Butterfly House Bahia — Hotel in Região Geográfica Imediata de Ilhéus – Itabuna

My husband and i have just come back from a 5 night stay at Butterfly House. The good and bad are below:||||||The Good:||||The beach is beautiful - incredibly wide and flat, golden sand. Perfect for long walks. It's lined by palm trees all along and very empty most of the time. ||||The sea is very warm - perfect temperature. But not quite calm enough for swimming, more for a refreshing dip.||||The beach bar is comfortable - lots of seats/beds/hammocks. The drinks are well made (when they have the right ingredients)||||The prices of food and drink are reasonable for Brazil.||||The pool is perfect - clean and a good size and perfect temperature.||||The rooms are a good size - we stayed in Quemeria and it was quite large.||||||||The Bad:||||The rooms are nice, but in places felt badly designed and a bit unloved. For instance, each time we showered there was a huge flood all over the floor. The sink tap handles felt like they were going to come off. The bedlinen was stained in several places. The mosquito net didn't meet, so there were large gaps in it rendering it pointless. There were quite a few lightbulbs missing. The towels were very thin and small. Small things, which aren't the worst things in the world, but it's expensive to stay there and so these things should be better than they were.||||The food is overall fairly average. And it's a limited menu, which if you're there for more than 3 or 4 nights starts to get boring. The chicken wrap is very good, and there was a prawn curry that we had on our 1st night which was good, but other things were a bit dissapointing.||||The breakfast is hit and miss. Some days good, others not so much. ||||The music at the beach bar is pretty bad and played on repeat.. It's also quite loud so drowns out the lovely sound of the sea. ||||It's incredibly secluded - once you're there it's a struggle and very very expensive to leave. (We spent $240 Brazilian Real for a return taxi ride to Barra Grande). There's nowhere within walking distance.||||All the above could be forgiven, if it wasn't for the next point - which is that the service is bad - unless you're Brazilian. Only the owner Chloe, her husband Leo, and the barman Louis speak English. So if they're not around it's a real struggle. The bar staff and restaurant staff speak absolutely no English. We came prepared with the basics in Portuguese, but it really doesn't help. Some staff training in the basics of English would make a huge difference. We noticed that the Brazilian guests had much more attentive service from everyone overall, and as it was almost impossible to communicate with anyone there, asking for little things became quite a struggle which left us feeling quite frustrated. For instance.. waiting half an hour for a cup of coffee at breakfast and our orders being forgotten about on at least 4 separate occasions, not being able to get hold of towels when we needed them.. Again, seems like small stuff, but it's not very relaxing.||||||Overall this is a lovely place, on a truly beautiful beach and there is a lot that they've got right but so much more they could do to make it better. The management and running of the place is haphazard - which could be charming, but at the prices charged (especially over New Year) feels like a bit of a sting. £500 per night gets you faultless service in every other place i've ever stayed, so although it's got a lot of wonderful things going for it, you end up feeling a bit ripped off. Some better training and an experienced manager overseeing everything would make a...

If you're looking for a peaceful, rustic-chic retreat far from the maddening tourist crowds, this is the place for you. Butterfly House is a sophisticated little enclave, offering a fine-dining restaurant, a beautiful pool and bar area, all surrounded by fragrant, well-manicured gardens and towering palm trees. There's also a beachfront bar called Anna Banana, where you can relax in a hammock or in the giant timber throne and either watch the sun rise, or the moon appear over the sea. If you like to watch the sunset, this is best done while you're swimming in the sea - you can turn around and face the pousada, and watch the sun set behind the palm trees. Pure magic.||||I stayed in the bungalow named Esmaralda. Its décor was a combination of Moroccan and French influences, with high, thatched ceilings, timber floors and walls made from smooth Moroccan plaster. It was like nothing else I've seen in Brazil before. There was air conditioning and a TV in the room as well, and the bedding was plush and comfortable. Definitely a room you would be happy to hang out in. A big glass door opened onto the front porch as well as the gardens and pool beyond. ||||Now, about that pool - it's the ideal place to chill out and have a massage, read a book, enjoy a meal in the sunshine... The pool was cleaned daily and surrounded by beautiful gardens. Just heavenly. There's also the gazebo nearby, where you can relax in the shade and flip through a few coffee table books or magazines. The staff at the bar are always on hand to whip you up a caipirinha if you're feeling parched.||||The best thing about the hotel is perhaps the worst thing about it too - the location is remote. Taxis will bring you to the hotel from Barra Grande, no problem, but once you're at the hotel you can sometimes feel a bit stuck. Of course, it's a wonderful place to hang out in - when I was there I didn't leave the place for 3 days, and I had no problems! But if you're not driving, you can rent quad bikes, which mean you to travel around the region at your leisure.||||The food at the restaurant is sublime. Try the moqueca de peixe! Breakfast was a wonderful way to wake up each day. Crêpes, fresh fruit, eggs, strong coffee - all served to you at your table with a view of the ocean.||||Chloe and the staff at the pousada were super helpful. Personally, I think this is one of Brazil's finest pousadas, and I've stayed in a lot of them! Like anything in Brazil, the harder the place is to get to, the better it usually is. Butterfly House is well...

The supreme cabin we had was lovely. The bed was SO comfortable! Amazing pillows!! The best we've had, and we've stayed in a lot of places! We appreciated the fridge in the room and the rustic decor was lovely. The drainage didnt work in the basins and bedside light on my side didn't work. I mentioned it but it wasnt fixed. Air-conditioning was lovely, but no windows and no mosquito nets, so had to keep all shutters closed to cool the room and not be munched by insects, so it was pitch black unless you had the lights on. We asked for a large bottle of water to be put in the bedroom, and it took 2 days to arrive.||The hotel resort is amazing, the pool is gorgeous, and the jungle plants and paths, although very few sunbeds in the sun, so sunbathing has to be done on the beach...which is lovely. It was unfortunate that when we went the beach was full of drift wood...no fault of the hotel.||Be aware the laundry costs are exceptionally high... $20 for a very small load of about 2kg!!||Sadly the biggest issue was the restaurant service. IF you got the meal you wanted, you often had to wait over an hour, sometimes 2hrs, even when the restaurant was empty!! I waited over an hour for a chicken wrap when we were the only ones eating! The restaurant staff are all lovely, but don't speak a word of English, and won't venture off the menu. So if you want fish instead of steak with your fries and salad, you can't have it! Only fish with rice and beans and a local condiment. When they did eventually allow it, after 30 mins of translating and explaining...they charged the full Br98 for full steak meal, not Br56 for the fish dish, even though there was less on the plate!||I'd highly recommend hiring a 4x4 car and driving yourself....The taxi back to the airport cost Br550, because the road is terrible for 45% of the journey, so they charge extra just for that! ||It is beautiful, and very peaceful, so worth a stay, and maybe as it was the beginning of the busy season, thats why the service...