Illa Experience Hotel & Spa — Hotel in Centro Histórico

We stayed here for 4 nights while visiting Quito and the surrounding region of Ecuador. The service is absolutely amazing and the staff is the most attentive, caring, and friendly we've come across in a big city. Michelle, Xavier, Juan David, and the rest of the team really made our stay enjoyable and went above and beyond to ensure we were taken care of. Every evening, the hotel provided an "Experience" during which guests get to enjoy a local Ecuadorian beverage and snack (like hot chocolate, Canelazo, etc.). It was a really nice way to end a day of exploring before dinner. The hotel also features one of the best restaurants in Latin America. The restaurant offers fine dining with a minimum of 5 courses so it's not a choice for every night but we enjoyed checking it out. The room was spacious and beautiful with a view of the Virgin statue. The hotel is located in the San Marcos neighborhood of the old town (Centro Historical) of Quito. Even though it is not safe to walk around at night the same can be said for many other parts of the city, especially as a result of the pandemic. After seeing other neighborhoods we were still happy with the location of the hotel on a nice, quiet street in the old town. If we wanted to have dinner outside of the hotel (the room service was great too) hotel staff offered to escort us and Ubers are really accessible too so we didn't feel unsafe....

We booked a 3 night stay at Illa, which didn’t quite go as planned but we were very thankful for the kindness from ALL the staff. |We arrived rather late on our first day and while we had booked a room on the second floor, we were very unfortunately put in a room on the ‘lower ground floor’. This room was at the bottom of the stairs as you enter the hotel, with 3 windows at high level, facing the road, that had opaque glass and bars on them so there was little natural light and zero view. The room was also very noisy with people coming and going early in the morning. We asked to be moved on the second day but were told the hotel was full, however they could move us the following day for our last night. This was extremely disappointing as this was the start of a very special and long awaited holiday. |I cannot fault the staff as they were all extremely nice and as helpful as they could be given the fact there were no available rooms. So to try and make us happy they provided us with a complimentary spa treatment and dinner at a local restaurant, La Vid, which was wonderful. When we moved to a room higher up in the hotel it gave us a much better experience and appreciation of the hotel. All praise to the staff who were all lovely and the latter accommodation was perfect, it was just an unfortunate incident which our travel agent is...

Not worth the price, the rooms are small and feel very tight. The hotel lacks a concierge and guard full time, so you have to ring and wait outside the hotel until someone lets you in, this is very unsafe. There is no bar, ask for a drink and they will open their expensive bottles and charge you $75 a glass and then claim they gave you "their best bottle". For this price, you should be able to know upfront what you are expected to pay. The restaurant is extremely expensive for the quality, charging as much as a renown michelin restaurant, and they do not disclose the prices of the drinks until your bill arrived. After our meal, we signed a service document with what we consumed, once we were checking out, the restaurant experience bill was inflated. We ordered an Argentinian Chandon $30 sparkling wine, but was itemized as a Moet Chandon worth $120. There was no one from the restaurant in the check out process that could be responsible for making this correction. We spoke to the manager and never got a response, we don't live in Ecuador and they said they would offer to host us for free again, rather than acting professionally and reimbursing for the items that were not consumed. Please do not STAY HERE! CASA GANGOTENA IS a thousand...