Royal Rio Palace Hotel — Hotel in Região Geográfica Imediata do Rio de Janeiro

I am writing this review hoping that no other traveler may have such a horrific experience as my family/friend and I did. Our flight was delayed coming out of New York City, so we notified the hotel of the late check-in. Upon arrival, we checked in with someone who appeared to be a pleasant individual. Two reservations, a deluxe triple room, and a double room, were booked and paid for through Chase Travel in November 2024. |The agent processed our reservation (collecting each guest's name and passport information) and provided us with room keys. He provided information regarding breakfast (starts at 6:00 am and finishes at 10:00/11:00 am), pool (closes at 10:00 pm), and if we needed information about tours, we could connect with someone at the front desk. We all thanked him for all the information as we were exhausted from our travel and wanted to shower, eat, and sleep (it was after 10:00 pm). |We were so impressed with the view when we visited the first room. The room was spacious and beautifully decorated. It had a few unexpected amenities, such as the jacuzzi and sauna, but we thought it was a pleasant surprise. After settling in the first room, we went to the second room (deluxe double room), and oh yes, that was a shock! The room was so small that as soon as we opened the door, the bed was about five steps away. This room was smaller than we booked. We decided to return to the receptionist/hotel agent to discuss the confusion, and he stated that “there were no other rooms available.” He apologized and said that we could come back in the morning and they would have more rooms available. He even offered free caipirinha drinks for all four of us. |One group member went to the morning reception to check in about the deluxe double room. When she came back to the room we thought was the deluxe triple room; she stated that the room was a presidential suite and it was provided to us for only one night for the inconvenience of not having our rooms available; now that the rooms are available, we can take our things to the new room. Frustrated and upset, we went down to speak to the receptionist (Jorge) because we were not told about this temporary room switch nor that we would have to move out of it after getting comfortable. He explained the same thing to us and even mentioned that the previous one informed us about this, and we all missed this information. |We could not even pay the extra for the room because it was “reserved.” Now irritated about all the inconvenience, we agreed to see the rooms to start our day. On our way up to the room, Jorge mentioned, “I like dealing with white women more than black women… black women are difficult to deal with.” We spoke to the agents each time with leveled tones (no cussing, shouting, or making derogatory comments), even with all the frustration. I am not always the most outspoken or confrontational person, but I wanted to have a pleasant experience for my birthday and get the best treatment. For that reason, my family and I were labeled as “difficult” only because of our skin color. It was not difficult because we were, but because this hotel agent has a prejudice against black women. I would not recommend this hotel, especially for any black female traveler, as the hotel seems to prefer...

Hmmmm well if you only care about a room it’s not bad. Good location for getting your head down after a night out. However, for a hotel it’s defo lacking when comparing to the equivalent options.

The breakfast is terrible, we compared it to local cafes and other hotels of similar prices we have stayed. Some of the options taste weird, not like the same thing anywhere else.

The bed is tidied and fresh towels every day, but the bath and shower are not cleaned (we know because hair is left in each day), the bath leaks and when using the jacuzzi it smelt bad.

The staff are not trained in customer service, which is a real shame. They don’t really know how to engage or be polite and it sometimes comes across as rude, I just think the company doesn’t invest in training.

The cleaning staff were outside the room complaining about each other, almost shouting about a colleague. We had a Portuguese speaker translate and they were being terrible, it was funny, but it was also 11pm so they don’t keep the noise down. It’s not very professional here.

The hotel is ageing and there’s not sound proofing from other rooms, the water system is noisy, everyone hears water running for other peoples showers.

The three elevators are annoying, they aren’t programmed like other hotels to avoid stopping on every floor, sometimes you can be unlucky, trapped in a busy elevator with many people taking ages to go up or down.

They’re aggressive with charging extras, expensive water, charging too many, charging for losing towel cards (we didn’t thankfully). If it’s your only option, don’t expect much and just do it. However, if you have another option then use it. I gave this 1-star because of our engagement with staff and experience - it definitely didn’t reflect their current score. Perhaps we were just unlucky but who knows, more...

When I arrived at the hotel at 2pm I realized the ac was broken. It was extremely hot and we were sweating from just sitting in the room. I called the reception desk to ask about the ac and they told me it would be fixed in 30min. I went out to checkout there area and came back to the hotel at 7pm and the ac was still not working. It's hot and humid so ac is a must. Additionally on closer inspection the bed sheets were dirty and had what looked like blood stains.

At this point I went to the reception desk because I decided to stay at a different hotel. When I asked for a refund the receptionist was cordial and tried to make this stressful situation better. The receptionist offered a different room that has ac, however when the manager heard this conversation he dryly told the receptionist to not even try to give us a different room and that we should just go to a different hotel. This manager decided to undo the receptionist's efforts to correct the issue. At this point this rude manager became more involved, since I booked the hotel room through Expedia I needed to request a refund with Expedia. On their own hotel form they had written that we were cancelling our reservation because the ac was not working. I asked to take a picture of their form thinking it is a reasonable request with no extra effort on their part, this would help me get a refund through Expedia, however again the manager made things difficult and refused to allow me to take a picture of this form.

I came here for a short 2 day vacation trip and ended up dealing with terrible treatment at this hotel and having to change hotels. I would not recommend this...