If I could have given 2.5 stars, I would have, because the breakfasts were good, the place was clean, and the interior decor was very pretty. We stayed four nights here and chose this hotel based on the reviews, the photos, and the description of it being "in the historic center". When we arrived, we were taken to dark, windowless (although nicely decorated) rooms at the back of the hotel, walking right past the rooms (like those in the TripAdvisor photos) which were beautiful, well-lit and had big windows - even though we could see that those rooms with windows were all unoccupied and empty!!! (Every bedroom has a big glass window built right in the door, so everyone walking by can see right into your room unless you close the heavy curtains to try to get some privacy - and we could see that the better rooms that we walked past were unoccupied on that first night, and also all of the four nights that we were there). Most of the nights, we were the only guests in this 12 room hotel, so it was strange that the owner lady wouldn't give us better rooms, since it would have been very easy for her to have done so. Our suitcases had already been placed in our rooms before we discovered this, and we were all too exhausted from traveling all day to ask to be moved - but it sure would have been nice NOT to be in a dark, windowless room, when better rooms were available. Also, the walls are very thin, so from your room (even with the door closed and curtains drawn) you can hear the conversations in the lobby and other rooms, and also the very loud buzzer that people have to ring in order to be let into the hotel.||||The lobby and our rooms were littered with negative signage, which was really disheartening and annoying. In the lobby: "No food or drink in rooms" (except what is purchased from the hotel owners), "No storage of luggage" (if you arrive early or have an evening flight, which is the norm in Quito), "An extra night's fee will be charged if you aren't out by checkout time", "Absolutely no guests besides the person(s) paying for the room", "laundry requires 15 items of clothing"; plus signs in the rooms instructing us on how to wash our hands (insulting!), signs around the room admonishing to use as little water and electricity as possible, not to drink alcohol, not to eat or drink in the room, watch out how you close the shower door, no smoking (not an issue for us), no washing any of your clothes in your sink or shower (the owner lady charges $20 to wash 15 items of clothing, and that's your only option, which is crazy expensive in a country where the average monthly wages are $470 per working person!), etc, etc.... We had also been told by others that you're not allowed to bring any (to go) cups of coffee (from outside coffee shops) into the hotel or else the owner lady will charge you for it. It's "upselling" with a punitive aspect to it.||||The toilet room and the shower room were at opposite ends of the bedroom, and there was never a hand towel near the sink in the toilet room. We'd bring a hand towel from the shower room and hang it on the hook near the sink in the toilet room, and the next day it would be gone, put back in the shower room and we had to fetch it all over again - not a huge thing, but still annoying when you're standing at the sink with wet hands and there's no towel around.||||The older couple who (somewhat recently) bought the hotel and are the current owners, live in the various rooms that are literally right off of the lobby, so when we went to the lobby in the evenings to play cards (because there was no space to play cards in our rooms), we had to listen to their loud Spanish language TV and radio, which wasn't ideal or peaceful. The (gentleman) owner was nice enough though, and once tried to help us flag down a taxi in front of the hotel for quite a while, until we finally gave up and just called an Uber.||||The owner lady had converted a small first floor storage closet into a "wine cellar" (the identical room on the second floor right above it is still a storage closet). In this tiny dark room are a few chairs, about a half dozen bottles of wine and a big sign saying that if you bring any outside wine to the hotel, you'll be charged a $10 "corkage fee". My husband went to the corner store and saw the exact same wines for $9 - $10 that she was selling for $25 in her "wine" closet.||||We were two couples: one of the men was Hispanic, and the other three of us were blonde (although one of us blondes is totally fluent in Spanish, and the other two speak very passable Spanish). The owner lady always, always only looked at and spoke to the hispanic one of us in Spanish, completely ignoring the other three of us, which felt a bit demeaning. Because she and her husband never spoke to us in English, it appears that Spanish is their only language - which should be a serious consideration for any non-Spanish-speaking potential guests thinking of staying here. ||||The lobby and bedrooms were pretty and nicely decorated, the breakfasts were good, and the two maids/serving girls were nice and cleaned the rooms well. One morning I had paused halfway through my breakfast to talk with our friends and my husband; one of the serving girls came from the kitchen and tried to clear my dishes. I politely explained to her in Spanish that I wasn't done eating yet. Seconds later, the owner lady came out from the kitchen, a bit irritated, and again started taking my dishes away, leaning all the way in front of me so I couldn't even see my husband across the table from me. It was clearly like she'd told the girl to go take my dishes, and since the girl didn't succeed, she felt like she had to go and get the job done ASAP herself. Not a very relaxing, welcoming or enjoyable breakfast experience.||||They offer airport pickup for $35 (one way), but an UberXL charges only $30 from the airport to that hotel, and a taxi is only $26 from the airport to the hotel - just FYI.||||This hotel is right on the very outside edge of the historic center, well over a half mile away from the actual Basilica, and even much farther from better parts of the historic center - so it's not in a central or attractive area. And additionally, you have to walk up steep hills to get to either the Basilica or the Historic Center of Quito. Turns out that there were beautiful, highly rated hotels right in the heart of the beautiful historic district that we could have stayed at for the same price!!! I was kicking myself for not choosing better!!! The exterior of the Hotel Basilica is drab and unremarkable; if you walked past it, you wouldn't even realize it's a hotel. There's a big windowless heavy door with a buzzer, a street number above it, and a tiny "hotel basilica" sign (almost unnoticeable) way off to the side. You can't just walk into the hotel and there's no doorman, so you have to ring the buzzer and wait to get buzzed in. One night, each of us two couples went to separate restaurants, arriving back at the hotel at separate times. When my husband and I came back that night, there was a drunk, toothless vagrant man with a big dog blocking us from ringing the buzzer - unless we gave him money, which we eventually did, just so we could ring the buzzer to get into the hotel. Once inside, we told the owner lady about it; she just shrugged and went back to whatever she was doing. Not a great area at night, and she didn't seem to care very much about her guests' safety.||||Usually all my reviews about hotels, restaurants and tours are nearly always overwhelmingly positive, but I wrote this (fairly negative) review because I wished I'd had the benefit of receiving a heads-up about the downsides of this hotel from a reviewer before I'd booked it, so I'm letting others know about our experience, so they can at least be informed. We would not at all recommend this hotel. Maybe the positive reviews were all written when the hotel was under the...
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