Hotel la Estacion — Hotel in San Pedro de Atacama

Scam – Not a hotel, a hostel.||Stayed one night of four booked||This “hotel” has been one of the worst stays I have ever had. It's listed here on TripAdvisor as a hotel, but when you click on the Booking.com link it takes you to “Nueva Lodge Estación” (no mention of hotel) but it still filters as a hotel.||Immediately after reserving through booking.com, I received a WhatsApp from Xiaolin – who appears to be the only front-of-house member of who encouraged me to pay in cash to save local taxes. As we were staying for four nights we handed over $800 on arrival.||Our room backed onto the main road into town so we were unable to sleep at all. The room was so small that it was not possible to open the wardrobe. The bathroom smelled. We asked for a different room and were offered an alternative, which was on a building site. So we asked for refund for the remaining three nights, but instead of $600 we were given $150. We took it and were fortunate to be taken in at the top-rated hotel on TripAdvisor for $200/night||Nueva Lodge Estación gets a 9.1 (Superb) rating on booking.com. I strongly suspect that the top reviews on booking.com have been fabricated, as they appear very similar in content.||When we confronted Xiaolin she told us that Nueva Lodge Estación has no relationship with TripAdvisor and Hotel La Estacion is a previous incarnation of the same establishment. ||When we asked to speak to the owner, we were told she was a geologist who had a helicopter accident, lives in Miami and is unable to come to San Pedro due to her injuries. ||Xiaolin was full of great excuses/reasons not to refund us. She offered us $200 – 50% of two of the days excluding the day we asked for the refund – but only gave us $150.||If you’d still like to stay, here are a few more details about Nueva Lodge Estación to consider:||• The wiring appears not to be earthed as you get static shocks when you touch the switches.||• The “serve-yourself” breakfast arrangement is a selection of jars which are permanently left out. Some of these should be refrigerated .||• Xiaolin, as well as being on reception – made breakfast. Rather than a buffet, she brought one slice of cheese cut up into six strips and six small pieces of salami. She also brought one small slice of butter on an invididual dish. She did also make eggs on a single burner gas hob that was visible from the kitchen. ||• The way appliances were plugged in in the breakfast room was clearly dangerous with overloaded sockets and power cables trailing across the floor.||• The rooms are constructed of OSB (Oriented Strand Board, a type of chipboard) with no thermal or acoustic insulation, so as well as hearing passing cars, when the person in the next room sneezed, we heard it.||• Chairs had been left in the packaging they were delivered in.||With one member of staff, charging $200 a night and encouraging you to pay in cash, Nueva Lodge Estación is clearly a great money-maker for someone. What is isn’t is a hotel, and you could get a really good one in San Pedro for the...

My partner and I stayed at this hotel for 2 nights we paid approximately $340 for our stay. On our arrival the hotel receptionist was helpful, friendly and kind. ||We were shown to an extremely small room; it was so small that there was nowhere to open our suitcases, this could only be done on the bed. However not long after we were shown to our room we discovered a leak in the bathroom as such were directed to a different room, which was fine. Whilst this room was bigger it was very cold; there was no integral heating and we were provided with a small electric heater. When we came to use the shower there was no hot water and the receptionist had to turn on a pump to make it work.||We were woken at 5am by the couple next door leaving for a tour, which was to be expected. However the walls were so thin and so poorly soundproofed that it felt like they were in the same room. There was no hot water in the morning.||Breakfast was substandard and served in a very cold room. ||Our second night was spent back at our original room, the leak having been fixed. As mentioned above the room was exceptionally small with not enough space for a suitcase to be opened without placing it on the bed, let alone two. On our second evening there was a power cut in the hotel whilst my partner was in the shower. There was no hot water in the morning. ||The quality of this hotel did not reflect the $340 we were charged for 2 nights. It is clear that this hotel has recently undergone a hurried ‘facelift’ however it felt very much like a hostel as opposed to a hotel; tiny rooms, poor services (heating and water), very poor sound proofing and an inadequate breakfast for the price point. We would not stay here again, nor recommend it on basis of value for...

This hotel goes by several different names - also by the name of Nueva Lodge Estacion, or Hotel La Estacion on Google. ||Hotel is in a great location (5 min walk from the main tourist street, so very close to the action but slightly quieter which we appreciated), and next to an excellent French bakery. ||Our room was clean and comfortable and the heaters and bedding were more than sufficient to keep the desert cold out at night (we visited in August 2023, so towards the end of winter). On-site and secure parking was made available to us.||The best thing about the hotel is the service - the hostess (Xiaolin) spoke English and was super helpful and responsive via WhatsApp both prior to and during our stay. Xiaolin offered assistance in helping us to plan our itineraries and proactively offered local knowledge (recommending us to take a certain road to Laguna Chaxa for instance, as the road was better to drive on). ||For breakfast, Xiaolin would check what time we were planning to have breakfast and prepared a fresh breakfast of scrambled eggs, cheese, cold meats and French bread specially for us. Yoghurts, toast, cereal, fruits (bananas and avocado) and were also available. Xiaolin maintains an enormous selection of cereals, biscuits, teas, coffees, hot chocolates, yoghurts, fruit, jam/preserves which is made available to guests to help themselves throughout their stay. This made the hotel feel like a true home-away-from-home as we could stop by and make tea or coffee whenever we wanted to. Xiaolin’s selection almost rivals Fortnum & Mason in London, it is so extensive and well stocked!||Amazing host, thanks for an unforgettable stay in the...