Hostal Las Fresas — Hotel in Lima Metropolitan Area

My family of 4 had to stay the night in Lima to catch a flight the next morning. We booked here and days later received email about their pickup service from the airport||and that we would be charged for it regardless whether we use it or not. The email||showed us a picture of a spot where someone will wait with a sign board of our names.||It also stated that if we do not find anyone, then we need to call from the public phone||and that all we needed were some Peruvian coins.||The email was in English. At any rate, inspite of furnishing the airline details, they did not send anyone. I had a movistar SIM card, but could not get it activated. So from the LIMA airport, I used the 10 minutes of free internet service and Skype on my iphone where I had $10 credit to call any phone line any where to call the hotel. Not speaking any Spanish, I used an app to translate my request and when the lady answered the phone, I just told her what I needed. She was asking my phone number. I told her that i am calling from skype and had no number. She was not sophisticated enough to get it. I also did mention that I had a reservation. But at any rate, I find a taxi and head to the hotel. It is in a location that is a little bit iffy. The||lady was friendly at the checkin. We paid right away for the room as well as the taxi service of Soles 15 for the next morning. The room was in the 2nd floor and there was||a bunk bed of 1 over 1 and another queen bed. Not much space around for lugguage. The bunk bed was a bit scary for me to sleep at the top and let my son sleep at the lower level.||There was no plywood over the horizontal cross beams that distribute the load to the||frame. The frame was well secured, but several horizontal cross beams were resting on the frame by like a 1/4" and could move. I could not take the risk of any accidents||to the kids. So I left my spouse sleep at the top and I slept at the lower level of the bunk and for that matter we are not fat at all. Now the bathroom had no hot water like at 8pm. I asked for the hotwater heater to be turned on. The lady who checked us in had left and now there was a young girl. I again used the translator app and showed the girl what I needed. She said she was going to call someone about the heater. But never||did give an answer. Later I went downstairs and asked if we could get another vacant||room just to use the hot water shower. She said that it was not working at all.||However, the next day morning, at about 5am, the hot water was fine. So they were||reluctant to turn the heater on I surmise.||Now on to the toilet. There is absolutely no space between the toilet and the shower for one to keep their left leg. It is a bit tight. We did not use the shower, but the shower||is built in like a 5ft by 2.5ft space. I am average built and would keep hitting the sides||had I used the shower.||There was noise in the hotel all the way past mid night with people moving in and out and talking. To add, there is no A/C for ventilation in the room. We could open the window, but did not. We kept the bathroom door open and there is a ventilation window||in the bathroom. There was noise outside till like 2am. ||At any rate, my kids slept well. I could have used ear plugs, but needed to be able to||hear the alarm clock. So was at the mercy of the noise wanning away at 2am to get||some 3 hours of sleep before getting ready to leave for the airport.||Except for the proximity to the airport, there is nothing here.||Good that we dined at the airport before heading to this place. There are no eateries||around in walking distance. But the hotel has a pizza place menu that one can call and||order, take a taxi to go and pickup. They also sell bottled water in the hotel. The||taxi that they offered for Soles 15 to drop us at the airport was on time.||They need to have someone who can speak a little English if they are offering the ||place in Expedia. At any rate, no big deal with the language. Not a huge problem. ||Wifi was slow. No elevators to haul your luggage and one needs to lug it up the stairs.||Now you all know what to expect if you...

We arrived at the hostel at around midnight after five of us packed into our "transportation," which was a small sedan not big enough for more than three people. My wife sat on my lap with her head tilted to the side so that we could all fit in this car, arranged by the hostel to wait for us. Those without people in their laps had luggage instead. ||This, however, wasn't the beginning of our issues with these folks. Months before the trip, my wife had alerted the hostel that five travelers would be arriving in Lima. Two days before flying, we sent them an email saying we'd each have a checked bag and a carry-on. We were quoted a price of $45 American dollars for the transportation required to accommodate this number of people and bags.||When we arrived at the airport and found the guy with the sign adorning my wife's name, he barely understood a word of English, and stated (to one of our fellow travelers who could speak Spanish) that he didn't have enough room for the $55 transportation costs...Wait, what? That's right. The woman from the hostel that we got on the phone with after finding out our transportation wouldn't work said she told us it was $55 (we have emails with the original quote in them), but that we'd have to pay $90 American dollars because this guy would have to drive twice from the airport to get us all there. ||Because we were tired and in no mood to deal with any of this, we all walked to the car and smooshed ourselves in it and bit our cheeks when we paid the $55 to the front desk. ||Before I get into the details about the place, I must warn you that although the hostel is very close to the neighborhood, it is located in an area I wouldn't walk through by myself if I were armed (I'm a 37-year-old man).||So the rooms were cozy and humid beyond description. Climbing into the bed, I couldn't tell if the sheets were washed and not properly dried or if the level of humidity in the air attributed to the wetness I felt. Either way, I didn't remove my clothes and slept on top of the blanket. They also put my friends (a married couple) in a room with two small beds instead of the one large bedroom they had booked.||In the morning, when the same exact car came to get us and cram us in, my wife slipped on the way out the front door and damn near busted her @$$. This was 8 days ago, and she's still complaining of a "burning hip." The walkway from the front door is made of rubber, and with all the humidity in the air and condensation, was basically a sheet of ice. My wife didn't get so much as an apology or any help from the woman who checked us in/out, and instead gave me a cringe when I turned around to look at her after picking my wife up off the sidewalk. ||To be honest, I'd never return to this place again. On top of their shady business practices, their rooms are tiny, damp, and their shuttling service was nothing short of hazardous in a place where people drive like aggressive teenagers. In spite of the fact that they tried to decorate the place to look nice in spite of its shady surroundings, the way they conduct themselves is little shy of criminal....

My Las Fresas experience started with an awful "official" taxi driver outside of the airport picking me up and going on about how dangerous this hostal is and that he can take me to a better one: The Principle. I kept saying "no gracias," but the driver just kept going on and on about The Principle and how dangerous it would be to stay at Las Fresas. The driver even went so far as to actually drive to The Principle against my wishes where again I had to firmly say "Please take me to Las Fresas." ||||If you're thinking that's a one-time fluke, other previous reviews show this has been going on for years. Also, a second time I had to make a cab ride from the airport, again I was being pitched another hotel by a cab driver after telling him I already have a reservation elsewhere. This is not normal and the Lima airport should put a stop to this, but it apparently does nothing. ||||About Las Fresas itself, the people who run it seem like genuinely kind and good-willed people. While the Callao neighborhood itself is not somewhere you may want to be in the middle of the night alone, once I was at the hostel itself, I never felt unsafe. Given the other limited options of secure accommodations near the airport, this is a good choice if you have a layover and you just need to spend a night somewhere. My room was clean. It had a really good cable or satelite system that had a lot of premium channels (and on some channels, you could adjust the audio from spanish into english). My room had its own bathroom. The hot water was never really hot, but adequately warm. The wifi was free and worked great. The downside is that this hostel is more for practical purposes only, as there are not many touristy activities around. There are several pharmacies within walking distance as well as a market and lots of little corner stores. ||||Overall, very glad I chose this hostel over the one I was about to get scammed into. I think Las Fresas should get in contact with the airport management so that this practice from the taxi drivers can...