something we only had to do when we made a mistake and got off at the wrong stop.

Since we were only in Barcelona for three days, I’m glad we stayed so close to everything we wanted to do. The people in Barcelona, by the way, are way nicer than advertised - probably the nicest we met on our trip, despite Barcelona’s anti-tourist reputation. We highly recommend it as a destination, and recommend Hotel Bagues for first-timers and those who want a really high-end place to stay.

Because the best part about Hotel Bagues is that it’s fancy. All the stuff in the room, the hallway where the numbers are projected on the doors, the gold in the staircase - it all just feels fancy. They treated us like we were fancy folk. Fancy fancy fancy. That’s what I want you to remember. And they offer things we didn’t try, like free access to small history museums around town.

This hotel nails all the little things, like the demeanor of the breakfast guy or the dude out front who told us the best bus to take to the airport or the free umbrellas we could take with us or the free water and mini bar or even the nice Nespresso machine. That stuff elevates this hotel above your standard Hilton or other chain hotel to a luxury experience that was without a doubt the best hotel we stayed at on our trip.

If we go back to Barcelona, it might be hard to justify paying for a hotel this nice again, given that there are so many cheaper options. But I know I’ll really want to stay there again, because the truth is, this place is worth what they’re charging.

Go to Barcelona. Stay at Hotel Bagues. You deserve a vacation. Well, you probably don’t, but take one anyway. And eat tomato bread. Lots of tomato bread.

Where is Hotel Bagues in Barcelona?

Address: La Rambla, 105, Ciutat Vella, 08002 Barcelona, Spain

Phone: +34 933 43 50 00

Website: hotelbagues.com

We booked Hotel Bagues through Hilton, where we have Gold status thanks to my Hilton Surpass Card. In addition to a hefty welcome bonus after a relatively low minimum spend, the card also gets you free breakfast, room upgrades, and a free night after you spend $15,000 in a calendar year (and unlike the free nights you get with, say, a Hyatt credit card, you can use Hilton free night certificates just about everywhere, any night of the week, no blackout dates). I recommend Hilton and I recommend this American Express card. Maybe one day I’ll take the trouble to get an affiliate link for them. But today is not that day, so I guess use our link or don’t, but if you’re a person who understands how to use credit cards responsibly, you can get a lot of value from this card.