Grace Cafayate Hotel — Hotel in Municipio de Cafayate

Great architecture and amazing views. Still the service, organization and infrastructure was so bad that they managed to turn this trip into a bad experience.

Even though they offer several activities such as Tennis, Squash and bike rental. It was nearly impossible to perform them.

First of all almost all the staff speaks only Spanish (including the receptionist). This makes communication for foreigners (90% customers) pretty hard.

Secondly, the hotel is inside a big private space and golf club. Which means that everything is a few kilometers away (the squash court was 2km from my room, the golf court about 4km). This would be fine if they provided any way to get there. Which they don't. Luckily I had a car and could drive around.

Now to my experience. I wanted to play tennis and was willing to pay the necessary extra fees. But apparently all these activities are performed by third parties on sites nearby. This means that it is necessary to call the reception and ask them to call the tennis court and try to book it for you. Sadly neither the hotel not the tennis club had tennis balls. I am not joking. So I couldn't play I tried to buy balls in the city but couldn't find any.

Then I turned to squash. The booking went fine and the court was good. When the game was over and I wanted to pay (I asked beforehand if I could pay with credit cards and they said yes) they wouldn't accept my master card nor my amex. Luckily I had cash, but to my surprise the totally unfriendly lady didn't have any change. I asked them if I could pay at the hotel or just if they could send the bill to the hotel. But no. She wanted me to round up the cost so there wouldn't be any change. I said that if anyone should round the value it should be her not me.

In the end I had to wait 5 minutes for someone to arrive with change. I took me nearly 20 minutes just to pay. And all this trying to speak Spanish which I cant.

Now to the bike rental.it is necessary to do it one day in advance but for some reason they made it so complicated that I simply lost the will to do so.

Then the pool experience. The pool is pretty small, but the view makes up for it. But the bar had, on the menu at least, a good variety of wines and beers. But when asked they appearently only had 1 beer and 2 sorts is wine (yes, we are in the middle of a winery...) . I asked for some Chardonnay which came 10 minutes later in a plastic cup with loads of ice since it was warm...

The restaurant had prices that were double the ones from the city, but again, given the location and presentation, was fair.

The problem was simply how unprepared the waiters were. It took them 20 minutes to ask for our drinks. These arrived 20 minutes later. After one hour we finally were allowed by the willing waiter to order. The food arrived some time later and was decent, but nothing special.

I am usually very patient and try to adapt, but it seems like everything was simply over complicated, the staff was seriously unprepared and most of all unwilling to help.

I will never come back to this hotel and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I only gave it 2 stars because of the amazing views and great architecture. Everything else was garbage.

Also, the Minibar and laundry prices are ridiculous. Just take a look at the pictures . And the internet...

We have not even checked out yet and here I am writing a review. Let me start with the one star. I gave it one star because its absolutely gorgeous. Views of the vineyards, mountains, the grounds are simply stunning. Rooms are very well furnished and the washrooms are massive. Its clean and well maintained. Grounds are fabulous. We went for our morning run through the vineyards and it was a great start to our day.

Now for the missing four stars: No one speaks English. If you are not fluent in spanish, this hotel is not for you. The entire hotel is run by young boys who are very polite and always nod, but understand nothing. This despite the fact that I have basic spanish knowledge. Yet, every single task requires a conversation with one of two female staff who seem to be the only ones that can understand and speak english. Nothing works outside the room. Spa with indoor pool, jacuzzi, sauna is a scam. Three is no one at the desk. There is no hot tea. Sauna is shut off and smells like it has not been on in ages. Whirlpool cannot be turned on. Indoor pool has green moss on the floor. After repeated attempts at getting someone to turn on the sauna, we waited patiently for 10 minutes watching the temperature struggle to maintain barely 25, forget 50. We walked away. My wife was not amused. Very disappointing. Forget about room service. We asked for an iron board. A lady showed up with one. It was broken, She went back. Came back with another after 10 minutes. Try asking for nespresso capsules for the room, and forget about it. Took me a trip down to the desk with the capsule to show them what I wanted and then finally got some. Again, very polite. They even asked me if I needed anything else, in spanish, but the trouble is they don't understand. I don't blame the staff. I think the management clearly doesn't care much about non-spanish speaking guests and would much rather not bother.

Beware of room 204. The ac unit makes a constant whizzing sound all night, sorta kinda like washing machine. Which ordinarily would not bother me, but given the serene location of this resort, every little noise bothers your sleep.

The resort has a golf course, but no transportation is provided. Only gym on site is at the golf course. I believe the priority is on the residential units and hotel guests are secondary. Mind you, 90% of the rooms were empty during our stay. Interestingly enough the resort is owned by the co-owner of Bad Brothers which I cannot say enough good things about. So I am very surprised at the lack of attention.

I wish the management would invest in their staff as they do on their property. Train them. Hire full time english speaking staff for front...

I stayed at the hotel with my family and friends over the new year (2018-2019) and don't even know where to start my review. Positive Points: amazing location; beautiful surroundings and setting good food at the restaurant (takes ages to arrive though) Negative Points: If I were to make a list of all the points that are just wrong with this hotel, most people wouldn't have the patience to go through it. If I were to sum up the experience, this would be it: it is just a disappointment. The hotel has so much potential due to the amazing setting, yet nothing really works. It really gets to your nerves: wine is served in acrylic water cups with ice (in a vineyard for God's sake! The acrylic is fine but what about acrylic wine glasses without ice?) hotel ran out of wine during new years (??????) no pool bar and barely any pool service even though they have a covered area just for that (I mean... can we get someone with vision here?) not enough seats at the pool (barely enough for 50% of the customers), They literally have a dozen seats for the entire hotel lacking maintenance: our fridge didnt work; a lot of walls need a fresh paint, every room had some sort of thing that didnt work menu at the room has different prices for each room (???) By the end of the day it all comes up to one point: total lack of management. The staff is on their majority kind, but they are all - I really mean all - unprepared. It was clear to me at the very beginning that the team lacked training. No one did their job in a proper way. As I wanted to catch up with the manager, I was informed that the manager was on vacation and not at the property. As such I ended up talking to the assistant Manager - after an incident with some 1000€ missing money from a backpack - I was informed that she too was planning on going on vacation through new years. Meaning that neither the manager nor the assistant manager were planning on being on site through the new years eve: again, the hotel was packed; they offered a new years eve dinner and no one from the management team was planning in being there. I mean,...