Montanyà Hotel & Lodge Review: Montseny With Kids

Key takeaways

• Montanyà Hotel & Lodge is a 4-star, 226-room mountain hotel in Seva, on the edge of Montseny Natural Park. It took us 45 minutes to drive from Barcelona with no traffic.
• We paid €1,225.14 for six nights, half board, for all four of us in one quadruple room (19–25 July) — around €204 a night for a family of four with breakfast and dinner included.
• It works genuinely well as a remote-work base. Both of us worked full days from the hotel while our sons trained at the Šarūnas Jasikevičius basketball camp, and the hotel was so quiet between meal times that some days it felt like we had it to ourselves.
• Best for: families with school-age kids and teenagers, parents whose children are at a sports camp in the area, and anyone who wants forest, pools and a spa within an hour of Barcelona.
• The one thing we didn’t love: dinner was served à la carte at the bar for our first three nights instead of the buffet, because occupancy was low.
• Our rating: 5/5

We didn’t book this hotel for a holiday. We booked it because our two sons had a week of basketball camp in Seva, and sending them away alone for a second week in a row was not something either of us was willing to do.

So we turned it into something else: the boys trained, and Dumitru and I worked full days from the hotel. Six nights, 19 to 25 July. By day three I was quietly telling colleagues they should be doing this instead of sitting in a flat in Barcelona in July.

This is a review of the hotel, not the camp. Here’s how it actually held up when you use it as a base rather than passing through for a night.

Where is Montanyà Hotel & Lodge, and how do you get there?

Montanyà Hotel & Lodge sits just outside the village of Seva, in the Osona district of central Catalonia, on Avinguda Montseny, right on the edge of the Montseny Natural Park. The medieval city of Vic is around fifteen minutes away.

We drove up from Barcelona following Google Maps and it took us 45 minutes with no traffic. Most listings quote an hour, which is probably fair at a worse time of day, but 45 minutes is what we actually did.

You need a car here, and I want to be blunt about why. The hotel is in a quiet residential area surrounded by fields and forest, and there is nothing within walking distance — no shop, no bakery, no bar down the road. If you want to buy anything at all, you get in the car and drive out of the village. We worked that out on the first day and started keeping snacks and bottled water in the room.

We drive an electric car and had enough battery to get there and back without charging at the hotel, which is worth knowing if you’re planning the same trip.

Distances worth knowing:

From the hotel	Approx. distance
Barcelona	45 min by car (no traffic)
Vic	~15 minutes
Montanyà golf course (18 holes)	3–4 km
Montseny massif	~20 km

Why we booked a hotel instead of the residential camp

This is the part that will be useful to other basketball parents, so I’ll be specific about the maths.

The Šarūnas Jasikevičius camp in Seva offered two tiers:

Camp option	Price per child	What’s included
Interior (residential)	€1,000	6 nights’ accommodation, all activities, all meals
Exterior (day camp)	€550	All activities and lunch; you drop off in the morning and collect in the evening

The camp wasn’t in our plans at the start of the year. We already had Ibiza booked, and the boys had another sleepaway camp lined up for the week after this one. Two consecutive weeks of our children being away without us was more than we wanted. On top of that, we’d already used our holiday allowance from our main jobs for Ibiza.

So we took the exterior option for both boys and booked the hotel for the four of us, and worked remotely from the room while they trained.

I work in travel, which is the only reason I want to be transparent about the rate: I found a very good price. Yours may differ. But the comparison still holds up, and it surprised me:

• Residential camp for two children: €2,000
• Day camp for two children + six nights’ half board for all four of us + tourist tax: €2,360.78

For roughly €360 more, all four of us got a week in the mountains with breakfast and dinner included, and the boys slept in the same room as us. That’s the calculation I’d run again.

What is the room like at Hotel Montanyà?

We had one quadruple room for the four of us. Rooms here are decorated in a rustic style with a lot of wood, and come with satellite TV, a safe, minibar and air conditioning, plus a full bathroom.

What was good: the room was genuinely spacious, with enough storage that we could unpack a week’s worth of clothes, sports kit and two laptops without living out of suitcases. Two queen beds — we took one, the boys took the other. The bathroom was large. Everything was properly clean when we walked in, which after six nights of teenagers and basketball kit I appreciated more than I expected to.

What wasn’t: the beds weren’t very comfortable. That’s my honest verdict and I’d say it to the hotel directly. And in the evening we could hear people talking in the next room — during the day it was completely fine, but the walls don’t do much once the hotel wakes up at night.

Our room didn’t have a balcony. If that matters to you, ask when booking, because many rooms in the hotel do.

The housekeeping thing worth knowing. The cleaner came round after lunch, which is exactly when our boys had their free time and wanted to be in the room resting. So on most days we simply went without cleaning. One day we asked for it and the kids had to clear out. It’s a small thing, but if you’re staying a full week with children on a camp schedule, morning cleaning would work far better — we could have worked elsewhere in the hotel and come back to a done room. Worth asking at check-in whether they can shift the slot.

Can you actually work remotely from Montanyà Hotel & Lodge?

Yes, and this is the part of the stay I most want other people to know about.

Both of us worked full days here. Real working days with calls and deadlines, not a laptop open by the pool.

The room setup: there’s a long desk and one chair. We asked reception for a second chair and got it without any fuss, and after that there was enough space for both of us to work from the room comfortably. Ask for the extra chair on arrival — it takes two minutes and it changes the week.

Calls: when one of us had a meeting, the other stayed at the desk and the one on the call went down to the lobby or the lounge area, which is quieter, as long as it wasn’t breakfast or lunch time. The hotel also has a lot of outdoor space, and it’s peaceful enough that working outside is a real option, not a novelty.

Wi-Fi, honestly: our mobile signal up there was very weak — there were moments with no coverage at all — so the hotel Wi-Fi did all the work. During the day it was great, fast and stable, no problems with calls. In the evening it noticeably slowed down, which I assume is everyone coming back to their rooms and connecting at once. If you have an important call, do it before dinner.

How quiet it is: the hotel is only really noisy at breakfast and dinner. For the whole rest of the day it was extraordinarily quiet — some days I had the feeling we were the only people in the place. That, more than anything, is what made the week productive.

I’ve worked in the hotel industry for fourteen years, and I notice that most hotels claim to welcome remote workers and then hand you a bedside table and a wobbly chair. Montanyà doesn’t market itself as a workation hotel at all, and yet the desk, the second chair on request, the quiet outdoor space and the sheer emptiness between meal times made it better for working than plenty of places that do advertise it.

The honest limitation: there’s no dedicated coworking space, and if you both need to take calls at the same time, one of you is going to be sitting in a lounge.

What is the food like at Montanyà Hotel & Lodge?

We booked half board — breakfast and dinner — and it was the right call given that there’s nowhere to eat within walking distance.

Breakfast was always a buffet and it was consistently good: a wide variety of both cold and hot options, and more than enough to send two boys off to a morning training session properly fed. No complaints at all.

Dinner was the one genuine disappointment, and only for the first three nights. Because occupancy was low that early in the week, dinner was served at the bar from a set menu rather than at the buffet. We asked why, and the staff explained the low guest numbers. It was fine food — but for two children burning through a full day of basketball, the portions and the balance weren’t right. We asked for more carbohydrates and the staff were genuinely kind about it and sorted it out for us. That responsiveness counts for a lot.

From the fourth night the buffet area opened and it was a different experience entirely: good variety, a showcooking station, and much better suited to a family. Being in the mountains, there were noticeably more meat options than fish.

Lunch isn’t included in half board, but you can eat at the hotel bar. Our two had lunch at the camp as part of the day rate.

Practical tip: water at dinner isn’t included. We paid €2.80 for a large bottle. Since you can’t nip out to a shop, we started bringing our own water and snacks up from the car.

Pools, spa and hotel facilities

There’s an indoor pool, a seasonal outdoor pool and a children’s pool, plus a large spa with a hydrothermal circuit including a jacuzzi and sauna, and beauty treatments available. On the sport side there are outdoor tennis courts, a gym and a sports hall, a football pitch, and an 18-hole golf course about 3 km away.

A few real notes:

The outdoor pool water is cold. We went in late July and still found it slightly chilly, and by evening it wasn’t pleasant to get into. This is mountain weather — the water simply doesn’t warm up the way a pool in Barcelona or Ibiza does. Don’t plan your afternoons around long swims and you won’t be disappointed.

The spa and massages are not included. Access is chargeable. We didn’t use it, so I can’t tell you whether it’s worth the money, only that you should budget separately if you want it.

The hotel is built for sports groups. Walking the grounds — which we did a few times, just exploring — it’s clear the facilities aren’t only set up for basketball. There’s provision for football and padel camps too. If you’re a club or a parent researching where a camp might be held, this is a property that takes sports groups seriously.

Parking: outdoor parking is free. There are indoor spaces, and those are paid.

What did our kids actually do — at the camp and at the hotel?

Our boys, 13 and 10, got more out of this week than we did, and the hotel was a real part of that.

The camp ran two training sessions a day, morning and evening. Between sessions, depending on their group, they had pool time and other interactive activities, all organised and supervised by the camp’s coaches. After lunch they had around two hours of free time. Some of the kids stayed in their rooms; ours came back to relax with us. After dinner there were competitions, and we went and watched — which turned out to be one of the best parts of the week for us as parents.

During free time the boys played table football and 8-ball pool in the bar area, where there were other games too. For a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old on a break between training sessions, that was exactly enough.

If your child is at a camp in this area, that’s the practical case for this hotel: it’s close, it’s quiet, there’s a pool and there are games, and nobody ends up stuck in a room counting the hours.

What did it cost? Full breakdown

Everything below is what we actually paid for six nights, 19–25 July.

Item	Cost
Quadruple room, 6 nights, half board (breakfast + dinner), 4 people	€1,225.14
Tourist tax	€35.64
Water at dinner	€2.80 per large bottle
Outdoor parking	Free
Fuel / charging	€0 (electric car, round trip on one charge)
Hotel subtotal	€1,260.78
Basketball camp — exterior tier, 2 children	€1,100
Total for the week	€2,360.78

That works out to roughly €204 a night for a family of four with breakfast and dinner included, or about €51 per person per night. I work in travel and found a good rate, so treat this as a benchmark rather than a quote — prices vary a lot by season and how early you book. These figures are from July 2026.

We didn’t use the spa, and we didn’t eat lunch at the hotel, so neither is in the total.

Who should book Montanyà Hotel & Lodge?

Book it if you are:

• A family with school-age children or teenagers who want pools, forest and space rather than a beach
• A parent whose child is at a camp, tournament or training programme around Seva, Vic or Osona
• Someone who wants to combine remote work with nature — this is one of the better setups I’ve used, and I’ve used a lot of hotels
• After a mountain and spa break within 45 minutes of Barcelona
• Driving, and comfortable being somewhere with nothing in walking distance

Think twice if you are:

• Very particular about mattresses — the beds were the weakest part of the room for us
• Expecting a new, design-led boutique property; this is a large, established, rustic-style resort
• Without a car
• Hoping for warm pool water in summer; the mountain air keeps it cool
• Hoping for beach access, evening entertainment programmes or nightlife

What we loved

• The quiet. Between breakfast and dinner the hotel felt almost empty, and for working that was worth more than any facility.
• The value: six nights, half board, four people, €1,225.14.
• How well the boys were looked after by the camp, and how well the hotel absorbed a group of energetic kids.
• The staff. When we asked for more carbohydrates for two children training twice a day, they didn’t treat it as a strange request — they just fixed it. Same with the second desk chair.
• The setting: forest, fields, almost no traffic, and 45 minutes from home.

What we didn’t

• Dinner at the bar from a set menu for the first three nights. This is our one real complaint. Once the buffet opened, it was a much better experience.
• The beds.
• Housekeeping coming after lunch, which clashed with the kids’ rest time and meant our room mostly went uncleaned.
• Thin walls in the evening.
• Cold pool water, and nothing to buy without getting in the car.

Would we go back?

Yes. We loved both the hotel and the camp, and if the boys do a camp in this area again we’d book exactly the same way — day-rate camp, family room at Montanyà, laptops open while they train.

What I’d do differently: ask at check-in for housekeeping in the morning rather than after lunch, request a room with a balcony, and schedule any important calls before the evening Wi-Fi slowdown.

Montanyà Hotel & Lodge — FAQ

FAQPage — matches the visible FAQ word for word