Tony M.
Google
We stayed at Pestana Bahia Lodge Residence between Jan 1-3, 2014. We noticed that we had booked the wrong dates as we were going from the airport to the hotel. Upon arrival the check-in lady told us that the lodge is full and told us to go to the computer center if we needed to book another hotel without offering to help us. We went to the computer center but as we were exhausted after a long flight we decided to go back up to the front desk and have them help us. When we got to the front desk another person received us and told us that although the lodge is full, their standard hotel right in the same building as the lodge has availability which the first clerk completely forgot to tell us and was about to send us to another hotel. As the rooms in the hotel were cheaper than the ones in the lodge, which we had paid for fully, we asked if we could get those rooms for free. He asked the manager and the manager told us that “there was nothing he could do for us” and that we had to do a brand new reservation and pay for another 2 nights which was ridiculous as he was the manager and if anybody could have helped us it would be him. The hotel is in need of help as it is advertised as a high class hotel but the room was like a motel room, the bathroom smelled like Porta Potties at construction sites, and the room service sent us the wrong food. We went to the lodge pool which was supposedly better than their regular hotel pool and the water was very dirty and at the corner of the pool it looked like a kid had puked or had a bowl movement which I pointed out to the staff but they just dismissed it by saying it is sun screen mixed with dead skin cells, wonderful. The buffet at the hotel was ok but the grounds you were looking at while eating was full of trash.
The staff was not helpful and tried to overcharge us on food, bar, and the rooms but that seems to be the general attitude towards foreigners or gringos as they call us. In their opinion if you flew there then you are rich as 70% of the people in Salvador make less than $250 per month. Even the taxi driver on the way to the hotel told us that it would cost 68 reals to get there but upon arrival charged us 88 and brought a chart out and without speaking a word of English, also very coming in Brazil, just pointed to 88 without explaining anything. In short Brazil is a third world country with hotel prices and this was also true for Rio.
