Hostal Tótem — Hotel in Valdivia

We found this hotel online. We arrived early afternoon and as soon as we got in, the owner suggested a bigger room with four beds, instead of our reservation of 2 separate rooms, to make it cheaper for our family: 2 adults, one teen, and one kid. Very nice thing to do! They brought us clean towels immediately, and the owner personally took care of a little problem we had with the WC (non-stop running water). The house is old, but it is well kept and, looks warm and comfy all around. The room's wooden floor looked a bit dusty, specially under the beds and behind, surfaces where a bit dirty, but on the other hand there is plenty of closet space. For the value overall it was ok. We had TV with a few cable channels, and it was possible for us to use the kitchen's microwave, and fridge. There is always the possibility of hot water, if you want an extra coffee or tea, and they let you take a glass, cup or serving dish if you need to. Best thing about this hotel is the location, a few steps away from the river, and the most important streets of Valdivia. There is plenty of coffee shops, restaurants, and supermarkets around, especially if you take the corner street: Caupolican. Personnel was really friendly, always Mrs. Cristina with a smile on her face. So nice. Free wifi, and breakfast stupendous: nice fresh bread, cheese, ham, a little piece of cake, hot milk, coffee, tea, juice... Excellent! My recommendation for travellers: Bring your own shampoo, conditioner,...

We wandered from place to place in the area looking for lodging. We were first shown a fairly small room, but when asked if there was something bigger were shown an excellent sized room for not all that much more money and made a decision on the spot to stay there for a couple nights.||||Its called a Hostel, and the furniture looked like it had been collected from a variety of places, but the beds were comfortable, the shower worked well, had free and good WIFI, and was much closer to a Hotel than Hostel.||||Breakfast was fine, nothing special, nothing bad....normal for Chile.||||The manager, though, made the difference. He worked something like 10am-7:30pm daily, spoke Spanish, French and English all fairly fluently. Was VERY helpful in terms of figuring out what to do, where, etc. He knows a lot about the area, and what he didn't know he volunteered to look up.||||The evening woman wasn't as helpful (but not terribly so), and didn't speak English. The lights in the central area were on a bit late the first night (the main door to the room is obscured glass)...we had to ask her to shut them off, which she promptly did.||||Did I mention that we got all this for a low, low rate?!||||Like a number of places of its kind you aren't given a key to the front door, so have to buzz in every time you go in/out, which makes you feel a bit odd about running out to the car to get something, but...||||We'd...

This place is terrible. I have to say after a lot of emails we did get our money back . We had a family room ,even though there was only 2of us ,but we paid the price for a family room... not a problem . Arrived and the lady who greeted us was lovely. Towels and bedding were clean but the room was absolutely filthy. We were told we could leave but having driven a very long way we decided not to. ||We went out for a meal and some wine . When we got back ,the owner was waiting for us. Oh my what a terrible offensive ,rude man . ||I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the world but I have never experienced a landlord like this. ||He accused us of being drunk, shouted at us for complaining. ||The whole hostel looks like no money has been put into it since the 80s. ||Take a look at my photos.. you did not want bare feet in this room. This is the first time I have ever written a bad review about a hotel . It took me a long time to decide wether to write this or not. I decide others should not pay...