Pensión la Perla

Centrally located near beach, old town, and cathedral. Walking distance to shops, bars, and restaurants. Friendly, professional staff with excellent English communication skills. Impeccable cleanliness and attention to detail.

We asked for a quiet room and got one facing a big shop's delivery bay so lots of scraping metal, loud noises early in the morning. One night there was a noisy pop-up bar in the same street. Guests coming in late at night are like a stampede. Even with earplugs it was very audible. You can hear everthing, no soundproofing at all. The so called luxury double room at a whopping 189€ per night not including breakfasts is smallish and worse for wear and tear especially the small bathroom. The water leaked from the toilet, the hook on which the hairdryer was hung up, broke off one night. It fell to the ground and woke us up. You have to pay at arrival and not traditionally when you check out...now we know why. On the plus side: friendly staff, rather clean and good location. But Donostia is small and very easy to walk around so most places are well located. Maybe it's because we're a bit older (fifties/sixties) that we are more sensitive to these things but it also means we've stayed at much better places at this price. In Bilbao we stayed in a very good, quiet 4 star hotel in the city centre at less than in La Perla so I would suggest you stay in Bilbao and take the bus to San Sebastian at 14€ for a 75 minute ride and save money for a much better and cheaper accommodation in Bilbao.