Dorma Coliseum

If you like your city hotels with a bit of history rather than a corridor of anonymous beige, Dorma Coliseum has a story to tell. The building opened in 1929 as the María Lisarda theatre before becoming the Coliseum cinema, and its restoration keeps that cinema heritage in the foreground. The façade, shared spaces and bedrooms all refer back to classic film, while the interiors bring the idea into the present rather than turning the place into a museum set.

This is a practical base for a Santander break built around walking, eating and seeing the city properly. You can return from a day out to air conditioning, a bar, the hotel restaurant or a café, then retreat behind soundproofing in selected rooms. English and Spanish are spoken by the hotel team, so you can deal with the useful things without resorting to mime.

Plaza Remedios, in the historic centre of Santander. The Town Hall, the cathedral and Plaza Porticada are only a few steps away, putting the old city directly outside the front door rather than requiring a taxi-based campaign of exploration.

La Esperanza Market, Plaza de las Atarazanas and Plaza Porticada are among the nearby landmarks. The hotel is near the beach. For airport arrivals, Santander Airport is 4.3 miles away, with the journey taking about 15 minutes by taxi.

If you are driving, the address to enter into your sat-nav is Plaza de los Remedios, 1, Santander 39001, Spain. Parking and a garage are available, which is handy in a central-city location where the car is rarely the most elegant member of the travelling party.

The room choice is chiefly about how you want to sleep and what you want to see when the curtains open. Double rooms with a city view suit a couple who would rather wake to Santander than to a wall, while twin-bed rooms make sense when two divers want separate sleeping arrangements without booking separate rooms. For a little more room to spread out, the junior suite is the natural step up.

The better-equipped deluxe double rooms cover the useful post-dive basics: air conditioning, heating, a minibar, blackout blinds, soundproofing, a safe, Wi-Fi, television, wardrobe and a desk. There is also a private bathroom, hairdryer, towels and toiletries. Blackout blinds matter when an early start is on the agenda; soundproofing matters when the city has not yet agreed that the evening is over.

The hotel has 92 rooms across six floors. Rooms are non-smoking, and room service is available. A minibar gives you somewhere to keep a cold drink, while the desk is there if you need to sort travel plans rather than pretend that every holiday task can be handled from a phone.

Breakfast comes as a buffet, served from 7:00 to 10:30 on weekdays and from 8:00 to 11:00 at weekends and on public holidays. That gives you a reasonably early start on working days, though the later weekend opening may suit a slower morning after a long dinner or a day spent on the move.

For lunch and dinner, Cafetería Bambalinas serves the hotel’s main meals. Lunch runs from 13:30 to 15:30 and dinner from 20:00 to 23:00. The café opens from 10:30 to midnight on weekdays, and from 11:00 to midnight at weekends and on public holidays, so it also covers the useful middle ground between a full meal and the moment when you realise that coffee alone was not a dinner plan.

There is a bar, a restaurant and a café, with a food dispenser also available. Breakfast can be taken in your room. The exact meal arrangement depends on the room booking, so check what is included before you assume that every morning is automatically on the house.

The main non-diving activity on site is the fitness room, with gym equipment for a little movement after a day spent walking Santander or sitting in transit. It is a straightforward option for keeping the legs working without turning the hotel into a sports camp.

For a quieter afternoon, the city itself does the heavy lifting. The hotel can help with excursions, and the surrounding historic centre puts cultural and architectural sights within walking distance. The former theatre and cinema setting also gives the common areas a character that a standard business hotel would struggle to fake, even with a very determined lobby television.

There is no need to build the evening around organised entertainment here. A walk through the centre, a drink at the bar and a meal at Bambalinas make a perfectly workable rhythm when you want the day to slow down.

Check-in is from 15:00 and check-out is by 12:00. Early arrival and late departure can be requested, which may help if your travel timetable refuses to line up neatly with hotel time. Reception operates around the clock, and the hotel can arrange transfers, including airport transfers.

Wi-Fi is available throughout the hotel. You also have luggage storage, a safe, concierge services, laundry, dry-cleaning and ironing services. The hotel provides accessible facilities, including wheelchair access, and has meeting and conference spaces if your trip includes work as well as wandering.

Parking and a garage are available for guests travelling by car. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club and cash are accepted. The hotel does not accept pets. If you are travelling with children and need an extra bed, check the room category carefully because availability depends on the selected room.

The hotel’s environmental work focuses on reducing energy and water consumption and taking measures to lower its carbon footprint. It also preserves the building’s historic and artistic heritage, which matters here: the cinema past is part of the hotel rather than something removed during renovation.

Local purchasing is part of the approach as well, with support for local trade through the use of local products. It is a practical combination of keeping an old Santander building in use, reducing consumption and giving some of the spending around the hotel a local route.