Hotel Maria Cristina a Luxury Collection Hotel

Such a fantastic hotel and staff. Incredible experience start to finish. Everyone was super nice and helpful. We even accidentally left behind some clothes and they found a way to get it to us at our next town in France. Highly recommend this hotel!!

This is a first-rate, 5-star hotel and possibly the best Marriott Luxury hotel I have ever stayed at. The hotel is in a beautiful classic building opened in 1912 and it has been perfectly updated and is meticulously maintained. Our room was large and beautiful, with lots of character but with all modern amenities. It is in a great location -- we were able to walk to everything we wanted to get to in San Sebastian, including restaurants in multiple neighborhoods. The location on the river but near the beach is perfect. The bar and all other public areas of the hotel are beautiful and spacious. With all that, the best thing about this hotel is the wonderful management and staff, who are friendly but extremely professional and helpful in every way. We hope to return to this beautiful city and when we do, we will return to the Maria Cristina.

So, this was the worst service I have ever experienced in a five-star hotel. When we arrived, our rooms weren’t ready yet, which wasn’t a problem since we were early. But the receptionist told us that the rooms would definitely be ready by 3 PM, that we could go into the city in the meantime, and that he would contact us as soon as the rooms were ready. However, that call never happened. Then, when we got back to the hotel at around 3:30, the rooms were still not ready. After waiting in line at the reception for about 15 minutes, another staff member approached us and asked if he could help. We explained the situation, saying that we would like to check in and that the rooms still weren’t ready. He took our names, said he would take care of it, and disappeared through a door behind the reception. After another 15 minutes, we realized he didn’t seem to be coming back, so we spoke to the other staff at the reception, who told us that the rooms simply weren’t ready yet. We mentioned that they were supposed to be ready by 3 PM, as that was the check-in time, but the only excuse we got was that they were fully booked, and that’s just how it was. We made quite a fuss, and suddenly, within about five minutes, all five rooms were magically ready, which was pretty strange. That was one situation that really bothered us. On the second day, in the evening, I was in my room at around 10 PM and wanted to order something from room service. The phone was broken, so I went down to the reception and asked if they could just send up a few slices of bread with some butter. They said it was no problem and that they would send it up to my room. After about an hour, I realized that no one had come, and nothing had happened. That’s kind of the situation in this hotel: the staff is friendly, but nothing they say actually gets done, and it just doesn’t live up to the service you would expect in a five-star hotel. What also happened to us was the following situation: we were standing in line at the concierge desk, wanting to speak with the concierge. Someone in front of us was talking to the concierge, and we got distracted for just a second. Suddenly, when it was our turn, there was no staff member at the concierge desk anymore. We waited for about ten minutes, and no one came back. The reception was staffed, so we went over to the receptionist and asked if they could please let the concierge know that we had a question and would like to speak with them. The receptionist said, “Sure, I’ll take care of it,” but stayed at his desk, finished with his current customer, and then another ten minutes went by without anything happening. After waiting another five minutes, we went back to the reception and spoke to another staff member, explaining that we had already informed their colleague and that we still needed to speak with the concierge. This time, the staff member went to the back, and within a minute, the concierge finally appeared. This was yet another example where we thought, you know, you speak to someone who’s working there, you tell them, “Hey, the concierge isn’t here, we’ve been waiting for ten minutes, could you please get them?” They say they’ll handle it, but then do nothing, forget about it, or whatever, and you end up standing around for another ten minutes. It’s just not worthy of a hotel of this category, this kind of poor service.