Eric had reviewed a bunch of hotels and narrowed the list to a handful to choose from, and I decided on the Caravan Cinema due to location in Old Town and the quirky room decor.

Checking in was a bit of a pain as the lobby is on the second floor and you need to be buzzed into the building. So, we had to telephone the cleaning lady to buzz us in, leave our bags and come back later — all communicated in very poor Spanish (me) and English (her).

Once we returned (had to call yet again), the owner was there to offer lots of advice on things to do, show us the room and set us up with the app that would allow us to buzz in to the hotel. Interestingly, we never saw this woman again during our three day stay!

The Fellini room was large and comfortable and located just off the landing on the third floor. The window was interior-facing, so even though we were on a busy street, we never heard any street noise, a big plus for us.

The amenities were fine and the bathroom had everything we needed. The faucets were a bit finicky but the shower had good water pressure.

No breakfast was included but there were plenty of bakeries and restaurants nearby. The location was very good, next to Plaza Nueva, which houses several bars and restaurants but we discovered that we would have preferred a location closer to Moyua as that was where our favorite pintxo places were, as well as most of the shopping.

Our biggest issue was the lack of a front desk presence. We checked at the reception several times during our stay, but no one was there in the late afternoon to ask questions. Our only option to speak with someone seemed to be calling the hotel phone number. This lead to problems at checkout since we wanted to change the credit card we had used to book the room and leave our bags while we walked around before catching our 3pm bus. After texting didn’t work, we called and apparently no one was scheduled to work until the mid-afternoon, on a day when they had several rooms checking out in the morning! And, of course, our ability to buzz back into the building expired right at noon. Thankfully the housekeeper was able to help us somewhat, but it should have been handled better.

Overall I think this was a fine place to stay if nothing goes wrong, but getting help from the front desk just wasn’t possible as no one was staffing it.