My husband and I spent two weeks in Spain at the beginning of May. We were on a budget so I did a lot of research to find decent accommodations at good prices. Since the people on this board have been so helpful to me, I had to come back and write my reviews. So, here they are:

Hostal Macarena (Madrid)
The hotel staff was very nice and helpful. The lady in charge during the morning shift (Ana) didn’t speak more than a few words of English, but luckily we’re proficient enough in Spanish. Fernando, the night guy, was fluent in English. Our room had a balcony that faced Cava de San Miguel, so it was a little noisy if we opened the balcony doors. But once they were closed, about 80% of the outside noise was blocked out. We paid 63.99 euro. The room was pretty small with an even smaller bathroom! You can knock your head on the sink while sitting on the toilet! But overall, it was clean and the location was good. I would stay there again.

Hostal Meridiano (Granada)
I was anticipating a pleasant stay at Hostal Meridiano after a few positive reviews on this board, but I found it to be the contrary. There was construction a few doors down from the hotel so we had to take an alternate route to get to the hotel. The mattresses were horrible (they formed an “U” in the middle!). The balcony door didn’t close completely so we had a small stream of cold air coming into our room at night. We were asked to not shower between the hours of 23:00-7:00. The whole place just felt too much like a dorm room. I had read that Regina was extremely helpful in offering suggestions for Granada, but we could never find anyone at the front desk even when we had to turn in our keys before we left! I guess I shouldn't have expected too much since we paid 38 euro/night. I definitely wouldn't recommend this hostal unless you can't afford to stay anywhere else.

Apartment on Arfe (Sevilla)
We rented an apt. for our stay in Sevilla (59 euro/night). We wanted #3 but we ended up with #4. This apt. is on the 3rd floor (American – European 2nd floor) without an elevator/lift. There’s also a metal type stairway to get up to the upstairs bedroom and bathroom. The location was great because we could see the Giralda from our bedroom window, but the apt. wasn’t as desirable. The metal type stairs were pretty dangerous (I almost tripped a couple of times because it was very steep). The toilet had a very bad odor that we couldn’t get rid of for the 4 days we were there (and we even bought air fresheners to get rid of the smell). My theory is that something died inside the tank, but I was too chicken to find out. I would stay in the same complex again, but would definitely try to get #2 or #3 on the second floor. The staff (Alicia) was very helpful and returned all my emails in a very timely manner.

Hostal El Triunfo (Cordoba)
There weren’t many reviews of hotels in Cordoba on this site so I didn’t know what to expect from this place. I just chose the one that gave me a good price (55.82 euro/night), was close to the Mezquita, and replied to my email inquiries quickly. We were very disappointed with the hotel. The daytime front desk guy seemed more interested in chatting on the phone than in helping us. I had requested a quiet room, so he placed us on the rooftop where there were only 5 rooms. That would have been the perfect if it weren’t for the 30 noisy kids on a school field trip who had rooms on both sides of our room! We were going to ask for a room change, but luckily the kids checked out by the next morning. The cleanliness of the bathroom was a bit questionable. The shower tiles and shower head had very visible mildew. Needless to say, I would not stay there again.