Madrid: Hotels/Hostals with big & comfortable mattresses?

My wife and I are heading to Madrid for our first time April 8 through April 14. We have traveled in Europe before so we can picture the Hostal type places that are popular here and generally like staying in this type of place. Our concern, however, is about the beds. As we use the place primarily for sleeping we don't place a large value on the size of the room, but do on the mattress. I am 6'4" and 225 lbs and simply don't fit well into every type of bed. I am concerned that some of the beds are small enough that I will not get a good nights sleep (not to mention my wife who is 6'0" herself) We have also been spoiled by good mattresses, and not being a small guy, I do not sleep very well on a thin mattress.

I have done a search here, but have not found a lot of info about bed sizes, except single/double discussions. Where would you suggest we stay? or How do you suggest we approach this?

Our priorities are:

1. Clean
2. A comfortable and large matress.
3. Price: 50 Euros sounds wonderful, I would like to stay under 90 Euros, but will consider up to 125 Euros if we need to.
4. Location: Appropriate for a first time visitor. We are however very used to subways, so sights don't necessarily have to be across the street as long as we are convienient to the subway. In fact we often prefer a more residential type neighborhood rather than the more touristy areas.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thank-you.

P.S. Madridman if you are reading, we want to try to make it to your party on April 11, sounds like great fun!

check the deals offered through Bancotel http://www.bancotel.com/talon/index_e.htm . Most of the hostales I know have beds that are comfortable but not extremely so (like the Swedish Bed they advertise in NYC?)and for a big fellow you need your own (large) bed. The good news is the hotels should be hurting for business so 3 coupons should give you a nice chance. Don't forget you have to buy them in batches of five.

The bancotel.com link apparently does not work!

Martín de Madrid: I fixed the above link. Whenever people put a period or command immediately after their URLs it renders them "bad URLs". You can get away with periods and commas after a .com but not after a .html or other extensions. I fix lots of links on the message board like this. People are more likely to visit a site when the link is clickable than making them have to copy/paste or remember the adress to type into the browser's address bar. Okay - enough already. hehehe..

The Mile Dog, hope to see you at the party!!!!!!! And regarding your above question about the beds, most of the hostel ("hostal") beds in Spain are generally shorter than "normal" beds in, say, the USA. Regarding finding comfortable mattresses, this is hit-and-miss too. Sometimes they are and sometimes not. Hotels, I'd think, would have bigger, possibly newer mattresses.

You won't find TOO many Spaniards at 6'4" and 225 lbs.

It might be too late to find availabilty (maybe not though) but you could try the standards discussed here (in hotels) for less than 90 Euros like Hotel Plaza Mayor (next to the Plaza Mayor) and Hotel Europa (on Puerta del Sol).

Saludos, MadridMan

My room at the Intur Palacio San Martin in Madrid had two double beds together (a super matrimonio?). Lots of room. Website @ http://www.intur.com/ingles/sanmartin/fsanmartin.html

I just returned from Spain yesterday, our last leg of the journey being Madrid. We stayed in Hostal Adriano (50 euro per double room) and it was great! The building is being renovated, so the entry way and stairwell are totally destroyed and there is no elevator yet, but believe me, when you make the climb what you will find is great friendly service & adorable rooms (especially for a hostal!!) Clean, functional showers & rooms, and comfortable beds with down comforters. Make sure you ask for a double bed, or you will probably have 2 singles. They make the beds and will carry your bags if you ring the bell when you get there. Also, they called us a shuttle service to get us to the airport. There is a post dedicated to Hostal Adriano on this site , so take a look at what others had to say, too.
Good luck, and please excuse my spelling, I'm still a bit jet lagged.

Thank you for all the responses! MM I checked and Hotel Plaza Mayor is booked. Hotel Europa has rooms. Doubles for 65 Euros and Superior Doubles for 93 Euros. Does anyone have any experience here, is the superior worth the $? Given our primary concern of a decent sized bed, is it going to have a bigger/better bed?

Superk--Thanks for the reccomendation on Hostal Adriano, it sounds great and the price sure sounds right. We don't mind the stairs. Could you tell us about the size of the double beds? How do they compare to a US Queen/King?

The Mile Dog, you'll find lots of reviews about Hotel Europa here in this forum. Just click the SEARCH link above/right and use keywords like MADRID HOTEL EUROPA and you'll find those previous reviews. Any new reviews of this place by newer meessage board members? I really don't know about the bed sizes. I suppose you could always email them and ask.

As for other double beds, I'd guess they're more along the lines of a double bed in the USA - definitely not a queen or king size. We did stay in one nicer hotel in Galicia which did have a big queen sized bed.

Saludos, MadridMan

I am not sure how particular you are when it comes to mattresses, but I am also 6'4" and around the same weight. We have stayed at the popular Hostal Lopez and, although we always had two singles, I found the beds to be comfortable and adequate. Granted, my feet hung over the end, but I am used to that - only a king size bed is long enough for me. Of course, after walking all over Madrid each day, I was always tired enough that the floor might have been comfortable!

Before I went to Madrid two weeks ago, I took a chance on Priceline and bid $75 for a 5 star hotel. I got rooms at the Hesperia Madrid, which were gorgeous and the mattress was to die for. We stayed in the Castellana District, which is why we got that room for that price. I have never slept in a more comfortable bed, and I am a 5'11 female. So long as you stick with a 5 ***** bid, I don't think you can go wrong.

Atrapalo.com --a reservation service by inet that I have used twice with excellent results-- shows the following hotel availability if you use the Bancotel checks. Atrapalo is more practical than Bancotel because you plug in, your city, your dates and it gives a list of the hotels available. Quick and nice.

Here are some of the availabilities for the dates shown:

Hotel 08-04 09-04 10-04 11-04 12-04 Total
OSUNA *** 1 1 1 1 1 Talones:5
250,00 € RESERVAR
CROWNE PLAZA **** 2 2 2 2 2 Talones:10
500,00 € RESERVAR
PRAGA **** 2 2 2 2 2 Talones:10
500,00 € RESERVAR
INTUR PALACIO SAN MARTIN **** 2 2 2 2 2 Talones:10
500,00 € RESERVAR
MONTE REAL ***** 2 2 2 2 2 Talones:10
500,00 € RESERVAR
EMPERADOR **** 2 2 2 2 2 Talones:10
500,00 € RESERVAR
OCCIDENTAL MIGUEL ANGEL ***** 3 3 3 2 2 Talones:13
650,00 € RESERVAR
HUSA PRINCESA ***** 3 3 3 2 2 Talones:13

Thank you all for your responses! We won a Priceline bid for Apr 11-14 for the Westin Palace for USD125/night. The first 3 nights are booked at the Crowne Plaza through Bancotel for 2 checks/night (100 Euros/night). This was in the upper end of our price range, but from reading reviews I think we will be very happy with these hotels.

I think you will be more than happy with these hotels. If you get another chance, check out the AC Hotels. They are great and I thought the beds were very comfortable.
Being 6'2" and having a brother that's 6'5"', I have learned to also look for things like big beds when traveling.

I'll never forget my study abroad program. i had a bed that had a footboard. I ended up sliding my feet through a space in them when I went to sleep a night.