Service: We got a terrible first impression of the whole hotel. When we arrived in the airport, we had not checked the public service transport opportunities, due to the fact that the hotel offer a shuttle bus for arriving guests. After having picked up our bags, we called the hotel and told them we had arrived and hoped for a pick-up. The lady nicely told us she would tell the driver to come and get us. An hour passed. We called again; a polite man (again) told us he would call the driver. We waited another half an hour, and were about to give up. The taxis cost at least 20 euros (!) but we were about to take that cost, furious over having wasted that much time on someone who obviously were not coming. Then the van finally came. For the drive back nine days later, everything went smoothly.
Our tip: check for buses as a way out in case the driver doesn’t show up. For us it was an extremely annoying welcoming.
When we arrived in the hotel, the reception was a dream. It is open 24-7, the staff is nice, and speaks English. (We did repeatedly try to get some help to receive a letter, and were mostly met by closed faced not interested in helping, but it was mainly our own fault that we needed to have an important letter sent to us.)
The hotel bar is fancy and modern, and the kitchen is open until (after) 23. The kitchen has nice dishes, not unbelievably expensive.
Rooms: In general, the rooms are funky, clean and nice, but with some funny solutions.
The view from the room is great, and the room has a (Bang&Olufsen(!)) TV, dimmers on all lights, and everything electric you could want for. It has good airconditioning, and you can decide how warm you want it. The bedsheets are nice, and you never have to sweat through the warm summer night. You can hear doors slamming and people talking in the neighboring rooms, but we were not at all bothered by our neighbors.
In the free mini-bar we some days found a small bottle of coke, other days there was also water, and some days we even got Fanta in addition to the two others. No one bothered that we also filled the fridge with cheese, ham and other breakfast-stuff, as the breakfast in the hotel seemed ridiculously expensive. We got all we needed in the nearby, ultrastylish shopping mall.
Funnily, there were nowhere to put our bags, but there was a nice wardrobe for our clothes.
Beds: What we really wished for, and ordered, was a queen size bed. Annoyingly, we got to single beds put together, with a hug gap in the middle. The beds are kind of low quality and on wheels, so trying to say goodnight, we would sometimes slide away from each other (even though the breaks were on).
Bathroom: The room has a funny solution – the shower is a hole in the wall with no door, and the toilet has a sliding door. The light is terrible for putting on make-up, but at least you look good in that light. The shampoo threatened to destroy our hair (we brought another), but at least it is a super offer to always give you shower cream, shampoo, body milk and a business-like package containing combs, nail files, tooth paste etc (and not only "For Him" as seen in other business hotels).
Location: The hotel is located a bit away from the city center. We spent about half an hour to get to the city, but that did not bother us at all, the funky and cheap hotel taken into account. After spending a night at a noisy, moist, sweaty youth hostel in the Girona, we really enjoyed how peaceful the congress hotel was. The public transport (metro or bus) in to town is easy and very cheap, less than a euro.