Suites Valentina

Pros: The rooftop was my favorite part. The view was incredible! While it was small and the "hot tub" was just an unheated pool, it was overall still so beautiful, with swings as seats and one lounge chair. About 2/3 of the time I went up there no one else was there, so it was lovely. Also smoking was not allowed, which to me is a huge plus. I stayed in the "Cielo" room, which I think might be the only one with an unobstructed ocean view, and I loved that view too! That is on the top floor, so it's a 4th-floor walkup (and at check-in there was no help carrying luggage up), but to me it was well worth it. The room was really clean, and I didn't see bugs of any kind other than those tiny light brown ants you find near the coast. The staff were really nice. The location was great. There are only 2 rooms per floor, so you don't get the hallway noise you get in larger hotels. There was music on the loudspeaker from the restaurant below most days/evenings, but this didn't bother me. Cons: There was major construction going on on site all day every day, from about 8am-5pm, just a few meters from all of the guest rooms. We're talking loud hammering, power tools, the works -- ear-splitting, bone-shaking noise. I was shocked that this was never mentioned by management whatsoever. When I was awakened at 8am by a worker going after metal pipes with an axe, the sound was so loud it was genuinely alarming, and I would have had to leave immediately if I didn't have powerful noise-cancelling headphones to take the edge off. Still, it was impossible to sleep through, and very irritating/disruptive to sit with. To me, this was a truly unreasonable situation. Reasonable solutions would have included a) closing the hotel to guests during the construction (at least the super loud stages); b) warning guests *prominently* about the noise and offering a deep discount for those who agree to stay anyway; c) warning guests prominently and setting reasonable hours for the loud noises (e.g., not before 10am). Management did none of these. On the first morning, I sent a message to management on this website to ask whether this would be an everyday thing (as I was thinking I'd have to leave if so). Jorge responded with incredibly kind and sympathetic apologies, thanking me for alerting him and saying that he would make sure to put a stop to the noise: that it would not happen during the subsequent mornings of my stay. I really appreciated this, so I stayed. *However,* nothing actually changed and the noise continued. The next morning I wrote him again and he seemed shocked as well and said he'd talk to them right away. However, the following morning the noise started up even earlier. It wasn't until I returned that I saw all the other reviews mentioning the noise beginning several weeks before my stay. These reviews had responses from management, so I don't know what to make of the fact that Jorge seemed unaware of the issue in his messages to me.