Hotel Araçá

This hotel is in a lovely location and that is all that is good about it. We booked this hotel as it was one of the more expensive ones in the area as we wanted a bit of luxury for our stay. We paid circa £100 sterling per night for a 3 night stay. Upon arrival the check in was painfully slow even though we were the only ones at the desk. Once checked in we went to our first floor sea view room and we were immediately disappointed. The toilet smelled of urine. The door to the balcony was faulty and would not lock and there was no safe in the room so the broken door lock was a big problem, the bed sheets were also dirty. We then discovered we couldn’t connect to the WiFi in the room. The hotel decor was very dated, I felt like I had arrived in a hotel in the 1970’s. The main hotel wooden staircase was filthy as was the furniture on the landings, it all looked like it hadn’t been washed for an age. We decided we did not want to stay in this hotel a minute longer as it did not meet our expectations for the cost. We went back to the reception and asked to see the manager. They said the was at lunch so to come back. This is totally understandable and acceptable. We went off for an hour or so to look for another hotel. When we returned we asked if the manager was back. They said yes and asked us to wait. 15 minutes or later he decided to leave what he was doing to come and see us (I could see him all of the time simply shuffling papers on his desk so he wasn’t doing anything important). After raising our issues with him his simple response was that we do not advertise that we have safes in the room which is correct and his explanation for the smell off pee in the bathroom was that the cleaners sometimes do not do a good job. I said to him we booked the hotel as it was the most expensive and for £100 per night you expect a safe in your room and WiFi. His explanation of the WiFi was that they have installed a new system and it is not working everywhere properly yet. We told him it did not meet our expectations and that we no longer wanted the room and would like a refund. He pointed to the policy of Brazil of only receiving a refund if you cancel more than 7 days out (which I also know is correct) We told him we were not cancelling as we had changed our mind or our plans but due to the poor quality for the money we were spending. But this made no difference, he offered to move our room to one with the WiFi working. We said we didn’t think the hotel represented the quality for £100 per night. All of this made one difference, he would not offer a refund or even a reduction. We simply then left as we could see we were getting nowhere. So £300 down the drain and not even an apology from the manager. We then found a much nicer hotel named Capão da Capoa Mar, it was roughly half the cost and amazing service. This hotel had clearly invested in modernising and ensuring everything was clean and spotless. So if you are planning on booking Hotel Araca,