Palacio Arriluce Hotel - The Leading Hotels of the World

Instalacionew en general. Spa

Un pequeño Hotel de lujo

La Junior suite es de tamaño reducido

Palace Arriluce hotel is a polished gem in easy reach of the gritty city of Bilbao. The welcome, room, ambience and food were superb. We found the staff to be friendly, welcoming, professional and enthusiastically helpful and made sure our brief stay was extremely enjoyable. The bed was blissfully comfortable.

An outstanding hotel that merits its * rating. The staff were extremely attentive and the facilities were excellent from a wide and sunlit terrace with views across the harbour to numerous comfortable seating areas. Rooms are well equipped with comfortable beds and outstanding air conditioning, plus the latest in Japanese style WC’s! Parking is inside the hotel grounds and near the entrance. Access to Bilbao city centre is easy enough with Neguri Metro station only a 15-minute walk from the hotel – services run every 6 or 7 minutes with a 25 minute ride time and low fares. The hotel is in an upmarket residential area and the beach is only 10 minutes walk away.

The breakfast room is a little small and is generally full around 10am but that's a minor issue as there are other areas to eat either on the tearrace or inside.

Everything was amazing!

The food at the bar. Good but could have been better.

Beautiful hotel in excellent location, but badly let down by the poor service we received. Check in was speedy and the bell boys were superb, but things went swiftly downhill. When invited to enjoy a welcome drink, we sat on the patio unattended for at least 15 mins. This is a 5 star hotel; I did not expect to go in search of staff. Upon finding 4 youngsters hiding behind the bar, I managed to secure drinks. We chose the hotel for the restaurant and perused the chef’s menu over a drink. We agreed to book the taster menu and wine flight for my birthday and made other reservations accordingly. When I then asked to make a booking, I was told the chef wasn’t there and the meal was unavailable for the entire trip. This is not acceptable. If the menu is not available, it should not have been handed to us. Our plans needed changing and we were not off to the best start. I will continue below….

One day 2 we asked whether we could enjoy hot drinks by the pool (a floor below) but no-one seemed to know. The manageress/deputy said she would ask (didn’t she know this?) and never returned, so we sat and waited next to a dirty breakfast table before ordering tea and coffee. I have evidence of uncleared tables in a 5 star hotel. The terrace canopy was up and we asked for it to be lowered, but no-one knew how to operate it. It would have been funny if it were not 815 euros per night. It proceeded up go up/down noisily. Apologies were made about this, but really?! When we wanted to ‘sign’ we had to go in search of staff but the young lady was unable to operate the iPad which caused further fuss and delay. We felt like we were a nuisance, not your guests. By the pool is a bar. It is not manned and guests have a buzzer to request drinks. We regularly used this but no-one came and eventually I went behind to bar and used the staff phone to call reception to send someone to the bar! The young lady proceeded to clean a glass and splashed water over my designer straw bag! At one point I accidentally knocked over a drink and no-one saw or came to mop it up, leaving me to go in search of staff. We did have a good service once in the bar one evening with nice olives, but otherwise this was most disappointing and led to bickering between me and my husband about whether to ‘say anything’. I have never left a bad review before and take no pleasure in doing so, but this was woefully inadequate for the chain’s mission statement.