Hotel Breakfasts?

"Copious amounts of coffee" could be your undoing. Most bars and cafés will have a much cheaper breakfast than the hotel, but no free refills on coffee. And the cup you buy will probably be a small espresso size.

However, there's a good chance your hotel will have a kettle of some sort in your room, perhaps even a pod type coffeemaker. You may need to ask for or buy more pods or packets of coffee, but you could at least have all you want.

We love hotel breakfasts, but yes, they are often very pricey.

Depends on what type of morning person you are. We are breakfast eaters, and many are not.
We go to hotels with breakfast, for the convenience. I don't have the patience to wander in the morning to find a breakfast cafe. And my husband is up earlier, and likes to go down to breakfast and at least get coffee before I'm up. It's then nice to be able to go back to the room to brush your teeth and finish your morning grooming.
Everyone is different, what suites your style?

I haven't been to Granada, and our hotel in Madrid (Artrip) offered a free light continental breakfast. But the 15 Euro breakfasts offered by our hotels in Barcelona and Seville were also mid-level properties in central locations, and were definitely worth the expense. I too drink copious amounts of coffee. I am also a huge fan of the convenience of not having to leave the hotel for my breakfast.

Many love hotel breakfasts, they open early, people load up, skip lunch or snack, and eat dinner early. I tend to be in the opposite camp, 15 euro is cheap, I have seen 20 or 25 euro a piece that can be saved a night by opting for no breakfast.

If you cannot survive without coffee at 7 AM, then it might be worth the cost, but there are usually bakeries and the local Starbucks open that early, you can get a pastry and coffee that early, better quality and for much less than the Hotel breakfast. The Spanish usually do not do a big breakfast, but will have a respite at 9 or 10, when the cafes open, The classic would be toasted bread with olive oil and tomato (don't knock it, delicious) but eggs and other items are available.

Lunch of course is at 1 or 2, so if you eat early morning, you might struggle to make it, though like I said, many visitors only snack, and there are places open at noon.

That leaves dinner, which remember does not begin really until 9:00 PM in the good places, you can find tapas earlier.

Basically, for Spain, I find the hotel breakfast an impediment to adapting to the local culture, but hey, it's your vacation, do what you want.

Since you already know your hotels, research the breakfast options. Many reviewers on Google and Trip Advisor post photos of the breakfast spread. The food options can vary greatly. I stayed at a hotel in Barcelona that barely met the definition of "Continental Breakfast." At another hotel in Madrid, there was a small kitchen attached to the breakfast area, and a woman made eggs to order and freshly prepared the tomate to go on rustic toast.

If you choose to eat breakfast out in Spain, it will be light. I spent a few years living in British Columbia, and the Canadian options are very different from the Spanish choices.

Personally, my husband and I only use the hotel breakfast if it's included with our room. We visit a local grocery or convenience store the day before and get fruit, yogurt, breads, nuts, etc. We eat that in the room before heading out for the day. My husband does love his coffee, so we look for places that either have a coffee maker or a kettle in the room. It's a real bonus if we have a minifridge. Also, some hotels will have coffee in the lobby or will allow you to grab a cup in the buffet for no extra charge. Just ask.

Like others, most of the time we’ll get the hotel breakfast as a convenience so we don’t need to go find a place to eat. By filling up we don’t need to stop for lunch and a mid day pastry and drink will hold us over. Some hotels have good buffets/breakfasts while others don’t. I try to find photos of the breakfast, then decide.

Fifteen Euros per person isn’t bad. If you went out someplace you’ll spend 2-3€ per cup of coffee and 3-4€ for a pastry. A good hotel breakfast will have eggs, meats, cheeses, yogurts, fruits, breads, pastries, juices, coffee and tea. You can have something different each day.

If you ever decide to visit small towns and villages in Spain, you’ll find that oftentimes the hotel breakfast is the only option in town.

Just take into account that, as a general experience, what you call "coffee" in some countries is called "dark water" in Spain. Our cup of black coffee is small, we call it "solo" ("alone", or "with nothing else") and tends to be quite strong, compared to the coffee I've had in Canada and the US.

If you want a similar coffee to yours in a normal cafeteria, ask for an "americano". They just add double of water to it.

Can anyone get a meal for less than 15 euros/dollars anywhere these days?
I would focus more on what the hotel breakfast is compared to what you can get in a local place (breakfast can mean many things) and if you are the type that needs a slow morning or are fine with getting out and about right away.
If they are passing off pod dreck as coffee, then I would plan a trip to a cafe.

thanks all! great feedback

The menú del día, served for lunch and consisting of an entree, a main, plus dessert, bread, water and half a bottle of wine per person (yes, half a bottle, this is true in most places in the Basque Country and neighboring regions), costs around 13 to 17eur per person. Mo-Fri. I just had today, in a restaurant in Cantabria on my way to Gijón, a wonderful lentil stew plus a very nice steak and strawberries as dessert, with red wine, bread and water (from a list of several options, about 5 or 6 for each course. 16eur per person). Delicious, healthy, affordable, and not that much known by visitors, who mainly focus on dinner, much less important to us.

An additional benefit of breakfast is talking to the other travelers. We have found this especially conducive in the smaller lodgings, with smaller, more intimate breakfast rooms.

Hi dwkerr1

Things to keep in mind:

(1) coffee in Catalonia, but also in Spain in general, is something very serious -not as much as in Italy, but close enough. Drinking "copious amounts" suggests to me that you may drink that diluted beverage so common from your southern neighbours -apologies if that's not the case. That is not considered "drinking coffee" here. Saying so because, although you'll find places serving "cafè americà" (American coffee), which is an expresso diluted with hot water in a 1:3 or 1:4 proportion, not even that might be the sort of coffee many drink in NorthAmerica. A "coffee" in these shores ranges from expresso to latte and everything in between, but much stronger and normally in far smaller cups than you might be used to. Here you have a "guide" on what's the usual types of coffee in Spain: https://www.bartalentlab.com/app/uploads/Ilus3_Cafe-1140x806.jpg Note that some "varieties" might differ depending on the area you visit especially noting different languages are spoken (ie. Catalan, Galician, Basque...)

(2) As a general rule of thumb, hotels overcharge for breakfasts. Period. In this day and age, especially in cities like Barcelona, one can find all sorts of breakfasts, from simple coffee and croissant to full English breakfasts (sort of) to even "esmortzars de forquilla" (https://reginahotel.com/en/blog/en-barcelona-no-se-dice-brunch-se-dice-esmorzar-de-forquilla-las-claves-de-esta-tradicion-que-vuelve-a-ponerse-de-moda) elsewhere at a more reasonable cost. If anything, some value the comfort in (many) hotels of having "a wide variety of everything" in one place, but this comes at a price.

But again, this is only my point of view.

This is an interesting article on the reasons Spaniards eat so late:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/travel/article/20170504-the-strange-reason-spaniards-eat-late

As for the assertion that one cannot find a decent restaurant that doesn't open until 9 pm, it simply isn't true. I've eaten in a number of excellent restaurants at 7 or 8 pm. They serve dinner at those times because there is often a captive tourist audience who are a source of much of the restaurant's trade. It would be foolish to pass up on such trade simply to cater only for locals who want to dine later, it doesn't necessarily mean that the food is of a lower standard. I can think of at least three excellent restaurants in the central square of the Mallorcan town of Llucmajor where I spend a lot of time that open relatively early with one opening from 5 pm until midnight and I often find myself surrounded by diners from all over Europe including Spaniards.

We always elect to have breakfasts at our hotel or BnB.
They are usually not expensive (sometimes included) and you have a buffet with many food options, some offering eggs cooked to order. Going outside the hotel can waste time and there might not be a breakfast place near.

JC, that happens in tourist areas, of course, that adapt quickly to easy money. But in the vast majority of "standard" Spain dining before 9pm is quite complicated. And 9 is still early. But take into account a cultural gap: for us, it's really lunch what matters, while dinner is much less important.

Of course one can get breakfasts for cheaper outside of the hotel, but if we are staying in a nice hotel, we really enjoy going down to a lovely dining area in the morning, having a good breakfast, planning our day and then going back to the room to get ready to start our day. We don't eat a huge breakfast when we're in Spain because we do eat a bigger lunch, as is customary there, and "maybe" we are technically overpaying for breakfast, but it is worth it to us. If, when reading reviews of a particular hotel we end up staying at, the breakfast is not considered to be good, we will opt not to buy a breakfast-included rate and play it by ear when we get there.

My advice is find a local "cafeteria" near your hotel that's a little off the normal tourist track if possible. You can really get the vibe of how local people start their day and it's particularly nice to sit outside on a plaza or nice street. It will also be cheaper and in Spain there really isn't a focus on breakfast as a meal so hotel breakfasts are often disappointing for the price point.