Emperador Hotel Madrid

The hotel lobby looks like a 4* hotel, unfortunately that’s where the story ends. Our room on the 4th floor overlooked drab grey bits of the building and only by craning our necks our of the window and vertically upwards could we see the colour of the sky.
Ah! but at least you were at the back of the Hotel so there was no noise from the Gran Via. Correct, unfortunately however we had an interconnecting door with the adjoining room. Interconnecting was an understatement, if we spoke Spanish we would undoubtedly have shared the secrets of several families next door, as well as their TV preferences. In our experience it is certainly true that the locals like to return home at 5.32 am. Breakfast (and we have enjoyed several outstanding Spanish breakfast experiences) was bland.
The Toaster would have provided case studies for a hoard of HSE inspectors (and probably excited some industrial archaeologists). Nevertheless, after six passes the bread did go a little brown, if we’d wanted the normal "toasty" colour it would have meant getting up 2 hours before the restaurant opened! ( I exaggerate here, but only here).
The bar bill for four drinks (nothing special) was 24 EUR. The safe didn’t work and I was reprimanded for not telling them earlier! Oh Bliss, who awards the stars? Do they go further than the lobby? The location is good but we expected so much more. Take your earplugs.