The Hostel Sun Palace Inn was in an extremely convenient location right where the IncaRail train drops off passengers (and the train station-they are a little different) and very near the buses to Machu Pichu…this was also a major drawback. The tracks are literally a few feet from the front door so if your room is in the front of the building it is extremely loud whenever a train goes by and sits to drop off passengers. Since the tracks run right through town this is true for probably half of the hotels. Another convenience was an indoor market located right across the tracks.||||Our group had two rooms at Sun Palace, I shared a room with a friend and we were located in the back on the third floor (check-in and the breakfast room are located on the second floor). Our friends had a room in the front on the third floor and it was indeed very loud. The whole front of the building would vibrate whenever there was a train, and there were quite a few trains, even very early in the morning and into the night. You could hear and feel the trains in our little room at the back, but it wasn’t too bad. ||||Our room had an interesting view of the river and the side of the mountain. It had two twin beds, a nightstand, a tile floor, a very small TV (that only got one extremely static filled channel), a small table (I used for my suitcase), and an armoire/closet. I found the bed uncomfortable, it felt like sleeping on a pile of cardboard boxes. The room had a weird window above the door into the hallway and right outside the door was a light that would shine very brightly into our room all night. After the first night we would turn it off, but somebody kept turning it back on.||||The bathroom was small and had a window into the hallway for ventilation, so it was noisy and a little awkward…The shower and sink both had very bad leaks so you could hear the water running (not just dripping) day and night. I also had the hot water cut out after just a couple minutes, luckily it came back on after a minute or two, so I was able to rinse the soap off without freezing. The towels provided were the worst towels I have ever felt, in all my years of traveling for fun and work I didn’t know they could make towels that course- like sand paper. Overall, the room and the bathroom were acceptably clean, they did however obviously not clean behind the doors, it was especially noticeable in the bathroom.||||The hallway outside our room was nice, kind of like a small lobby with a couple of small couches and it was fun to stand at the front window and watch all the action on the street below including the trains. Since I found my room a bit claustrophobic I would go out and read on one of the couches. The wifi didn’t work the first few hours we were there but after telling the manager he finally got it going by unplugging and plugging back in.||||I did not actually eat breakfast, but I sat with my friends when they ate. You pay 10 soles or a little more than $3 for bread, butter, jam, eggs and fresh fruit. The first morning was quick, but the second day my friends had to wait quite a while to get their eggs, it looked like only one woman was doing all the work. We had to go ask for the eggs as we were in a bit of a rush to catch the bus to Machu Pichu.||||It wasn’t from lack of trying, but the staff just wasn’t quite up to par (maybe I was spoiled because we stayed in kind of a fancy place in Cusco). They seemed to work hard but they just were not very organized. I think maybe they were still relatively new to the business. One man spoke a little English and I was able to communicate with one of the other employees by using an app on his smartphone. I would really like to give a better review because the place has a lot of potential and I would stay there again because really, I was just there to go to Machu Pichu anyway (although I would definitely look around for other...
Read moreThis is the hotel our tour company set up with in Aguas Calientes after our Inca Trail hike. This was the absolute worst hotel I've ever stayed in. And I'm not a fancy hotel girl. The 2 other couples with us had the same thoughts. We're dead tired after hiking so all I want to do is take a hot shower and sleep. When we arrive, our tour guide checks us in. The staff does not speak any English so without him we would have had a hard time communicating. My father speaks spanish and he met up with us later so luckily he could help us. Once we get settled into our room, we notice there is no hot water. It's not even lukewarm. I have my dad ask about it in spanish when he arrives. They tell us to try again in 10 minutes. We try again and ... still cold. I have my dad ask again. The guy at the front is annoyed and just says to keep trying. I give up and just take a super fast cold shower. The water also is very slow to drain so i'm standing in a puddle up to my ankles. My dad and mom tried to take a shower and had the same cold water and their cable / satellite wouldn't work and the wifi barely worked. I wasnt interested in tv so this wasn't a big deal to me but after my dad asked the front desk guy to help with the tv he was rude and uncooperative and actually started to just look at his phone and completely ignore him. My dad was finally able to get someone to pay attention to him and the same rude employee huffed and puffed and replaced the cable box with another.||||After the cold shower fiasco I thought fine, whatever, I can deal and just sleep. Nope. we're right next to the front desk so we hear everything and light shines in from the window above the door. And our window facing the outside... doesn't. it just looks at the breakfast area. there are actually tables right up against our window lol. The rules are also ridiculous. They're posted on the back of the door and they say things like "$50 fee if you get dirt on the sheets" "$20 towel replacement fee if you stain the towels". I wish I had taken a picture cause they were pretty extreme. ||||I usually like to give some pro when I give a bad review but I'm struggling. I guess the location was nice? It wasn't a far walk to the...
Read moreBackground: we were a group of four with two rooms. A travel agency booked this place for us. We’re not picky people, we at least expect a clean place with warm water, but even that was too much for this place. ||||-There was a dirty toilet in one room. It had brown spots on the toilet seat, which seemed to be dried feces and the toilet bowl was nasty. We notified the staff and the hostel owner sent his 13 y.o. family member to clean it. ||||-Aguas Calientes??? More like Aguas Frías. No hot water at first and broken window: after a long travel day, all we wanted was a warm, soothing shower. Alas, there was no hot water at first. After we notified the staff, the visibly annoyed owner tested the water in our room and proclaimed it was hot- it wasn’t, it was less than lukewarm. We insisted that it wasn’t even warm and that we needed warm water because it was cold outside and the BATHROOM WINDOW WAS MISSING A PANE, thereby making the bathroom cold (it was nighttime and low 50s Fahrenheit). He finally cranked up the temperature and said not to blame him if the water burned us. Also, he ignored our comments about the missing window pane. ||||-Unreliable water temperature. Even after we got hot water, the shower temperature was unreliable. It would go from a good lukewarm temp to really cold (keep in mind the bathroom was already cold because of the missing window pane), so a soothing shower was out of the question. ||||-Seemed understaffed: my family wasn’t the only one with complaints. Other patrons complained that the TV wasn’t working, the internet was down for a brief period, and no toilet paper in the room. There were many complaints and owner was the only one handling them all. He then would send his pre-teen/teen to try and fix what they could. ||||Pros: right across from the train station||||Tip: I recommend you go elsewhere for breakfast. They have a complimentary continental breakfast but it’s not AT ALL substantial. We were only served 1.5 bread rolls that were about 6 inches...
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