Hospedería Señorío De Casalarreina

“Unique place, interesting stay”

What’s not to like? It’s an old mansion house attached to an old monastery. The furnishings match the dated style of this property. Breakfast is OK. Bread for toast, hot selection of scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon. A cold fridge with small selection of ham and cheese & yoghurt. Coffee was in … more

What’s not to like? It’s an old mansion house attached to an old monastery. The furnishings match the dated style of this property. Breakfast is OK. Bread for toast, hot selection of scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon. A cold fridge with small selection of ham and cheese & yoghurt. Coffee was in a thermos. It was drinkable. Hot water in a thermos, but was only Luke warm when I used it. There was a fair selection of teas, but as a British tea-drinker, there wasn’t any ‘regular’ tea like Liptons (normal for the continent) or breakfast tea. But that was only a minor inconvenience. Bedroom had a large jacuzzi which we used (& it worked). Each bedroom is unique and quirky. Clean sheets & towels. Clean rooms, clean bathroom. All in all, we enjoyed it here.

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“Missed opportunity”

What can you you to completely miss the opportunity to transform a 500 year old monastery into a destination hotel. Plenty. The owners ought to have visited some paradores with the same pedigree elsewhere in Spain and learn. Instead they chose a Hodge podge of elements that increase the level of mi… more

What can you you to completely miss the opportunity to transform a 500 year old monastery into a destination hotel. Plenty. The owners ought to have visited some paradores with the same pedigree elsewhere in Spain and learn. Instead they chose a Hodge podge of elements that increase the level of misdirection and do not give comfort or a sense of cleanliness. The bathrooms in particular are a disaster calling for redemption. The tiles are mold infested and the old jacuzzis do not inspire a will to fill and in jump in. The shower is useless and difficult to handle without splashing all over. The electrical fixtures do not give enough light creating visibility problems where they are most needed, over the sinks. The breakfast/dining potential is wasted with poor lightning and a proper explanation that this was the cellar and the huge overhanging wooden bats were built on site to make wine. Since there is no pamphlet in any language the meaning of the site is lost and just looks weird with a rivulet running along the side, probably from the river Oja, the life giving river for the entire region. Service is not polished and very poor.So is breakfast. We had booked for two days through Booking and could have cancelled the 16 of September but sept 19 received a mail saying that in the second day of our stay a 3 day festival lasting all night, would be held and "invited us to join it". After arrival were told that indeed music and songs would last all night and sleep would be impossible. They had cancelled upon request other reservations but since hours was through Booking they would not do it. They claimed they did not know the exact date of the festival until very late and blamed City Hall for it (?). They did not show the least amount of sympathy and insisted that if we left we would have to pay for that. This we did, lost the fare but got to another more comfortable and silent hotel in nearby Navarre. By the way, they advertise free parking, Indeed it is free, it is in streets nearby. On a holiday it may be some blocks away.

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“Lots of potential”

What a shame. This property has HUGE potential to be a top boutique hotel. Unfortunately, it misses the mark completely. The property is part of a beautiful monastery property, with gorgeous stone and bags of character. Our room overlooked the fabulous main entrance to the monastery and the lov… more

What a shame. This property has HUGE potential to be a top boutique hotel. Unfortunately, it misses the mark completely. The property is part of a beautiful monastery property, with gorgeous stone and bags of character. Our room overlooked the fabulous main entrance to the monastery and the lovely town square, full of locals enjoying their Saturday night out. It's such a shame, however, that the hotel seems to have suffered from a complete lack of taste in its decor (think a irrelevant mish-mash of random kitsch - typewriters, classical columns, Edwardian English bath fixtures, tasteless medieval murals, train memorabilia - what is this all about?). It appears that the hotel's fixtures were installed some time during the 1980s and haven't been updated since. We were offered a "Jacuzzi" suite, but the bath didn't really work (and only at all after I finally found a tripped circuit breaker). Breakfast was unappetising: dreadful coffee and milk out of those pump thingees (why not just ask guests what they'd like and make it fresh), pastries and cakes right out of the plastic wrapper (one imagined), awful white sliced bread, scrambled eggs (ok?), slightly fermented freshly squeezed orange juice etc. It would be so much easier to offer something decent. The breakfast room, too, is bizarrely decorated, but has the fascinating feature of a mill stream running through it. Why not do something with this feature? The stream, no doubt, added to the off-putting musty smell in the hotel, not least in the breakfast area. Why not offer breakfast on the lovely terrace (lawn uncut, tacky lawn furniture). In short, someone needs to buy this place and completely re-do it with some taste and in a style consistent with the potential grandeur and charm of the raw material of the building. It could be a fabulous place.

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