Hotel y Restaurant El Tesoro De Elqui — Hotel in Paihuano

We stayed at Hotel Elqui for two nights. The hotel is situated in a family style garden, with beautiful flowers an onsite restaurant as well as one deep pool and the rest more of small splash pools for children. You will see the family dog, cat and chickens running around. Our room was very small, with a tiny juliet balcony attached and the the view of the main plaza. It was a bit loud in the evenings as the location of the hotel is right in the centre of the small town and our room was located on the corner of the main street and the plaza. One can walk the entire town in about 15 minutes so anywhere you decide to stay won't be very far but may be a lot more peaceful than hotel Elqui, if you are a heavy sleeper the noise main not bother you. There are two shared somewhat clean bathrooms. The hot water seems to be non existent. Our breakfast left a lot to the imagination. The staff at the hotel restaurant seem to have better things to do rather than server the guests, we sat at our table for about 30 minute before they acknowledged us. The breakfast consisted of one bun, coffee or tea and some jam or butter. During our first morning's breakfast all guests but us received eggs as part of their breakfast. The breakfast is supposed to be served from 10 am to 11:30 however when we arrived shorty after 10 am the staff didn't seem to be ready for us. We knew Chile is not a very punctual country but this brought it to another level of irritating. Other guests at the hotel seem to have been very upset with the breakfast situation as well. As seasoned travellers we felt the hotel did not meet the value for our money at $60 per night. We don't recommend hotel Elqui and would not come back...

Negative: the room has no air conditioning, no tv, no WiFi. The bed sheets and towels all have (yellow) stains - we got them replaced and the new also had stains. The appliances do not work properly (shower). The bathroom has no hooks for towels. In total, the room, is below average. The big advertising to see the stars from the bed does not work if the window is not clean, also if the room gets hot and has no air conditioning.

The restaurant‘s food was slightly off - not worth the price in my opinion. I ordered a salad and a starter, each for about 13.000 CLP, and it did not seem fresh and also did not contain what the menu said it should contain. The pisco sour promo (3 varieties) were not freshly mixed.

Positive: The service personnel was all over very nice.

The breakfast was good. It looks little, but you can ask for more.

The premises are very nice, resort like. There are cats, that enter your room if you are not careful. I, personally, liked...

El fin de semana, mi pareja y yo tuvimos una experiencia bastante decepcionante. Aunque los precios eran bastante elevados ($105.000 por noche), algo comprensible por ser fin de semana largo, la calidad de la infraestructura no estuvo a la altura. El lugar tenía un fuerte olor a humedad, paredes descascaradas y, en general, mostraba un evidente descuido en su mantenimiento.

Al llegar, nos sorprendimos ya que el espacio real del hotel no se parece en LO ABSOLUTO a lo que se muestra en sus redes sociales (Instagram y Facebook). El día que llegamos, estaba caluroso y planeábamos pasar un rato en la piscina, que según nos informaron estaba en "mantención", pero al verla concluímos que llevaba claramente mucho tiempo sin funcionar y dudo que realmente esté en sus planes repararla, ya que esta estaba descascarada y los bordes estaban en pedazos. Además, los jardines simplemente no existían; no hay áreas verdes como se promociona en su página, solo paisajismo entre las cabañas y un espacio junto a la piscina donde están las reposeras. Los espacios comunes estaban abandonados, acumulando polvo y basura.

Las habitaciones son lo único que podría considerarse "aceptable", ya que ofrecen lo necesario para pasar una buena noche de descanso. Sin embargo, es importante mencionar que no cuentan con secador de pelo en la habitación como uno esperaría de un hotel, algo a tener en cuenta si alguien planea bañarse de noche ya que estos se deben solicitar en recepción y esta funciona en un horario definido durante el dia.

En resumen, me sentí muy decepcionado. Fui con expectativas altas para pasar tiempo en el hotel, pero terminamos usando solo la habitación. En este caso, recomendaría alojarse en un hostal o en un hotel más económico, y no esperar una estadía de lujo ya que eso no es lo que ofrece este lugar.

Nota adicional: Como opción para bañarnos al aire libre nos ofrecieron las tinajas, las cuales emanan un mal olor y están ubicadas en un área visible a todo el público del hotel (cerca de la piscina, los estacionamientos y los espacios comunes), su valor es adicional y bastante elevado ($50 USD/hora).

Por el precio de la "experiencia", definitivamente no volveremos y no lo recomendamos. Demasiado enfocado en aparentar en RRSS comodidades y espacios que no tienen, muy buen trabajo del fotógrafo de publicidad. 👍🏼

Lo bueno: la atención del personal es un 10, destacamos la amabilidad del personal que sirve el desayuno (desayuno...