This is a very good hotel downtown, yet our room was quiet. The room was very clean and comfortable. The staff at the hotel were quite friendly and professional. This hotel merits its 4 stars.

We stayed at this hotel for 3 nights with two children and loved the hotel. The room was very spacious with two double beds joined together, and a roll out bed for our 8 year old, even though the beds were big enough to accommodate the four of us! Clean, lovely bathroom with complimentary toiletries, and the room was tidied by the maids every day on request. Staff were extremely pleasant and helpful, even giving us advice on where to go and ordered our pizza for us! Breakfast was ok, mainly cold buffet, and the hot selection consisted of three not-so-hot items...a bit pricey for the 12 odd euros per person...Location-wise the hotel is out of the main city centre, with local shops and ice-cream parlours within walking distance. The only drawback to the area is that there were mainly only cafeterias to choose from for places to eat. Anything else was either closed or just not to our suiting. With kids we would have expected at least a back-up McDonalds or Pizza Hut but were told that there are none of these in the immediate vicinity. We went to a mini-zoo (seals) closeby (10 mins on taxi) which was within walking distance of the beach. That allowed the kids to tire themselves out for a bit....all in all a nice break with top-notch hotel.

Stayed 3 nights with a cheap Ryanair flight from Liverpool. Hotel is in a good central location - only 5-10 minutes walk to the promenade at the sea front and bars/restaurants are nearby.

Hotel staff weren't the most friendly and didn't smile much but we didn't really have a problem. (We did try to check in early at 10 am but had to wait till 12, their standard check-time, which is fine, but they weren't particularly friendly about it or welcoming).

However, we had no problems there. The room was big enough, not huge but perfectly adequate with a decent view of the streets below. If you open a window, the street noise could be quite noisy (we were on the second floor) but it didn't really bother us. At least there is something to look at! The bathroom was quite large and very modern with easy to use power shower over the bath. TV was a decent size, mainly Spanish channels of course, but there was the BBC World news channel in English.
The bed was extremely large and comfortable enough.

It only took about 7 minutes to walk from the bus station to the Hotel - best route is along Calle Cadiz and then into Calle Isabel II, which takes you all the way up to the hotel more or less. The airport bus was very efficient right outside the Arrivals, just past the taxi rank. It goes more or less every 10 minutes and was only half full when we arrived about 9 am. it only took about 10 minutes to get to the bus station in Santander. On our return it was equally efficient (the early morning buses leave about every 20 minutes - we took the 7.15 am which left dead on time).

We didn't use the cafe or restaurant so can't really comment on them. (There is a supermarket called Lupa, which was very good if you turn right on leaving the hotel and take the 2nd left turn into a side street going uphill).

All in all, the hotel was very good, it's a shame the staff weren't a bit friendlier but it didn't spoil the holiday and we would definitely stay there again.

Just got back from a long weekend in Santander (courtesy of bargain flights with Ryan Air!!!). The Silken Coliseum is a great hotel, very central and handy for the bus station, seafront, shopping and nightlife (in the Plaza de Canadio). Rooms are modern, comfortable and very clean. The hotel staff were all really friendly (we didn't come across any of the attitude that other people had written about here) and even though I can speak some Spanish, they were all keen to practise their English on me! All in all I would definitly recommend this hotel, and Santander in general, to anybody.