Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Hotel Rooms at the HDM - name change exception

Hotel is in a nice location and the staff are polite and friendly.

I chose this hostel because it was VERY competitively priced during the World Cup. Because it was so much cheaper than hostels located in more touristy areas, I was a little worried about what I would find. In the end, I was very pleasantly surprised and left with an overall good impression of the place. Before saying anything about the facilities, I'll qualify my review by saying that it is a hostel. A lot of people seem to not understand what this means and arrive with ridiculous expectations. The dorm rooms (which sleep 8 - 12) are in a perfectly acceptable state, relatively clean, nothing disgusting like stains on the mattresses or cockroaches running around. The bathrooms and showers are in relatively good shape and were always in good working order, but really need to be cleaned more often! The AC didn't seem to do much and there was a bit to much noise a couple nights. The common spaces were nice and the bar offered fair prices. Breakfast was good. There were two staff members that spoke perfect English and were extremely helpful and welcoming. One of them is usually around except late at night. The others will try and do their best to help, but their English is minimal. That said, they are all incredibly nice and reactive if there is any problem. The location is in a safe area, but a little far from the metro (15-20 minute walk). That said, there are tons of busses and taxis and you can get anywhere in the city relatively easily.

Everything was pretty good with the hotel. It is a distance out of Rio and help with regard to transport from the airport and into Rio would be greatly appreciated. As an English elderly couple felt a bit nervous about any expeditions, especially as it was Carnival time. More English would have been useful, especially as there were Americans there as well. Hotel taxi driver was excellent, wish we had known about him earlier.

There are 2 sections of this hotel. The top floor that you can see pictures of on Expedia, and then the bottom floor which is a dump. They don't show any of those pictures. When I booked a room I thought I was gonna stay in 1 of the nicer rooms on the pictures, NOT! We got a small room with a squeaking wood double bed with a mattress that will break your back after 2 nights. No AC, just a little fan. The room was hot (30'C/90'F) day and night, the only relief came on rainy days. They have WiFi but it's not secured with password, so sometimes the whole neighbourhood is on the Internet (that you are paying for) and you can't connect. Why would anyone still have an open WiFi in today's times.