Hotel Paulista — Hotel in Porto

This is a 2 star hotel so I have judged it on that basis and I was fully aware of this when I made my booking. Personally I think its awesome value for money, but if you are looking for Ritz style luxury then clearly look elsewhere and pay for the privilege.||||Location - Perfect, the hotel is situated on one of the main plazas in town, its 5 minutes from Trinidad metro station, five minutes away from the Hard Rock cafe, 5 mins from the hop on hop off bus stops and 10 minutes walk down hill to the river, and its surrounded by cafes and bars. The location could not be better.||||Appearance - reception area is new and spotless, all of the rooms are very clean but could do with a lick of paint here and there.||||Staff - We only really had to deal with reception when we booked in and booked a trip, Claudia was very helpful and friendly and handed out city maps and advise with a smile . ||||Food - The hotel offers breakfast for 6 euros a person the breakfast is typically continental with cereals, pastries, toast, cheese, hams, rolls, croissants , and bottomless tea, coffees and juices. Its not the best breakfast in town as there are no hot options and its 100% self service,but its probably the cheapest as a nearby restaurant was offering one coffee and one croissant for 5 euros, we had breakfast every day and it filled us up until lunch.||||Bedrooms - Our room was small but functional, it has a fridge but no water etc is supplied, it had a decent sized TV with a few channels in English, The bed was firm and comfortable but it was a standard double size and we found it a bit small when compared with our king sized bed at home.there is no safe, but each room has a decent air conditioner. the rooms were kept spotlessly clean but guest do have to hand their keys into reception before 2,30 pm to ensure the room is cleaned.||||Bathrooms - The toilets and shower rooms are separate which is nice but both lack shelf room for toiletries.Hair driers are provided but no toiletries apart from soap so make sure you bring your own. The shower was hot and powerful.||||Wifi - free and worked well throughout the hotel.||||Lift - The hotel lift is a hoot, it states it a three person lift but to be frank its really two people max or one guest and one suitcase, but its fully functional so who cares.||||E mails - We were made aware that the rooms at the front of the hotel overlooking the square can be a bit noisy, and the rooms at the back were quieter but had no view so we wrote to ask for a quiet room. We did receive a standard reply saying they would try to accommodate us without any guarantees but to be fair we were given a quiet room at the back, which was great as we would always take a good nights sleep over a view.||||Top Tip - A taxi from the airport costs between 20-25 Euros but catch the metro from the airport to Trinidad is 2.60 euro and the metro station is a short 5 min down hill walk...

I stayed in this hotel July 16 -19. I was checked into room 305 and everything seemed fine (no bed bugs seen. I checked). Once in bed for 30 min or so for a nap, lots of BED BUGS crawled from behind the headboard/light switch on the wall. Like full on bed bug infestation. Fully grown big ones, young small ones, bqby bed bugs... you name it. They were on the wall, headboard, bed and me. Once i notified the staff, they were very helpful. They moved me to a different room on the other side of the hotel and let me use their washer and drier to wash my clothes. The two ladies working during the day were nothing but kind and helpful and very apologetic. Other staff ranged from telling me that they closed the room and called exterminator who confirmed bed bugs in the room (which im sceptical they were truthful about calling the exterminator given all other behavior) to out right denying there are any bed bugs in a very rude manner. Despite clear photo/video evidence and other staff admiting it.

Having said that, its hard to believe they didnt know about the bed bug infestation. Once i researched the topic i saw signs of long term infestation in the room (see black marks above the hradboard. Thats bed bug poop).

To add insult to injury, the hotel marked me as "no show" on the platform where i booked the room, so i wouldnt able to leave review there. I didnt even know its possible but clearly this hotel knows how to get around bed reviews (also something i saw in another review here once i checked after the fact so there seem to be pattern of behaviour). Which is why there is no mention of bed bugs in reviews.

I've attached all evidence i have to hopefully prevent them from taking down this review too. Photo of key with hotel's name and room number (funny i even have that photo. Only took it because i like to take the large thing off and only carry the key but always take photo so i remember the room number), screenshot of email from the booking website and most importantly photo and video of bed bugs. Poor quality bc honestly i was in a state of panic trying to get out of that room immediately.

Overall i would caution anyone to stay in this hotel. Not only do they have bed bugs but also are decieving and preventing unsatisfied customers from leaving reviews....

The positive first: the hotel is located centrally. But this is where the list of Hotel de Paulista’s advantages ends. Already when we checked in, the receptionist informed us that we had to pay cash instead of credit card, demonstrating rather theatrically how – “we are sooooo sorry” – their credit card machine didn’t work. When we finally convinced him that we really didn’t have the cash amount on us, another credit card machine was swiftly produced, which miraculously worked no problem. Then we learned that the advertised hotel parking is not only at another hotel two blocks away but also cost 15 euros extra for the night, which is more expensive than a whole day in the guarded underground city parking around the corner.

In the morning, the shower didn’t work. When we informed the employee at the desk, she just told us to keep waiting, never mind that messed up our plans for the day. Eventually, she gave us the keys to another bathroom on a different floor so that we had to parade through the whole hotel only to have a shower. This in itself is not the end of the world. Problems sometimes do occur. But you expect at least a token gesture (a partial refund? a free breakfast? a hot cup of coffee? maybe just a friendly apology?). Not in this hotel. The employee kept insisting that “the shower problem occurs only rarely, so a refund is not possible”. Immaculate company logic.

To top it off, within mere minutes of us leaving, they falsely reported to the online booking company that we never showed up at the hotel to prevent us from writing a bad review. All in all: This is a place where you’re openly treated not as a guest, but as a soulless source of money. After all the great places and friendly people we got to meet all over Portugal, Hotel de Paulista is the one spectacular low point of our trip. With so many other options in Porto, there is really no reason to stay in this shady...