Hotel Trópico — Hotel in Luanda

I was looking forward to staying here but I’ve got to be honest, it was a complete let down. Too many issues and I couldn’t wait to leave.

I checked in and asked for my suitcases to be brought up for me by the porter. I kid you not, this took 40 minutes and three phone calls to the reception.

The rooms were okay, but not great cleaning. I stayed there for a week so it wasn’t a one off thing. I came back to my ‘cleaned room’ on more than two occasions to find the toilet still had the chemical/cleaning product in it and it hasn’t been flushed. My used tea cup was left at my bedside on more than one occasion.

I checked in on a Monday, and I noticed there was no iron or ironing board in the room, for a supposed 4 star hotel this was shocking to me! I called the reception to request 5 different times and I was told someone would bring it up for me. Long story short, I had to wear my outfit like that for my meeting. This was my first day mind you, and NO, it doesn’t get better. The service was very poor, the staff didn’t look bothered or maybe they were overwhelmed; I don’t know.

Another thing I found shocking was the poor language barrier. I know Angola is a Portuguese speaking country, but tor a 4 star hotel the customer facing staff should at least be able to communicate properly in English? This was not the case at Hotel Tropico.

The front desk was always crowded with people complaining.

The food was okay, but they had opening time for the restaurant. And if you wanted to eat outside of those opening times you had to use the other restaurants.

I came back one day feeling unwell and Josh wanted a quick meal so I could go to bed by 7pm. I was told the restaurant wasn’t open and that I had to go to the pool side. I wasn’t keen, but I had to eat so I went. 1.5 hours later I left because my pizza order still hasn’t arrived, and I ended up going to the buffet.

I never noticed a door man, and if there was, he was not doing his job properly.

I could go on and on. It was NOT a good experience, and no I would...

Rooms a clean but oppressive, TV has very limited English channels. There is no info pack in your room - for everything I needed to call reception! Room had a kettle and cup but no coffee, tea, sugar or a spoon! No iron allowed to be used in the room so could not press clothes without laundry service - laundry itself was very good but expensive. Unable to leave credit on account so had to use my credit card rather than put on the bill. Took we 4 days to get a room refund when leaving earlier than planned. I have no idea how banking works but had to be done on same machine as initial payment and this had to have enough credit? I have no idea how this would be managed if an early departure was unforeseen. Breakfast was as ok and a reasonably varied choice. Again though- no tea set up so had to ask for hot water every day, no sugar or teaspoons laid out so had to ask for every day. Just needed to consider the needs of the customer. Never ate food in the restaurant- always seemed empty at night and was very expensive. Room service food generally arrived on time and was reasonable choice and standard - though again I had to pay for each meal on delivery for 11 days! Outside bar area quite welcoming - split in to a couple of areas. Staff were attentive and food served here was quite varied and came quickly. Swimming pool little used in the week but although the pool is triangular so doesn’t suit laps - I used at the weekend at was a nice spot to be. Gym is excellent- has a very well equipped inside area and an outside area for CrossFit type training. Only issue is the millions of flying ant type bugs after 6:30pm! To summarise, I don’t really enjoy the Tropico and prefer other nearby hotels. Certain aspects are quite good but they need to consider the needs of guests much more in their set ups (room info and payment/ refund options) which really impacts the...

This is a first for me. I arrived at the hotel, and they asked if I was going to order anything through room service. I said yes, and we discussed taking a deposit. I ended up not using most of my deposit, and when I checked out, they told me they didn’t have enough money in the machine to process the refund. They said they could give me cash, which I could exchange at the airport. I obviously refused! They then told me to contact my bank and ask them to reimburse me. How do they expect my bank to just reimburse me because I told them I overpaid? FFS. If you can't cancel or refund deposits, why would you take them in the first place???

Then, it was impossible to get a bill with VAT. I'm still waiting.

The whole process lasted an hour! An hour where I was just standing at the reception waiting while they ignored me, watched me, and kept repeating, "It's the government policy. We cannot send money to international accounts." I almost missed my flight.

I was going to review the hotel, but this ruined the whole experience.

Anyways, if you want to know: The breakfast is very good, the gym is nice, but my room was damp, dirty, and full of mold. I was praying not to have an asthma attack. I always travel with disinfectant, and when I wiped the tables, the paper was orange/brown. It disgusted me.

One positive thing: The staff is nice, especially at the restaurant and the cleaning team. I had a late checkout paid, and one of the cleaning ladies came to ask if I wanted some water to drink. That was very nice. But my overall experience was very bad unfortunately.

They stole my...