My wife and I stayed at the Hotel Moderno for five days during the early part of October, 2007. We arrived in Madrid via train from Toledo, and took the metro to Puerta Del Sol, knowing that the hotel was nearby. We spotted the hotel immediately upon emerging from the Puerta Del Sol metro station, literally a mere stone's throw away. The helpful staff efficiently checked us in, and we were off on our adventures in Madrid. The location of Hotel Moderno is nearly perfect for both people who like to walk a lot, as my wife and I do, and for users of public transit. Plaza Mayor, for example, is only about a five-minute walk away. The street upon which Hotel Moderno is situated, Arenal, is a broad pedestrian walkway lined with interesting shops and restaurants.
In addition to seeing the sights and visiting the wonderful museums in Madrid, we were interested in learning more about, and purchasing, some Spanish olive oil to take home with us. Upon inquiry of the hotel staff regarding shops specializing in olive oil, we were, given not only the name of and directions to such a shop, but also a short course in Spanish olive oil, including history, geographic origins, and taste characteristics of classic varities such as picual, hojiblanca, and arbequina, including a sample tasting!
The lobby of the hotel is relatively small, but very welcoming. Our room was small, but comfortable, with a roomy outdoor deck overlooking the pedestrian avenue,Arenal.
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Madrid at the Hotel Moderno, and would certainly recommend it to others.

I travelled to Madrid alone and spent 2 days as a single lady in Madrid before rendezvousing with my husband. The hotel staff at the Moderno were very helpful, especially the nice young man from Miami who went out of his way to help me with all my questions. I felt very safe at the Moderno, even though it is centrally located and the streets are very busy until the wee hours of the morning. The windows are absolutely soundproof and the noise below didn't reach my room. The common areas of the hotel, the restaurant, etc are beautifully decorated and the rooms, though small and typically European, were spotless and comfortable. My only complaint was that there were no English speaking television stations....but I suppose I wasn't really in Madrid to watch TV. It is well located for shopping and there is an excellent wine and cheese shop just across the street which is perfect for hotel room snacking. The breakfasts were very good and all in all, I'd go back again for another stay.

The front desk staff was close to useless. There were major theater and music festivals going on in the city during our stay that the front desk knew nothing about. We had to ask a random passerby on the street to get headed in the right direction.

There was a sign on the frot desk alerting checkin customers that cabs to the airport must be aranged 48 hours in advance. However, when we checked in there was a large map covering this notice. The front desk staff further neglected to verbally mention it to us. We almost missed our flight.

Our complaint is that at the time of check-out, they showed us an invoice with prices quoted in euros, and then handed us a paper slip to sign that secretly had figures in US dollars. What they did was to use the service called ServiRed, which has its own conversion rate and automatically adds a 3% mark-up. There was no oral explanation and we only noticed this later. Though we had a special credit card that incurs no transaction fee, we were not able to use this feature of our card, and the hotel and ServiRed took advantage of our need for currency exchange.
The practice seems ubiquitous, at least in Madrid.