19-21/1/19
We three British middle aged guys were starting our last third of our month touring Argentina. Trelew was on our return leg from the south back to BA. We had already visited this town and hotel a dizen years ago. Nothing seems to have changed much in the hotel whereas the town has!
As there are so many good, indifferent and bad points to this hotel I will try to do it in bullet points for brevity. Note it is not the Good, Bad and the Ugly!
Good
On arrival use the central big cafe/restaurant door to go in and head for the far left corner for reception. We used the locked hotel door to the right (with brass plates either side) and had to wait for attention (no big deal!)
We arrived earlier than checkin at 11:40 on a Saturday, but at reception we got a warm welcome and were taken to our room 205 by the bell boy to find it was not ready yet so we descended down again with our 6kg bags to reception and were offered tea and
Dining
Just experience the large space even of mot staying there, they serve food and have a fill bar, and take cards which is a godsend (expensive ATMs) for late night beers to be added onto the overall bill too.
If you ask for more coffees or toast for breakfast you can get a mountain of toast!
In order to recover from the uncomfortable 11.5hr overnight coach journey I needed to relax and have a beer (after noon as it was). I took a table to type up TA reviews, have a litre of Quilmes stout and was given crisps and nuts as nibbles. I was chatting to the boss about amplifying his phone music and developed a cough as a peanut aggravated my throat. Instantly a waiter presented me with a small glass of soda water, which was really nice of him. Great service.
At breakfast you can ask for more toast and coffees no problem.
Room
205 was a fair size with two singles and a double.
Jolly cleaning staff offering to change towels, top up toilet rolls, and clean room on our first morning.
Central lamp/fan combi controlled from door.
Each bed had an overhead reading lamp with nearby switches.
Bathroom
A good size bath with three way tap for bath and shower and shower curtain.
Big sink with cupboard and mirror over with two bright lights over that so good for shaving.
Good water pressure for jetting razors out.
Indifferent
Dining
Music in beautiful dining room is catering to my demographic (baby boomers 50-70) with varied sometimes obscure pop, listening to Squeeze's Up the Junction, at the mo (my home band in Deptford). On arrival the boss was playing traditional music to himself on his phone so I got him to turn the main 'musak' down and put his phone in a box to let us all here his much better music!
The restaurant is popular with older groups of local guys in general relaxing and being friendly to tourists.
The furniture has seen better days but is of a period and part of the charm.
Breakfast
A basic all morning serving of coffee and medialunas, but you have to ask for toast, butter, jam, hot chocolate
Room
Wifi in room was a bit erratic, better in the restaurant/bar with charging points along the wall so keeping ip to date with trends.
Bathroom
70s blue suite is the decor of its time, all clean with a bidet. The hot tap was leaking and I forgot to let the management know
Bad
Dining
There is quite a bit of litter on the marble floor, building up no doubt as to clean the whole place would be a lot of work daily. It is not dirty though.
As the room is hard furnished it is very echoey and noisy.
Wobbly round big table by the window (on it now) which cannot be fixed with a folded napkin unfortunately. It is very old and obviously 'part of the furniture ' so enjoy (disfrutafa as they say)!
Room
Beds a bit soft and old but clean linen (fitted sheets just about fit better than most!)
Noisy fan (no A/C which is fair enough) bit it did get stuffy in the room (it was a heatwave) and opening the window (mosquito mesh side) helped.
Loud squealing door which I oiled with vaseline, the bathroom door similarly.
The door handle was falling off and very noisy on closing. Tolerances Re fine and if not closed properly will open unexpectedly in the wind!
Noisy echoey corridor so all door closing and cleaners in the morning can be heard.
Checkout is apparently 10, pushing it as I have only just started having breakfast and writing this review at 09:50! It is usually 11.
Bathroom
Dripping hot tap which I will tell the management about on leaving
Toilet seat was missing so asked for one which was left by the toilet for us to install. As I am practical I did (the toilet was clean enough but not a nice job, especially as it was very cheap PRC made and did not engage properly after ten minutes of trying it still fell off). They must have bought a job lot of dozens and be regretting it!).
The only bin in the rooms is here, it is lined with a bag, although we could have done with another in the room itself.
Other points
Beware descending the magnificent staircase as (despite anti slip tape) it is slippy on the very edge of each step (where the strip should be!). We saw a chap slide down on his back but not hurt. The staff seem used to it.
The roof terrace is completely underexploited and could be a wonderful space if designed properly to keep off wind and sun. It has a great view over the city and main road. We watched the full lunar eclipse from it on our last night.
I could not find the fabled sweet shop anywhere!
We left our bags behind reception after checking out at 11:30 (the boss was not too bothered about our very late leaving of the room but there is a sign saying 'Early Check Up' on the desk, but no time specified.
After visiting the very good palaeontology museum nearby we returned to collect our bags and I asked the boss if we could visit Butch Cassidy's room. There was an Argentinian couple waiting to do the same luckily so the five of us were given a tour of the old grand dining room, courtyard, Welsh immigrants relief alabaster panel, BC's ground floor room with furnishings and effects of the time, as well as the old collection of tortoises in the raised bed, one of which had laid eggs! The courtyard also had interesting trees, bushes and a vine with grapes from which they make wine. The boss was very proud of his hotel, obviously and as we collected our hags and bad farewell to Raphael and his crew, he was happy to let us take a selfie.
As I am finishing off the review I have ha been sorting through the credit card receipt for the HTC which says 4220, I have no itemised bill. The original rooms were 3100 so I have been working out how three of us spent 1,120 over two days for relatively little. Big quilmes stout Beer, wine, 2 coffees on arrival and a big Quilmes each night as a nightcap only adds up to about to about 600. My friend who paid the bill said they seem to have charged for the extra coffees at breakfast and higher prices than on the door (and we did not use room service). As we have been forced in effect to use Mastercard - as bank ATMs limit you to 4000p (£80) cash withdrawals and charge a minimum of £5 (up to £8 if unlucky) for the privilege - and we ran out of cash early in our month as Argentina was not as cheap as we had expected and credit cards are rarely accepted (unlike Visa Debit which is).
Basically we rarely 'put things on the bill' as rarely in this situation. In this case we have been unaware of things like extra breakfast coffees (odd as nowhere else does this) and elevated prices for guests orders compared to the prices on the door or over the bar that I was basing my estimates on and entering them into my Google Sheets spreadsheet of holiday running costs I keep. I have only a single credit card receipt for 4,220 for the two nights (3100 basic for two nights). No itemised bill was presented and I am somewhat miffed at this. We shall not 'put it on the bill' again!
Still, the place is wonderful and yes, ask the friendly boss for a guided tour. It is an old hotel so you have to forgive it for some technical things.