Gran Hotel Potrerillos

“It is what there is here. If you come here - and you should - be ready for what awaits you.”

This is a hotel from a different era (1942) and you need to adjust your expectations accordingly. But I'm not advising you against it, despite what you might read. But please, do read before visiting. WiFi did not exist in your room in 1942 nor does it today. Rooms are equally sized (according to … lisää

This is a hotel from a different era (1942) and you need to adjust your expectations accordingly. But I'm not advising you against it, despite what you might read. But please, do read before visiting. WiFi did not exist in your room in 1942 nor does it today. Rooms are equally sized (according to the map on the back of the door) but not equally good. Ours for example faced the entrance where multiple tour buses idled for hours. Those luckily on the other side of the hotel did not experience this noise and pollution. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Arriving at the hotel at 2:15 PM, there were few cars in the parking lot as there would continue to be throughout our stay. I'd be surprised if the hotel was half full. But that didn't stop the jobsworthy gentleman at the front desk. After making me join the erratic wifi and downloading a door-opening app that I had deleted with prejudice after our last stay for the frustration it brings to an otherwise simple task of opening a door - saying, you can't go to your room until 3 PM. The obvious question of "is it ready?" was neither checked nor answered. QR codes! In 2025! These should have gone out of style after the pandemic. One for the dodgy Internet and one for the annoying door-opening app. This is bad: QR codes are rabbit holes leading you to who-knows-where. I hate QR codes for this exact reason; they are an IT security nightmare. You never know where they actually take your browser... to Russian hackers maybe? To be forced to use them just to get into your room is an insult to a tired traveler. These things belong back in the covid-era past. Stop it, hotels. Just stop it! But back to the physical world. Let's take a quick stop at how we got into the hotel grounds in the first place. There is an apparently menacing (initially, but really a sweetheart) dog who greets you with a cone blocking the entrance. The well-intentioned guard has to check you off a list to get in. Fair enough. But I went through a process of sending photos of our passports the night before to a "check in" process (which isn't that at all, because, see above QR codes etc) and he received none of that. I produced some ID - not the one I used for the "check in" - and that seemed to satisfy him. We were issued a HUGE mirror hanging thing to show that we'd entered legally. I checked the 5 other cars in the parking lot and no one had hung theirs (if they had one) but I did it anyway. No one seemed to check or care. Maybe the dogs are in charge of this? We left to find 45 minutes of something to see which isn't hard - this is a lovely place. We checked out the amazing manmade lake and the cool tunnel that leads to the back side of the dam. We stopped and took photos of the Andes and the lake. It's really nice here. Back we came and took our bags to the elevator which took us to the 1st floor, slightly confusing because our room number started with a 2. Of course the elevator didn't exist in 1942 and it only took us to another set of stairs. I guess 6 is better than 60 going up the main staircase but for those with disabilities or who have heavy luggage, be warned. The room was insanely hot when we arrived. Hot Andean sun had super-heated the room which had the curtains wide open. Upon trying to turn the AC on in April we were advised later that they only allow AC in the summer and heat in the winter. You don't get to choose based on what temperature your room is, just what season it is. Leaving the window open is the only option which is great until the bugs come in. Let me take a quick moment to talk about electricity in Argentina. In most hotels, there is a tacit understanding that people who visit are not from Argentina, so there is a slightly crazy looking but ultimately useful "multi plug" that lets you plug a lot of different international plugs into it. Not this hotel. Only Argentinean, angled-pin plugs that are incompatible with any Euro or North American plug. No USB sockets - no other options. We asked at the front desk and they actually gave us their power strip which had those multi-plugs on it - we lucked out. I'm sure if anyone else had asked, we'd have been stuffed. With no wifi, an insanely hot room and some questionable cleanliness which I won't go into more details of (don't look too closely in the bathroom) we decided eventually that the room was not a place to hang out in. Don't ask for an iron and ironing board, they won't give them to you - much better to charge you for an ironing service. Which tracks with 1942, this wasn't how hotels were used. You'd only sleep in the room, you don't do anything like iron your wrinkled clothes in it - of course not! In 1942, the experience was the rest of the hotel itself. So we explored the grounds which are lovely - especially when you're being tailed by a bevy of charming and friendly local dogs - and wandered through the beautiful on-site vineyards. The pool is lovely and there's an excellent looking restaurant (called 1942, natch) which of course is one of these vineyard restaurants that is chasing Michelin stars and therefore doesn't do dinner. They'd much rather try to do 5 course food and wine pairings at lunchtime to give afternoon hangovers to tourists - this is what the Michelin Guide has been reduced to here. The much more humble in-building restaurant was apparently what we deserved. The earliest you can reserve at the restaurant is 8:30 PM. If there was a bustling scene going on in the town (there isn't) then maybe that would make sense. But we literally sat around waiting for the noisy, smelly idling tour bus to leave before we could be seated. At least it was punctual. The food at the restaurant was... enthusiastically pitched? A grilled halloumi dish wasn't halloumi at all (sent back), a tomato salad was decent if not anything special and the supposedly special, never-frozen, brought-in-from-Chile salmon was clearly just frozen salmon. I ordered mine medium rare (they call it "jugoso" here in Argentina for beef) to see - there's a very distinctive thing that happens to fish when it's frozen, it turns to mush. When you overcook it, it's fine to those who like it that way. But this was clearly frozen. The restfulness of sleep at night is broken early in the morning when the dogs start barking. And once they get going, they really don't stop barking. It's a shame because they are so lovely when you get to know them. The shower. Oh, the shower. If you're more than about 5 feet tall, you'll find the shower situation to be an exercise in contorting yourself to fit. I guess people were shorter in 1942 too. But they didn't have V-shaped wobbly, slippery plastic tubs with only about 6" of width for your feet. And a huge faucet that sticks out exactly where your kneecaps are. But they probably did have only a dribble of water so that's at least authentic. I doubt they had the troubling 220V electrical blanking plate below the bolted-to-the-wall liquid shampoos and soaps though. Look, this probably wasn't a great hotel in the 20th century when it was forced to close. It's not even a good hotel now. It might have been good in 1942? But it doesn't matter because it's the ONLY hotel in Potrerillos and if you want to stay in this area, this is what you get unless you want to sleep in a tent. I talked to those people on the bus tour and after a day of touring around in that thing, they wanted nothing more than to stay here - they had to go back to Mendoza, another 45 minutes through the Andes... at night. I get it. Let's be clear: I'm not steering you away from this place. Just know what you're getting yourself into before you come. A good roaming plan or local SIM card will solve the Wifi because the town has a huge mobile phone antenna mast in the center, so it has a great LTE signal. Arrive no earlier than 3 PM. Bring an Argentine plug adapter (!!!). Don't bother with the internet-based check-in, they will make you go through it again when you get there. Expect tiny rooms with questionable sanitary conditions in the bathrooms. If you find your room facing the front of the hotel, ask for a new room or expect noise and pollution. If you're in a season where there are other restaurants around, consider them for dinner, or have a huge expensive Michelin-baiting boozy lunch, or set your expectations accordingly. But do go to this place. It's not perfect. It's not even good. But it's worth it.

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“NOT AS GOOD”

A shame there is not enough staff. The place could look much better and cleaner if the staff were more efficient. The location is amazing and deserve a much better service than that. Swimming pool is not clean, couches and sofas around the hotel need to be cleaned up, service at restaurants and out… lisää

A shame there is not enough staff. The place could look much better and cleaner if the staff were more efficient. The location is amazing and deserve a much better service than that. Swimming pool is not clean, couches and sofas around the hotel need to be cleaned up, service at restaurants and outside areas is very slow and incomplete ( you can find the last nights drinks around the place for breakfast...) also stained bedsheets and hair in bathrooms... The breakfast is good, restaurant food is good too. The all place needs a big clean-up and some maintenance, staff need an efficient manager and more people. IT IS A SHAME BECAUSE THE LANDSCAPE IS AMAZING, COULD BE A FIRST CLASS HOTEL BUT IT IS CLOSER TO A 2 STARS.

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