Hotel Melia Bilbao

First of all, the service provided by Elena Vegas - Guest Experience Manager - is perfect. Before arriving we had contact about our planning and she had good ideas and made reservations. Also during our stay she welcomed us in a wonderful way. About the hotel; checking in gave some troubles, but at the end they arranged it. Our rooms (at The Level) were very nice, but unfortunately there was a terrible drain smell in my bathroom, which happened to be the broken sewage. They repaired this immediately. The bath tub didn’t work well (filling up with water); they tried to fix it, but I haven’t be able in taking a bath. Cleaning of the room good, but no service at night, which may be expected in a 5-star hotel. Breakfast is fine, not too much but high quality and we liked the lounge room The Level; where we took some bites during the day/evening. Pity that in the 4 days in the hotel every day exact same bites and barely any variations. Overall the service, friendliness and courtesy definitely 5 stars and on top the service provided by Elena. The rooms and the maintenance 3-4 stars. Breakfast 4-5 stars. The location of the hotel is perfect, close to the Guggenheim, many good restaurants and the river. You will have a really good stay in this hotel. Thank you @elena, you are the star of the hotel🫶

We stayed at this hotel during a nearby conference. At first glance, it’s a nice-looking hotel with a pleasant ambiance. Unfortunately, someone — most likely housekeeping — took a two-day-old bottle of perfume from the bathroom. No real effort was made to investigate or find a solution. While I understand that it’s difficult for the hotel to determine whether the perfume was actually taken from the room, a more serious and professional response would have been appreciated. Instead, I was told that "valuable belongings should be kept in the safe." But honestly, who puts a bottle of perfume in the safe out of fear it might get stolen? It's disappointing that a hotel claiming to be five stars (which I seriously doubt) handles customer concerns in this way. A review like this could have been easily prevented — but they left me no choice. On another note: when emptying the bathtub, water comes up through the shower drain, releasing a very unpleasant smell. That said, breakfast was good, and the dinner in the evening was very enjoyable. The junior suite was spacious, and the hotel overall was clean (so clean, in fact, that even perfume disappears).

Unfortunately, I encountered a very rigid response when I made a genuine mistake: I selected the correct day but the wrong month for my booking on the web site, the reservation was prepaid and non-refundable, I had hoped for a degree of flexibility and understanding — especially from a 5-star international hotel. In the end, I lost the full €850, and even paid for a breakfast I never received. It’s a reminder of how hospitality can sometimes feel more procedural than personal, with policies taking precedence over empathy. I leave it to the reader to form their own impression.