Hotel berhampiran Wanna, Montevideo

We spent two nights in Alquimiste and we never wanted to leave! The guesthouse which is almost 100 years old is full of antique furniture, original artwork, and even has a lookout tower on the 4th floor boasting 360 views of the Carrasco neighborhood. It is a 2 minute walk from the beach and very close to some of Montevideo’s most famous restaurants. Carolina and Mark are delightful and happy to help with anything. The restaurant is lovely, and the breakfasts is a real treat. Hot croissants, freshly baked scones with marmalade and cream cheese, freshly squeezed orange juice, and beautifully plated granola we’re just some of our favorites. Staying at Alquimiste, you really feel like you are apart of something special!

The rooms are beautiful, with a wonderful view and terrace at the lake if your lucky. Breakfast is good. But we had 2 noise disturbances during our 1 night stay. First one with other guests was picked up immediately and solved. But the worst part was to come, as of midnight there was a discotheque nex door (hosting events) and there was very loud music until 5 am. The beating of the bass made us sleepless for almost all of the night. The reply of the hotel was that they can not control this and are not informed when there are events....

O apartamento que fiquei, apesar de ser no primeiro andar era ótimo, grande, ar/aquecedor bem silencioso, muitas tomadas (contei mais de 6 no total), tv bem grande, acredito que seja 50 polegadas, cama grade e confortável. O quarto possui uma mini cozinha com microondas e frigobar. Banheiro ok e com boas toalhas. O café da manhã foi satisfatório. Além da comodidade do apartamento, a localização é perfeita, em um raio de 700 metros tem dezenas de bons restaurantes e cafés: mexicanos, steakhouse, hamburgers, McDonald’s, Starbucks, entre outras opções, atravessando a rua tem um mini mercado, apesar de estar próximo à rua mais agitada de Punta Carretas, fica fora da bagunça, 1 quadra de distância, enfim ótimo custo benefício, gostei bastante. Atendimento também não deixou a desejar, simpáticos e solícitos. O estacionamento é limitado, porém mesmo que esteja cheio (o que é comum nos hotéis da região) tem várias ruas laterais onde é possível deixar o veículo estacionado sem problemas.

Apart from being a great location close to departmental transport and the hotel including the rooms are very clean the staff are extremely friendly and courteous plus they go out of they way to help - This is are second time stying in the hotel and we would highly recommend it

Awful service - this hotel is not worthy of even 1 star. Their staff are not trained properly and ruined our stay in Montevideo, don’t waste your money here there are plenty of better and cheaper hotels available. 1) The hotel lost our booking and blamed it on us, making us wait 30 mins at reception at 10pm at night for our room 2) The window in our room was broken, we informed them in the morning and when we came back to the hotel that evening we were informed we couldn’t open the window and it was slightly fixed but they would fix it tomorrow (no offer of compensation or apology) 3. The reception staff repeatedly ignored our phone calls when we were trying to clarify the room bill (I called at 15 min intervals for 1 hour so it was obvious they weren’t picking up our room) - never in all the hotels I have stayed at around the world have reception staff repeatedly ignored a room call, it is the worst service possible 4. They tried to charge us more than was originally agreed for our room at checkout and nearly made us miss our flight I have stayed in hotels all across South America and this was the worst service I have ever received - do yourself a favour and save the headache of the poorly trained staff and book another hotel.

The location is perfect, if you are travelling in and out of Montevideo by bus. And at 50$ per night it is a bargain. Otherwise try and stay somewhere else. The hotel is not a 4* by all means. Noone speaks a word of English (I do speak broken Spanish, still difficult), housekeeping never showed up. I checked out one day early and although I sent an official request from booking and asked at reception, they took the whole amount.

This hotel was very disappointing for me and my wife. Looking at the pictures and the previous reviews, I really thought we would stay in a great hotel, but the reality was different. We did the reservation for a standard room, the pictures don't show how small they are. The room that they gave us was on the 2nd floor, and the window was direct to a central air conditioning machine (I suppose it is). It's a big machine, terrible view, but also terrible noise. They turn it off at 6:30pm, and turn it on at 08:30am. If you want to sleep in it is impossible, or if you want to take a nap in the afternoon, impossible too. Besides that there is a door in the room, to the next room, it's obviously closed, but you can hear everything from your neighborhood. The bathroom is ok, towels are good and clean. But when you take a shower the floor gets all wet, even with the box close, it's probably some leak. We stayed for four nights, and in two of then the air conditioning was not working. We called the reception and the answer was that they would have to call a technician, to repair it. They fixed, but in the next day it was broken again. Fortunately the weather was not so cold, and it was possible to leave the window opened, but we we had to deal with the noise coming from outside. We asked to change for a better room as soon as we arrived. But the receptionist said the hotel was full, and that in the next day they would have a free room, in a superior category, but it was necessary to pay the difference to the upgrade. We said that we have the gold benefit from hoteis.com, and this update would be for free for us. As soon as we told about the benefit, they tell us that we need to wait for the next day and see if the room would be still available, but, of course, it wasn't free anymore. Although the location of the hotel is good, we definitely wouldn't like to stay there anymore.

Le desayuno fue bueno. La entrada al hotel es muy bonita las habitaciones estan bien para el precio aunque en el baño habia olor a pis. Tuvieron muchos errores en las reservas. Habiamos reservado con un mes de anticipación, confirmado por telefono antes de llegar, todo venia perfecto. Hasta que llegamos y no dejaban entrar a mi marido y mis hijos. Yo aún no estaba en el hotel, pero ya habia avisado que yo quien habia hecho la reserva llegaba con un poco de retraso. Tanto los email y las llamadas previas no sirvieron para nada, ya que no estaba la persona que me atendió, se ve que hay poca comunicación entre las personas que trabajan allí. Al momento de reclamar se pasaban la pelota entre ellos. Luego logramos que nos dieran la habitación y resulta que al entrar habia 3 jugadores de futbol, que también a ellos les habia sucedido igual, habian encontrado alguien en la habitación. Nos dieron otra pero en vez de triple , doble. Dormimos muy mal ya que eramos 4 en dos camas. Luego de un viaje de 14 horas. Pero nadie nos logro dar una explicación ni solución

The property was very conveniently located. It had a beautiful old-style, wrought iron elevator and a small but nice rooftop patio. The room also had some nice old-timey touches like the crown molding. The bathroom was a good size (compared to others we encountered on our SA adventures) and the shower had excellent water pressure. The receptionist who greeted us provided a map and lots of helpful advice about sights nearby. My friend enjoyed the coffee available near reception each morning. BUT, while beautiful, the elevator was ultimately very slow and sometimes didn't come at all. The furniture in the room showed some wear. While it fit with the antique-y theme, I probably would have removed some of it at that stage of dilapidation. Our room's bathroom when we arrived wasn't fully clean (there was hair on the floor and in the shower), and the waste basket's pedal opening mechanism was broken so it was awkward to use. We removed the wastebasket's top to make it easier for us (and hoping the whole thing would be replaced by housekeeping) but they just set the top back on (broken) in its inconvenient state again. And not the hotel's fault, but the entire 1.5 days we were visiting, one couple monopolized the rooftop deck - they and their belongings were spread out there every time we checked - so we didn't feel like we were welcome to use it.