Bla Guest House

I am a skilled traveler and very flexible and understanding with people and services during my trips. I was hosted by Bla Guesthouse for 3 nights with other 5 friends in two private rooms. While my friends complained a lot about lack of warm water, very poor breakfast, a clogged bathtub and an unreliable internet connection (from 12th feb afternoon until next day when I left for an excursion, wifi was OFF), I was always at the position that this is only a hostel and we need to accept things like this in such places. Then we ran out of toilette paper. When asking for a new roll, all I got was a 1 third of a roll for a triple room. Hmmm....Yellow flag here. That is starting to cross certain limits. The cherry of the cake was my last day in El Calafate. My flight departed at 18:15, so I bought at the Bla Guesthouse reception both a bus round ticket (that supposedly departed at 8:30 towards the pasarelas of Perito Moreno and that would return 3 hours later, being back at 14:30. With a 30min walking distance I would be back in hostel at 15:00) and a bus transfer to the airport that would pick me up in the hostel at 16:00. Perfect plan for my last hours in this beautiful place. The day of the trip (and thankfully before getting on the bus) I thankfully double checked with the bus driver the return time only to find out the return would be 6hrs later, not 3!!! With a calm that other travelers wouldn't have, I accepted the situation and the error of the receptionist, after all we are all humans and mistakes happen. I just needed my money refunded. For my surprise, the owner (or manager ?) of Bla Guesthouse refused to give me back the paid 40'000 pesos for this trip (or even half of it when I generously offered to share). She actually never showed up or made herself available for either a fair face-to-face or even via phone discussion. She has hidden herself covered by her employee who had the hard task to tell me her decision. This for me really turned into an unacceptable behavior. Red, black flag! I now feel robbed. It is not only about their mistake but about how a business reacts to it. It is about being greedy and not being accountable or responsible. Imagine if I had gotten into that bus and missed my flight? Keep your distance away from this hostel, that's my best advice!

The shower was not very powerful and the bathroom and room in general was quite crowded. We were charged at the official dollar rate (not the blue dollar), which, being our first stop in Argentina, seemed to be normal. As we continued out trip around the country, we realised the rest of hotels charged us in blue dollars so be aware. Breakfast was fine and location was handy for pick up/drop off of any organised trips

Great price so I have to take this into context. Breakfast is pretty basic, just juice, coffee and some cakes. Staff are helpful though annoyingly we had an incident in which we had to leave early the next day, we were offered an early breakfast that would be left for us, but in the morning early, there was nothing and we had to leave for our day tour with an empty stomach. A shame when others there had been left a breakfast. That said, they called a taxi for us and always answered our questions as best they could

The blonde receptionist of the place (sorry but forgot her name) was super helpful and friendly. The place itself is really good in terms of price, location and facilities. The only but is that the days we were there was really windy and the window frames are not sealed, therefore there is a constant draft in the room, also the bed in the room was broken in the middle lower part of it so it cracked and moved in a concerning way.