Hotel Ilha Mar

This is the sort of hotel that is tolerable for a single night, and beyond that you hate it. I spent 3 nights here (split 1/2). At first glance, everything looks quite nice. It seems like that they spared no expense to build the hotel, and had zero budget for any maintenance. As many other reviewers have noted, the wifi either works fine, or not at all. I had the same experience, where it worked ok for the first night, and not at all for the remaining 2 nights. Some of the staff speak decent English, while others speak none at all. The AC in my room was loud and mostly ineffective on the first night, but worked great for the other 2 nights. The breakfast buffet could best be described as very very sad. Very little selection of anything, and they put out extremely limited quantities of everything. No hot water or hot drinks are put out, they must be requested. They put out exactly 4 slices of kiwi at a time. Exactly 1 ommelette cut into pieces is put out at any time, and is not replaced unti the entire thing is gone. All the public space lighting is on a short timer, such that you're always walking through mostly dark spaces except for the light just above you. No hand soap is provided in the bathrooms, and the tiny shampoo bottles are labeled with a different property's name on them. Everything about the place screams "very low budget". The area around the hotel is ok, but has nothing that a visitor would care about (its shops & fast food places that a local would visit). Not unsafe, but very run down. Don't stay here unless you really can't afford anything better.

The hotel is a mixed bag. I stayed twice over a 10 day period, first for 2 nights and later for a single night. The area where the hotel is situated feels a bit dodgy and certainly not the sort of place where you would walk around alone at night but that probably applies to all of Luanda. This is a 3 star hotel that wobbles a bit into lesser territory because of poor maintenance and inconsistent standards. The 2 rooms that I had were a similar configuration with twin beds and a view out through a small window to house roofs and the water beyond. Both rooms were very dark and not very well lit. There were bedside lamps but bizarrely no power outlets nearby so they could not be plugged in. One room had a kettle and cups, the other did not. The a/c unit did not work in the 1st room but did in the 2nd. The internet did not work during my 1st stay but was functional and reasonably fast at the 2nd. Both bathrooms were a bit dysfunctional. The shower was over a bath with a very slippery surface. One of my fellow travelers fell in his bath injuring his ribs. I lined mine with a hand towel to give some grip. The glass partition was so long that you had to stand in the bath to turn on the shower and there was a 2-3cm gap between the bath edge and glass meaning that the floor got soaked - really awash! Both showers had to be hand held although there were filled holes above suggesting that at some time there had been a means of fixing the shower head to the wall. The water pressure was excellent, in fact so strong that it couldn't really be used full blast, and there was ample hot water. The restaurant was on the top (4th) floor with good views of water on both sides. Breakfast was adequate and they made very good coffee. The a la carte lunch/dinner food was also adequate if not anything special but the staff were charming and funny even with a language barrier. Overall, the Ilha Mar is clean and quiet and okay for a night or two.