Porto da Ilha Hotel

I was really impressed by this hotel, especially all the staff, who were welcoming, friendly and extremely helpful. Everything from checkin to checkout, including my 4am pickup went smoothly. The hotel is clean with good facilities, and the breakfast buffet is good too.

It was a great disappointment. We are Brazilians but we live overseas. This was our last part of our trip back to Brazil after several years, and we decided to stay in this hotel based on the reviews, but it was the worst part of our trip. We stayed five nights. The first night we arrived late. We were offered an upgrade for ~90 BRL per night, but we turned it down as we had everything we needed in our room. Maybe getting that upgrade would have avoided our issues, who knows. We woke up the next morning earlier than expected as we could hear the radio of the cleaning lady outside. We went to have breakfast and reported that to the manager, Ricardo I believe, who promised us he would speak with his team. He was very professional and apologetic. The coffee was OK, and we spent the whole day outside as we had a friend living in Florianópolis. We returned late, it was Friday, and went to sleep. My wife was feeling unwell so she took a "Naldecon noite" (a medicine for flu/cold that makes you sleepy). I woke up again about 3 AM with the sound of doors being slammed. Turns out the doors have those automatic door-closer. But the walls appear to be very thin, so we could hear not only the doors closing, but also the group of friends talking outside for 15 minutes. Eventually I went back to sleep. At a little after 6 PM the cleaning lady woke us both up again, over the sound of "Check out 804, check out 804" coming from their radio. We went down to have breakfast, reported what happened. The manager was not there, and apparently there was a person that was as useful as a paper-weight. I believe his name was Denilson. We told him what happened, while he looked at us with a face of concern. Then told us that we had to have called reception. I explained my wife was still sleeping. Then he told me there was nothing he could do. If that happened again I could call them and they would do something (they could have left a note under a stone and that would have been as useful). Next night, still weekend, and of course people are coming and going all time after midnight. I feel bad for the cleaning staff as apparently their walls are the main issue. Extremely thin, and even when people wouldn't speak we both would wake up to their sounds (I am a heavy sleeper, my wife not so much, but I would be woken by the noise too). Only on Monday the manager was back. He probably read what happened in the log, and came after us to apologize. They told me they could move us to a better room, but then I replied that it was our last night and we did not need it anymore. I thanked him, explained I felt it was an issue with their walls, and that it was very inconvenient. The hotel sent us a cake to apologise for the troubles, but we had already had dinner and we were going to fly in the next morning, so we thanked them again and turned down the cake. I think if the manager had been warned sooner by their staff of what was happening he would have tried to move us to another floor. But in the end we have great memories from our time with our friend and from the beautiful city, but we are never staying at the Porto da Ilha Hotel ever again. Also, the gym is outside a few blocks away. Nice gym, but closes early on Saturday, and does not open on Friday. You can not use pool, nor the classes.

Overall a bad experience. Parking was a nightmare, not only expensive at R$30 extra a night with really tight spots (if you have a large car forget it), but the staff in general behaved horrible, they hit my car the ONLY time I gave them the keys to move it and not only that, since conveniently their cameras angle don’t show the accident, the manager (Roberto) wanted to blame me for it, even when I parked under the supervision of their own crew members and they never saw anything. He should have some empathy with customers instead of being defensive and taking no responsibility for their actions if he wants them to return back. Oh and if that wasn’t enough, last couple days they didn’t even make up the room even though we explicitly left the sign for it outside our room’s door during the entire time we were out. Would not recommend this hotel to anyone that wants to enjoy their time in Florianopolis.