Hotel Cityzen — Hotel in Guayaquil

I spent one night here. Check in took too long. They wanted my credit card right off the bat before my passport even! I had to sign my name twice and they ran my card through a machine. I thought I was paying for the room but no, it was a deposit.||||When I checked in, the girl patiently waited while I used my bad Spanish and then after a few attempts at communicating that way, she started talking very good English. Why wait? Attitude.||||Pluses:||1) Lobby and rooms were nicely decorated.||2) Reasonable price, perhaps a tad overpriced given the plethora of choices.||3) Located in the vibrant downtown just a few blocks from the Malecon.||4) An in-house bar/restaurant.||5) Room service available.||6) Security conscious.||7) Breakfast is much better than average.||||Minuses:||1) A/C in the room is cold and there was no way to regulate it. I froze to death until it finally shut off in the middle of the night all by itself. There is supposed to be a remote control but there was nothing to be found||2) TV didn't work. There was a remote for it but it didn't work. ||3) You get 2 towels and 2 washcloths. Both poor quality.||4) No safety strips in the shower. You can easily slip and fall from the soapy water at your feet.||5) No hot water to speak of.||6) Water pressure is weak.||7) 300 thread count sheets are scratchy. You want to be a 4-star hotel, step it up with all linens.||8) You have to use your room card to use the elevator (place it over the black circle that looks like a speaker but is really a mag reader). You also have to insert your card in a slot in the wall which activates the lights. Leave it in the slot and use switches.||9) There is something in the wall and it woke up for the morning, scratching and fluttering. Room 206.||10) Breakfast was ok but...varieties of tea but no hot water available...there is a warmer for the warm dishes but no flame underneath which means the food got cold... in the 30 minutes I was in the restaurant, not one worker made an appearance...ham and cheese here is of the thinly sliced processed kind, not very appealing...no butter for bread only strawberry preserves...no toaster...it's as if they set up the buffet at the start and didn't care what happened after that...strawberry milk for cereals!!!||11) The worst thing was checking out. I had to sign my name 5 TIMES before I could leave. I made arrangements for this place through booking.com but apparently I didn't pay then, just reserved. They REALLY NEED TO STREAMLINE THE CHECKING IN/OUT process here. And I don't like places that make you put up a deposit when you check in. Just another way to lose money and more paperwork.||||In summary, this place could be a 4 star place with some effort. Like that guy on "Hotel Impossible" says, checklists,...

We were generally happy with the stay here. I'd rate it 3.5 if I could -- between average and very good. ||||The good or great: ||The room was clean, spacious enough, and the bed was comfortable. ||The staff was great, including a very helpful (and in English) description of nice places to visit when we inquired, with a map. ||The breakfast offerings were pretty extensive and the hours were pretty broad (from 7am to 10am), though some things ran out by 9:30 and weren't replaced. ||We had no problems with water temperature (though it takes a minute to heat up).||The TV worked fine for us had extensive channels available. ||It seemed secure to us, including with an in-room safe and controls on the elevator to ensure folks were guests.||The location was pretty good, in walking distance from a number of restaurants and the Malecon.||We didn't have issues with the wifi.||||The not so good: ||I had some trouble sleeping due to street noise. Perhaps a room not on the main street would have been better. ||There was no coffee/tea access outside of breakfast hours (such as in-room pot of in-lobby).||There was no general water cooler to refill water with, instead there were two water bottles in-room. (In a country where it's not safe to drink the water, having an accessible water cooler seems essential to me.)||They called cabs (or rather private drivers that weren't official taxis) for us that arrived quickly. The drivers were reliable and good.||||The questionable: ||*Our reservation via Booking.com was $103.68 for two nights. We asked to extend it for one night and were told we'd be paying the same rate. However, our total bill was $194.23. (It would've been $155.52 if the $103 rate was all-inclusive and we were charged the same for each night.) Because our flight was changed to crazy early, I didn't have time to parse through the apparent discrepancy with them. Maybe Booking.com didn't include taxes (?). I still haven't figured it out, and will update...

I love the hotel's clever name. Staff, including the managers, are welcoming, helpful, and customer-focused. I saw three rooms. All three were esthetically pleasing in the quality and color tones of the floor and cabinet surfaces, the window coverings, and the wall and table lights. Having said that, the twin standard room is quite petite, and essentially windowless, but economical. Good wifi in the rooms. Each room has its own strong, unique password. My room had a lukewarm shower and it needs a grip bar for getting in and out of the deep tub. I wish there were hooks or bars to hang things from. Street noise apparent, but no more than what one expects in a city-center hotel. I heard no sounds from other guests in other rooms. Breakfast includes: scrambled or fried eggs, toast and butter/jam, juice, a cup of fresh-cut fruit and yogurt, a slice of cheese or processed ham, and coffee or tea. Dining room understaffed. My device didn't trust the security of the open "guest wifi" at the hotel's street level, so I didn't use that account when out of range of my room's wifi. The caliber of the staff, the esthetic appeal of the rooms, and the central location are the hotel's greatest assets. But it is the staff who raise my rating from a very...