RafKa

Just completed a 1 night stay here as a staycation, and since this was my first stay since their extensive renovation a couple of years ago, I wanted to report on a great stay. I was very impressed, to the point that if you’re planning on enjoying the a holiday, and can’t quite afford the Copacabana Palace, the Fasano or the Emiliano, I believe this is the next best pick in Rio.


LOCATION

While there’s nothing immediately within walking distance, you can easily (and safely) walk down to Leblon during the day, or take a taxi or Uber for less than BRL 10. On the flipside, the view of Ipanema and Leblon is second to none. Even though the hotel is adjacent to the Vidigal slum, the risk to hotel guests is not significant and getting to and from the hotel by car presents no bigger risk than moving around anywhere in Rio.


FACILITIES

Since the idea was to enjoy the pools as much as possible, I arrived at the hotel around 9am already in beach gear and dropped my light luggage at the bell desk and left my cell phone number with FD to get notified when room was ready. I was given a towel pass (normally you just need to give room number and name at the entrance to pool area to get towels). My room was eventually ready around 11am. The lobby has been nicely remodeled and feels spacious and modern. The quirky thing is that the lobby is located at street level on the 6th floor, but since the building is on the side of a hill, the pool area is at the bottom, on floor 0. I often ended up at the pool level when looking for the lobby.

The pool area has been extensively redone, to a high standard. There are 4 pools in total (main pool, secondary pool, kiddies pool, and spa pool). Plenty of sun loungers around, including some beds. The best thing is that there’s no nonsense regarding minimum spend to get the most prime seats: it’s first come first serve, and guests here don’t tend to be hoggers, freeing seats when going for meals, etc so there’s relatively high turnover. The pool area feels like a true resort, and despite lots of children, this doesn’t feel like it’s overrun with screaming children, quite the contrary. Speaking of children, there is a great kid’s club (Sheratoons) with game rooms for all ages, and supervised activities all free of charge.

The hotel is also facing directly Vidigal beach, which is mainly used by hotel guests and residents of the Vidigal slum. Unfortunately, despite being very pretty, the beach is improper for swimming as untreated sewage from the slum finds its way to the sea here. To make matters worse, there is currently a hepatitis A outbreak in Vidigal so as far as I was concerned, the beach was off limits to me (but plenty of guests were enjoying it – ignorance is bliss).


ROOMS

They were refurbished, and much of the carpets were thankfully removed. However, the look is not as modern as that of other recently refurbished “Sheraton Grand” properties (London, Santiago, Hiroshima, to name some I have visited). All rooms have some sort of sea view, and a Juliette balcony although ideally you want to be on a high floor facing the pool (and thus, Leblon and Ipanema). I was upgraded to a Junior Suite, which faced the hill (XX06) and the room was very spacious, including a kitchenette with microwave, small fridge and sink (also an ice machine next door). The room also featured a walk in closet/dressing area but I found the bathroom to be comparatively cramped, especially the with a curtain.


F&B

I was really impressed with the quality of food outlets, although prices are above average for Rio. The pool bar seemed to be the poorest value of all, with a burger around R$ 55 (U$ 18), beers at R$ 15 (U$ 5) and caipirinhas at R$ 30 (U$ 9). Although these prices don’t look very expensive from a US point of view, they are around twice the price of local restaurants with comparable quality. On the plus side, service at the pool is good, and waiters are always present but in no way pressure you to keep consuming. They do have a gelato cart which is quite popular and a good idea, as was a skewer station selling steak or shrimp skewers for R$ 20, or hot dogs for the same price.

At the pool area there’s also Casarão, which is a buffet style restaurant, which on Saturdays serves a typical Brazilian feijoada for R$99 (U$33) which is on the expensive side, but is all you can eat and includes dessert so I guess it’s worthwhile if you’re very hungry. Finally, there’s also Casa da Cachaça, which is good for lighter bites and pizzas in the evening.

Adjacent to the pool area, there’s Bene, an Italian that’s open for dinner and an (expensive) Sunday brunch for R$ 210 (U$ 65) including soft drinks or R$ 260 / U$ 80 including beer, wine and sparkling wine. Dry Martini is a cocktail bar next door, with cocktails created by Spanish mixologist Javier de las Muelas. The drinks are very good (I recommend the Espresso Martini and the Wasabi Martini). The best thing about Dry Martini is the 2-for-1 Happy Hour, Mon-Sat 7-8:30PM.

Finally, the hotel also has a high-end restaurant on the 26th floor: chef Jean Paul Bondoux’s L’Etoile serving high end French cuisine. Once again, prices are high by local standards, especially the tasting menu. There is however a set menu for R$ 200 which is good value.


PLAT TREATMENT

This is where the hotel really shines! As mentioned earlier, I was upgraded to a Junior Suite (the hotel was at very high occupancy due to summer holidays). Despite this being a resort, I was proactively offered a 4pm checkout. The lounge experience here is amazing: Club Lounge is on the 26th floor with an amazing view, and open 24h with soft drinks and a Nespresso machine. Club Lounge breakfast is served at L’Etoile restaurant and is actually better than the regular buffet (served at Bene, also available to Plats, in addition to 500 pts). It includes made to order items, as well as items like smoked salmon and sparkling wine.

Happy Hour at the lounge is 6-8pm and includes a wide variety of foods (mini pizzas, omelettes, grilled vegetables, sandwiches) and drinks like beer, wine, a very good local sparkling wine and made to order caipirinhas (vodka or cachaça). The attendants were continually hovering around topping up our glasses, almost insistently so! This is a huge change from other lounges where attendants drag their feet.


RESORT FEE

The one annoying thing here is that on top of a 10% “service charge”, they’ve recently implemented a U$16 per night resort fee. However, they remove that for Plats without questioning (it includes parking, 2 soft drinks or beer, and some spa discounts).

TAKEAWAYS

I booked a BRG for U$105 which is a great rate during high season, and was cheaper than their day use rate. Considering I got 2 full days at the pool and happy hour plus an amazing breakfast, this was a steal, and I will be doing more of these one nighters throughout the year!