Hotel room review: ME Barcelona

I stay in a lot of hotels. But rarely do I think: I’d like to move into the room in which I am sleeping. However I would make an exception for the suite in which I spent the last night of my stay in Barcelona: the Hotel ME Barcelona.  But, although it’s part of the huge Melia chain, it’s no cookie cutter outfit. There are just four ME lifestyle hotels, two in Mexico: Cabo & Cancun, and two in Spain: Madrid & Barcelona. I’m normally very dubious about lifestyle hotels that try to sell you a philosophy.  All I want from a hotel is a good bed, calm, aesthetics that don’t give me a headache and, most of all, good service.

The ME Barcelona somehow manages to transcend its stylish selling point, and become more than the sum of its parts.

The public spaces are attractive and smell delicious, thanks to a custom blended room fragrance.  There’s a  compact & refreshing swimming pool half way up the side of the hotel, set in a bar terrace, and surrounded by comfortable cabanas, which gets busy at night with a crowd of very attractive locals, (as opposed to shorts & sandal-clad tourists.)
That’s because it’s not in tourist-central Barcelona, but maybe four or five stops from Placa de Catalunya, away from the madding crowds and slap bang in Barcelona’s hottest upcoming neighbourhood Poblenou, (which I wrote about here.)

I loved the spectacular rooftop bar (below), with views over all of Barcelona, and peeked into the restaurant (it has serious gastronomic leanings in a great space, but I didn’t eat there.) The night I stayed Chanel  were hosting a perfume launch and there were suitably beautiful people wafting about the public spaces. And the staff. I haven’t mentioned how utterly charming everyone with whom I came into contact.

And then my suite. Oh my suite was just wonderful. From the Eames chair to the Wii, everything looked great, worked better. My bed was a cloud, the bath drew in seconds, the pillows were just right and the towels soft. There was a vast dressing room, a marvellous view to the sea, a chaise with a knitted throw to warm my knees, and an iPod playing funk. And enough space to swing an entire family of cats. And their kittens. There wasn’t a single thing I would have changed. (And I truly am the picky guest from hell after twelve years of hotel reviewing.)

I spent most of my stay on that chaise above, writing copy & being distracted by the view. That’s when I wasn’t lolling on the bed, luxuriating in an Aveda bubble bath, swimming lengths in the pool, or eating the most ginmorous and utterly scrumptious breakfast from the vast, vast buffet.

And here’s the short video I shot of my room. Do look: the photos can’t possibly do it’s fabulous-ness justice.

More of my photos of the hotel here.

LLG was a guest of the Hotel ME Barcelona