Review: Hotel Palo Santo, Buenos Aires, Argentina

• Trip Report – Introduction: Honeymoon – I go to Rio
• Four Seasons – You did it again!
• Four Seasons Sydney – Presidential Suite (thank you very much!)
• Four Seasons Sydney – Club 32 and other amenities
• Review: Qantas Business Class 747-400 Sydney to Santiago
• Review: LATAM 787-9 Business Class, Santiago to Buenos Aires
• Review: Hotel Palo Santo, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Food: Eating in Buenos Aires
• Review: LATAM A320 Economy, LA 7504 – Buenos Aires to Iguazú
• Review: Gran Melia Iguazú Falls Hotel
• Review: LATAM flight Iguazu to Rio
• Review: Sol Ipanema Hotel
• REVIEW: Admirals Club Rio Airport
• REVIEW: LATAM flight 2419 Rio to Lima
• REVIEW: Cost Del Sol Wyndham Airport Hotel, Jorge Chavez International Airport, Lima, Peru

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Introduction

One of the challenges of doing a trip to a new country, not to mention new cities, is working out where to stay.

For Hotels, I have a couple of go-to guides that I use. One is Luxe Guides, and another is the Telegraph.co.uk hotel guides. Once I have worked out that most of those options are too expensive, I turn to our trusty travel agent, who uses his own and his colleagues’ knowledge gained from personal experience, and the feedback from their clients like me.

For Buenos Aires – we put ourselves in the hands of our travel agent – who sometimes seems to know our travel preferences better than we do.

It was he who suggested the Palo Santo Hotel, in the hip and happening district of Palermo.

Details

Stay: 19 to 27 February 2019
Stars: 4
Room: Deluxe
Size: 35 sqm (377 sqf)
Bed: Queen
Per Night Average: ~AU$150-200 (packaged as part of an overall deal)
Address: Bonpland 2275, C1425 FWC – Buenos Aires
Phone: (5411) 5280-6100
Email: info@palosantohotel.com
Web: www.palosantohotel.com

Arrival

Our flight arrived just after 5pm Buenos Aires time, and it took us a little over a half-hour to collect our luggage, and clear customs and immigration. We were met at the airport by a man with a sign – a representative of the on-ground tour company, who conducted us to our car and driver and sent us on our way to the Palo Santo hotel.

The trip took over the standard 30 minutes, as we were travelling at peak hour, so we arrived around 6:30 pm, were met by a security guard (oh-oh?) and checked into the hotel efficiently.

The ins and outs of the hotel were explained including breakfast, the bar, and the opening hours and nature of the on-site Japanese restaurant – Namida. We were relieved to be in close proximity to an actual bed but wanted to try and acclimatise to our new timezone by at least having a drink and dinner before retiring for the night. We made immediate use of the bar and restaurant.

The hotel also had its own guide to eating and drinking around the area. We provided our email, and the Food guide (in English) and an in-room Spa guide were emailed to us.

Public Spaces

The hotel has a covered external foyer, where guest can wait, and probably smoke. The internal foyer runs down the right-hand side, with the reception desk on the left.

There is then a small atrium, with plants and seating, which in the evening has a spectacular water feature.

There is a corridor past the lifts, and then a restaurant at the rear of the building.

The restaurant space doubles as the breakfast room during the day.

and the Namida restaurant – serving Nikkei cuisine for lunch and dinner.

The Atrium runs from the top to the bottom of the building, and there are balustrades on all floors that open to it. Each of these is laden with planter boxes, with a combination of creepers and Rhapis palms. The hotel room bathrooms have small windows that also open to it, so, fortunately, it does not act too much as a sound funnel.

There are small plantings on each floor, which soften the overall look, and presumably, supports the ‘green’ in the hotel’s publicity strapline.

Beyond the restaurant is a small but lush walled courtyard garden.

There were a number of outdoor tables, and some patrons took their breakfast out there. For me, it was a little too shaded, or too sun-blasted to dine out there. It was gorgeous to look at, especially from above.

The Room

Our room was on the 5th floor, towards the back of the building, overlooking the back garden. It was a really good size, clean-lined, but with everything, you could require.

The bed was advertised as a Queen sized, but felt larger. It was firm but comfortable.

Wood floors throughout made the room feel light, cool and clean.

I loved this reading chair, with its own light, perfectly angled to light your reading material from the balcony.

The artworks provided splashes of colour along with the bed trimming. The wardrobe was on the small size, but with plenty of hangers. The desk was small, but with its own well placed light.

I loved the non-matching bedside lamps. Not so keen on the feature pillows, that always ended up as couch cushions.

The lounge was comfortable to sit in, or to lounge, but not so good if you wanted to watch TV.

Back near the entrance was a shelf above, with a bench and sink below. And below that a bar fridge.

The bar fridge was not stuffed full of things – so in the picture below the large bottles of mineral water, the champagne, the large bottle of sprite, and the dip and sliced meat are all ours.

The real joy of the room was this terrace. Sunny and inviting, with great district views, but with privacy.

We spent 8 nights here. We were also exhausted from our flights and the preceding wedding and we both came down with mild colds. Instead of our usual two outings a day, and then dinner and/or drinking – we kept it pretty quiet, with one outing a day, and then afternoon naps, and an early dinner.

This was a perfect place in an interesting area to recuperate and refresh while exploring Buenos Aires.

Bathroom

As you entered the room into a small foyer, the bathroom was directly in front of you, with the rest of the room to the left.

The bathroom was on the small size, with a single basin, toilet and shower which took up the long side of the room. It had a rain shower head, with good pressure, and was well designed with a floor-to-ceiling glass partition separating it from the rest of the room.

The room worked well with no overflow from the shower to the rest of the room – so common with this setup.

The bathroom did have a window into the atrium, but you really had to have the lights on to see. The window did open to help with circulation, but its preferred position was closed, so you didn’t hear or contribute to the noise in the atrium. The cleaning staff always closed it if we left it open.

The bathroom was quite small, but very well designed. For instance, you could stand out of the shower to dry off before stepping into the rest of the room.

I presume the green was a deliberate choice to emphasize the ‘green’ ethics of the hotel, but sorry, that green is just not natural!

Rooftop

Unfortunately, the rooftop wasn’t really functioning during our stay. The pool and hot tub were under maintenance, which kind of rendered the space useless. When functioning, it would be a great place to relax and cool off.

The rooftop had a wading pool, living wall, and a bar area. The whole thing was quite small, and could probably only service under 20 people.

When we popped up, there was a workman working on re-sealing and painting the pool. The sign indicated that it would be under maintenance for a fortnight. This was quite reasonable, since we were staying in February before the main tourist season.

The pool would have been nice, but although the weather was warm – it wasn’t so hot as to make access to a pool mandatory.

2PAX Takeout

This was a great place to spend our week in Buenos Aires. It was in an interesting suburb with plenty of character, and a great collection of restaurants. We were in taxi or uber distance of most places we wanted to visit, so in that sense it was central. It had a great feel to it, and despite the security guard at the hotel, the area felt safe. The security guard on duty all night made us feel even safer.

Our room was serviced every day, usually while we were at breakfast, and they provided our requested feather pillows.

Reception staff were knowledgeable, always greeting you with a smile and with a willingness to advise and recommend.

The only negative, and its a small one, was the breakfast staff. They were a little less well organised and always seemed a little behind the eightball. This was partly caused by having to use a dumb waiter for meal delivery, and not helped by most not speaking English. The food was good, but delivery sometimes tardy. Getting a coffee refil could be a challenge sometimes.

However, on the whole this is a more than solid four star hotel, which I would recommend.

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