Overall a nice trip, and a pretty fancy hotel for the price. I would consider it more like a 4**** hotel than a 5 star, personally.
highlights:
- beautiful lobby and view from our room of the mountains, beach, etc.
- kind people at the desk and otherwise. very safe inside even though neighborhood is a bit sketchy at times.
- great bed, windows, bathtub, etc..
- affordable as an american for level of service.
- spa and rooftop restaurant are amazing. gym is great too!
dealbreakers: (may stop me from booking next time)
- wifi was basically broken the entire time in our room, and in the hotel at times. less than 10mbits, and no signal in most of our room. front desk said several times they'd fix but I don't think they have the ability to actually fix it. many other people had this issue as well. at a 5* hotel, this should not be happening. major issue, had to do meetings in the lobby to get it to function at all.
- breakfast is *good* but definitely caters towards a local brazilian diet (very few options for vegans). as a vegetarian, I'll just say I ate a lot of eggs and cheese. but hey, that's brazil so not digging on the hotel too much on that.
- elevator is incredibly busy, and there were times where it literally said ”not available” and we had to wait 5 minutes to actually use it.
- there are *TONS* of families with kids in and around the pool when we went. so environment was quite loud and crazy most of the time. they do timeshares so I think mostly big families frequent the hotel.
- we booked and paid extra for the *Junior Suite* (with a large living room as well as bath). the front desk gave us the *room with bath* which ended up being nice.. but is half the size, and refused to put us in the junior suite room, even after showing the reservation. this may be a Trip.com issue instead of the hotel.. but they didn't offer any compensation or flexibility for us. trip did refund us the difference in price though.
overall, its a great deal for the price, and the architecture is amazing, the room is nice, good water pressure. horrible wifi and very few vegetarian options made it difficult to recommend again, but we liked our stay nonetheless.
巴西的酒店讓人印象都特別好,前台很禮貌也很負責,其中一個是Pedro非常熱忱,主動幫了我好幾次。房間非常整潔,早餐也不錯,網絡也好,如果再去里約還會選擇。The receptionist Pedro is so great, i realy appreciate his professional job
WWellington RebechiRazoável a cama foram Ajuntado duas de solteiro, na varada só tinha uma cadeira, televisão baixa ruim para assistir na cama, secador quebrado tinha que ficar pedido um na recepção eles tem poucas unidades de reposição ficavam pegando toda toda hora, piscina fecha muito cedo, e ficamos sem água quente um dia tivemos que tomar banho gelado.
Café da manhã bom pessoas bem atenciosas sempre limpando e repondo as coisas.
訪訪客用戶Ubicado en zona comercial y a menos de 10 minutos a la playa en auto. Personal muy amable. Habitaciones cómodas, modernas y muy limpias. Café en capsula y agua.mineral de cortesia en habitacion. Trago de bienvenida en el bar que se encuentra en la terraza junto a la piscina.
JJoão FelipeTive uma excelente estadia. Escolhi pela arquitetura diferenciada. A chegada foi um pouco atribulada devido a um grupo grande, mas a equipe foi propositiva na organização. As equipes são muito profissionais e acolhedoras. A piscina é um espetáculo à parte. Os quartos são confortáveis. Recomendo.
訪訪客用戶My first room had the worst stains on the chair and sofa. No way should this room been allowed for check in. I booked a queen bed apartment and was moved to a. Double bed room with a view as trade. I was tired and could not be bothered to argue.
There was an apology by the checkin staff.
The breakfast is average (I came from Salvador where breakfast was amazing).
Housekeeping and services were good - all the ladies were nice and pleasant.
The bed had one pillow and the sheets had holes. There was no spare blanket in the room and the duvet provided was not the best so it got cold on a few nights and was too hot on others.
Shower facilities were good but no skin lotion in the room which was fine as I had my own.
No free water in the room only the minibar too - had to go to ibis hotel next door at like 2am to buy stuff there …both hotels are linked
Generally the stay was mediocre and the area does not have anything to do. It is ok and central for Uber which was a bonus.
Would I stay there again - hardly likely
Would I challenge that I am owed money as the room I paid for is not what I was given - may do …if I have the energy
Hopefully Novotel would reach out to me before that happens
Images below
IIza M.RainbowI’d describe this hotel as utilitarian. No decor or warmth at all. The common areas are spacious and quite bare.Table and chairs at the restaurant are plain brown wood, The lobby is sparsely furnished with some worn , drab and very uncomfortable seats. Bathrooms are the same. Just the very bare essentials, not even a box of tissue paper ( and thin toilet paper) We travelled long hours, arrived at 22:00 looking forward to a good shower …not to be. We were up for a bad start. There was just a trickle of water not enough to bathe or properly brush teeth either. That could have been a whole area problem as we were told that water pressure can sometimes drop in some areas of the city. We changed rooms , water pressure wasn’t much better the next day either, the water flow improved just a little and remained as such the whole week. We had paid for 5 nights and ended up staying as the city was packed that week . To go looking for another hotel during the G20 summit which Rio was hosting that week of November 2024 would not be an easy task.
On the positive side, staff was pleasant and accommodating, bed was comfortable and from our perspective, the breakfast buffet was the best feature of this hotel offering abundant variety of food to meet all tastes- cereal, fruits and cheeses, cold cuts, several hot savory breakfast dishes - incl. some Brazilian regional dishes as well, a huge selection of breads, cakes, good coffee, and more. Very satisfying. Including breakfast in the booking is highly recommended.
The good fare offered at the hotel at lunch and dinner not good at all. However, there are also three of four restaurants lined up on a small stretch within 5 min walking distance of the hotel- one of them is a very good authentic European Portuguese cuisine and wine. Aprox. US$ 52 for a meal for two. On the same cluster of shops there is a well established Brazilian cuisine restaurant with a good menu where one can eat well for anything between US$ 12 to US$ 15 and a steak house similar to the Australian Outback steak house.
There are also other eateries snd convenience shops, a pharmacy on the same stretch ( 5 min walk ffrom the hotel) including a 24 hr laundromat where one can expect to wash and dry a load for about
US$ 7.
As for location, this hotel is not close to the most well known districts of Rio - places like Copacabana, Ipanema , Leblon - but Barra da Tijuca is a special area in itself and arguably has the best beach in town. The hotel is just a 10 - 15 min taxi ride to Barra Shopping- the largest and best shopping mall in the whole state of Rio de Janeiro where one can find anything, including restaurants (recommend trying Jappa all you can eat Japanese food spread for US$ 26 as in Nov 2024).
On the whole , when compared with the fashionable and pricey districts of Copacabana , Ipanema Leblon this hotel is good value for money . I’d stay there again if they fixed the shower situation b’cause this feature matters for me.