Sophia Ii Residence Inn

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My wife and I stayed for about 10 days. I have to admit. It started out fairly rough. We both have back problems, but especially her. It is VERY difficult to climb stairs. From the moment we checked in, we were informed that the elevator was broken. The repair people were supposed to appear earlier… lisää

My wife and I stayed for about 10 days. I have to admit. It started out fairly rough. We both have back problems, but especially her. It is VERY difficult to climb stairs. From the moment we checked in, we were informed that the elevator was broken. The repair people were supposed to appear earlier the day of check-in, but they didn't. Now, they say tomorrow. Spoiler... they did show up the next day and fixed the problem. Also, the door was a sliding glass door with a physical key and only one key is provided even though there are two guests, which creates a bit of a coordination challenge when one goes to the beach and another goes out to eat. We get to the room and the key doesn't work. I had to go down the stairs to get help. They sprayed the lock with a lubricant and the rest of the week, we struggled with the key, usually being able to open it ourselves, but still with a struggle. OK, so we check in and get to the room. I'm a technology executive who works heavily during vacation. The WIFI was horrible and was completely unusable. So... I had to go down stairs again to talk to them. Nothing could be done. I asked how to contact them if we have problems without having to climb the stairs. They inform me that there is a phone is the room, I touch a button and it will ring the person at the desk downstairs. I go back upstairs and there is no phone. I go back downstairs to ask them about it, and they say... oh, we have some phones out for maintenance. Fortunately, the elevator was fixed the next day and made the physical trips less physically challenging/painful. The first time that the network tech showed up to work on the WIFI problem, they didn't notify me, he left and said it was fixed. It wasn't. I insisted to the person at the desk that it wasn't fixed and the rest of our stay, that particular desk clerk treated me coldly even though later it was obvious that I was right and he was wrong. On a more positive note, Igor, their more technical staff member allowed me as a technical expert to coordinate with him and the network tech the next time he came out to diagnose and fix the problem and confirm the problem was fixed before he left again. He was working outside his normal work hours in order to solve the problem. Raul, another desk clerk gave me his personal contact information and offered to come back in 7/24 if I had any problems. So, for the most part, their staff was fantastic and offered EXCEPTIONAL service with a great attitude. They offer only certain hours for check-in, but they do have someone there 24/7. The limitation is only for checkin/checkout. IF you request cleaning service, you can only do it every 2 days, and you have to leave the room and there is not a safe in the room. Makes it a bit uncomfortable, but in our case, we had valuable in the room, and nothing was taken. The cleaning people in my opinion work slowly and don't do a great job. They sweep the ceramic floor for example and don't mop it unless they consider it necessary. They don't clean the windows/glass doors. One thing that puzzled us a bit is that they provide plates, silverware, mugs, a microwave, a stove, even a blender and a rack to dry your clothes, but NO hair dryer, no oven, and no iron or ironing board. Seemed a bit wierd. Location: There are several restaurants within a few blocks of the hotel... Churrasquerias (Brazilian steak houses) that are wonderful to seafood restaurants with fresh seafood... mmmmm... mmmmm. Very good. It's right on the beach after crossing a street. BUT.... It is a VERY wide beach. You have to walk quite a ways in the sand to get to the water. And then, when you arrive (this was mid-January), the water was FREEZING. I have frequently gone into the ocean and thought... this is cold, but I'll adjust. I went into the water ONE time in 10 days in the afternoon. After about 1 minute, I decided that I could get out or die of hypothermia... haha. It was a different level of cold. My wife went nearly every day early in the morning and walked further to the left down the beach where this is a hill/mountain. The waves were calmer, and she described the water as cold, but nothing like what I experienced. BTW... everyone that entered the water where I did was talking about how cold it was. It wasn't just me. The beach was crowded. The ocean was not. Very few people entered the water and when they did, they got out very quickly. If you are into shopping, Arraial Do Cabo... is not the place for you. You will need to take an Uber or taxi to Cabo Frio to find the closest shopping mall. The mall there (Shopping Park Lagos) is nice and modern, but you won't find many brands of stores that you are familiar with other than McDonalds and Burger King. Other things to do... there are buggies for rent, boat tours and bus tours. Languages... At least on one web site I saw, this place was portrayed to be multilingual. It is NOT. If you speak fluent Spanish, as I do, you can probably communicate somewhat with all of the staff because Portuguese is so similar. But if you only speak English, there is only one staff member (Igor) that speaks English and he speaks it well. Otherwise, you had better be really good with Google translate... haha. Back to the hotel itself... We stayed on Piso 1 (1st floor). To those of you in the US, that's the 2nd floor because they count the ground floor as floor 0. It is the ONLY floor where you walk out of your room to an outside terrace and it's the floor that contains the pool. That's a blessing and a curse. You can walk out of your room and have an outside view of the ocean.... NICE. It's where anyone in the hotel goes to party at the pool... not so nice. Overall, I would not have traded it for anything! Aside from that, the way that the department is laid out, the bedroom is the furthest from the outside door, so you can close and lock the outside door and close the bedroom door to block out any noise. I highly recommend a 1st floor room vs. other floors. Apart from that, it really helped when the elevator was broken that there was only one flight of stairs to the front desk. SAFETY: Being an expat from the US and living in Argentina where crime is rampant, I can't emphasize this enough. Rio de Janeiro is CRAZY. You will certainly fly into Rio. PLEASE be on your guard. BUT, Arraial do Cabo was a pleasant surprise. It's a heavily militarized zone and crime is minimal. We felt more relaxed there than we do in our own home in Argentina. This is a HUGE advantage to vacationing in Arraial vs. other places in Brazil. Finally, this is NOT a hotel with hotel services. It's a short-term lease on an apartment. They have fairly quick response to maintenance issues and they will provide toilet paper. They will NOT provide frequent changes of towels and daily cleaning. If you go into it with that expectation and can roll with the punches, you will have a happy stay! Best of luck to you all. I hope my detailed description of our experience is helpful. Please like my comment.

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