Overall my husband and I had a very pleasant stay at the Dolce Sitges. Unfortunately, we got off to a very bad start. We arrived around noon tired and travel stained for a three day conference. While it was true that check in wasn't until after 2:00 pm, many of the conference attendees were arriving and getting into their rooms. The desk clerk informed us that the room assigned to us wouldn't be ready for two hours. A really good hotel would have switched our room with a guest who hadn't arrived yet.

Our room, once we got into it, was spacious, nicely decorated, with a comfortable bed. We had a pool view which meant that, during the day, there was a lot of noise from guests that had drunk too much at the outdoor bar. At night it was very quiet.

The conference center was excellent and everything ran very smoothly. We found the hotel food very good. I was unable to book any time at the spa because they were full but the exercise equipment was adequate.

Sitges itself is far from the hotel and difficult to reach without a car. It is not the most attractive seaside town--dirty, crowded, etc. I spent a morning hiking around the Garraf reserve with a guide. --interesting but better hiking can be found in the Pyrenees. I don't think the area is worth a return visit but the hotel--once we got in--was very pleasant.

This is a spectacular hotel in a beautiful location. It is what the British call "architect designed". Massive, lots of art "statements", a mix of the angular and curves. It looks as if no expense was spared in creating the concept.

BUT

I'm not sure it was designed for people to live in. And I'm not sure the staff there have any concept of customer service. It's like a monument to architecture without consideration of the practicalities, and staffed by automatons.

Some reasons for negative thoughts:

1) My room was a 350 metres walk from the restaurant, 500 metres from reception and 600 metres from the conference centre and the car park. No place for the unfit! And I wasn't at the end of the building.

2) There is an open air disco on Friday and Saturday nights (normally) upwind of the hotel. Don't plan on sleep if you cannot tolerate the constant "thump, thump" of the 1000 watt bass woofers. It starts at 2:00 am and finishes at about 6:00 am. It affects all of the western half of the hotel. Windows are not sound proofed, and in fact don't shut properly. "Dolce"? I don't think so. It's a big problem, and the hotel knows this, but it doesn't advertise this small matter.

3) Don't try to find anyone to carry your bags. They won't. I ended up making 3 round trips (3.6 kms!) at each end of my stay there. You can't get your car anywhere near the accommodation block.

4) If you have a sea view, you have a railway view. The trains aren't intrusive visually, but they like to sound their horns just as they pass the hotel. Thankfully, they don't run all night.

5) My collegues tell me that the spa is so understaffed/inefficient, it is unlikely that even as a resident you'll be able to get a slot.

6) "service" is not taught to the staff. They are taught "process". Simple example: they have a nightly "turn down service" (I never understand why) - you know, a mat put beside your bed, covers turned down, chocolate on the pillow. First night my side of the bed was turned down, but the bedside lamp on the other side of the bed was on. Yes, you guessed it, the bulb had gone. NO call to maintenance to fix it. NOT EVEN the initiative to swap the bulbs (would I ever have known?). Just strict adherence to process ...put chocloate on pillow (tick), put bedside lamp on (tick) .....

7) Breakfast advertised to start at 07:00. Turned up, and was told to go away for an hour as it was summer and it didn't open till 08:00. Took a threat to bring the general manager down to get me even a coffee - the buffet was already set out, it's just that they have these rules.......

8) There is no front entrance to the hotel, it's shut. Access is via a dirt track (watch the potholes if you are driving, it nearly wiped out my suspension) which is unknown even by local taxi drivers and other locals. It skirts round the back of a farm and up the edge of a camp-site (one of our team was threatened with dumping at the campsite by a frustrated taxi driver) The web site instructions are inadequate. Go to the (closed) entrance, and all you get is a barrier and a sign pointing up the closed road with the name of the hotel obscured by black tape. NO information about the real route to the hotel. Everyone got lost. One guy ended up driving around Sitges in the back of a taxi for more than an hour.

9) The hotel is isolated: access to Sitges without your own car is difficult - taxis are hard to come by at most times of the day, and the mini-bus "service" is a joke.

10) The restaurant failed to meet agreed times for meals for our conference. We turned up for lunch with a very tight deadline to find breakfast in full swing. Rather than just let us get on and have a brunch (the obvious thing in the circumstances), they then removed all the breakfast food and took so long to lay out lunch that most of us had to do without.

11) Plan 40 minutes to check out off peak.

I could easily go on.

That said, it is architecturally very elegant. Some people seem to think the furnishing is great, but the bed and breakfast I use in a provincial town in England is just as nice and arguably more tasteful. And the food is pretty good. BUT.......

Would I go back? Not a chance! It's overblown and just doesn't work....

My husband and I decided to stay in Sitges for a week in July following a week in Barcelona. We looked and noted that the reviews for the Dolce Sitges was not all good, but the pictures of the pools and the rooms had us.
We got off to a bad start; had to wait forever for the clerks to let us check in, and then we were given the room, I think the worst room in the entire hotel and the one farthest away from the reception and restaurants (and we were going to stay at the hotel for a week!!). Admittedly the room did have a pool view, we could could see the terrace where one of the pools were situated if we stood on our toes and stretched out. In addition this dark desolate room was so hot, as no air condition had been turned on, there were thick layers of dust on the furniture (suspected that nobody ever stays in that room).The bathroom was also so small that one could hardly turn around without bumping into something (they even cramped in a bidet). We walked what felt like a million miles back to the reception and asked for another room, mentioning that we were actually staying for a week (we later discovered that it was not a very busy week). We were informed that the hotel was full, and asked to check back the next day. Bummer, we discussed whether we should try and find another hotel, but instead we decided to make the best of it and ordered room service. As none of us were very hungry we settled for some Iberian ham and fruit salads. The Iberian ham was great, the serving was very small, but what can you expect right - even though it was € 28. The size of the fruit salad that cost € 12.50 a piece was however just shockingly small. We got maybe five small slices of melon, a few slices of pineapple topped up with some red currants and a strawberry (value maybe 50 cents). Actually all servings regardless of what you ordered in any if the hotel restaurants were small and expensive considering that you would not get full, so in the end we decided to buy snacks and fruit in a local supermarket (looking around it seemed that most of the other guests did the same).
Well back to the subject of room, we did get another room the next day. This was a light and airy room with a much more spacious bathroom and a nice poolview. The only but was that it appeared that nobody had stayed there the night before which means that we could have had it the night before... All in all it is not good value for money (even though the breakfast buffet, which was very good, was included)
We enjoyed the sun in Spain knowing that the rain poured down at home, and we enjoyed the pool area of the hotel, but we both agree that we will never go back there, ever. I mean why should we when there are so many great hotels to visit?

We booked in here for a week, hoping for a quiet retreat it being 4 Km from Sitges. We thought we would enjoy the walk down to Sitges - we were not expecting a road that was unlit and not completed (it was a dirt track in most upto the hotel) so walking was pretty much out the question. The free bus was good but you have to ring in advance for which it was a bit inconvenient and stopped at 6pm - great if you only wanted to go to the beach. A taxi cost between 8-10 euros so could stack up over a long break. The food was expensive but very nice - the breakfasts were just fabulous and made the stay OK. Noisey if you had a room facing the sea as the trains run past at high speeds at all hours and at the weekend the sounds of the nightclub near by kept us awake. Great for perhaps a luxury weekend where cost is no object as you are very isolated and have to use the hotel facilites unless you want to go into Sitges all the time. Oh and there was no shop on site for munchies or large bottles of water etc which again was a pain. Staff very friendly and helpful though.