I booked this hotel on the Internet before I arrived. They call it a hostal and it is located on the 5th floor only of its building. Each of the 26 rooms are private with TVs and air conditioning and the bathrooms have hairdryers attached to the walls. My single room was small with a double bed, but adequate and clean. The location was great . . . less than 5 minutes to either of 2 Metro stations and about a 10 minute walk to the Prado.
I arrived at 10:30am, and unlike many other places where you can't check in that early, it was no problem getting into my room which was great after a long red-eye flight. The women working behind the desk continued with this accomodating disposition the entire 3 nights I stayed. They offered me an umbrella in the rain and heeded me advice to close my purse better so as not to be a victim of pickpockets.
The reception area with soft, black leather couches was my favorite area to drink coffee and read. I preferred it over my room and the back sitting area which has several tables and chairs, but is more sterile. Since I had switched time zones and now was 6 hours ahead of my usual schedule, I kept waking up before dawn each morning and having the sanctity of this reception area in the early morning was great.
Also in the reception area was a Nestle coffee machine and a soda machine. I loved this coffee machine where .50 Euros gives you the choice of making your coffee with different levels of sweetness, from black coffee to very sweet Capucchino.
Now for the reasons I can't Highly Recommend Hotel Astoria. My second night, I could hear my neighbor snoring which made me realize the walls were pretty thin or he was a very heavy snorer. The third night, a family with 2 small children moved into the room next to me and preceded to unpack with their door open so for over an hour I tolerated these little girls crying and running up and down the halls and in and out of their room. When I couldn't take it anymore, I went to the front desk, but the usual women that attended the front desk were replaced by a man who said he couldn't do anything about it. However he finally asked them to be quieter and this got them to shut their door and contain the children inside the room. The fact that the building was constructed in the 1800's became all too apparent as the noisy neighbors could still clearly be heard through the paper thin walls. Unfortunately, you can't control who stays in the room next to you, so although it was definitely memorable, I can only Somewhat Recommend Hotel Astoria since an important feature of an accomodation is the ability to get to sleep!