Hi.
I live at only 100m of the Novotel that you all are talking about. Is a new hotel, about 3 years old only. This Novotel is in Barakaldo, a city of about 100.000 people at 5 minutes by car from Bilbao and about 20 minutes driving to Carbi´s circuit. The airport is quite close to this hotel, about 17 km and highway bettwen both points and less of 10 km of highway from the sea port if you come by ferry.
The best points of this hotels are that the subway station is at about 10 minutes walking from the hotel and this Novotel is located in the middle of a big comercial area with big shopping mals and lots of restarurants... also McDonnalds and Burger King (In Bilbao this 2 brands are not considerated restaurants).
There are also one Ibis and one F1 hotels in the same area but in my opinion maybe is better if you look for a hotel in the center of Bilbao.
If anyone wants more information just ask me.
Best regards and happy new year.
P.S: Just for information. The week after the Euro (3th week of august) is the "Bilboko Aste Nagusia" (Means "Bilbao´s main week" in Basque lenguage) and is 9 days of non stop party in the street, speacially in the nights.
.