Art Hostel Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

We, three young women from the U.S., had booked at Art Hostel for several days during Carnaval. It quickly became one of the worst travel experiences ever. Our first room was infested with bed bugs. The hostel management then acknowledged that previously in the week they had another bed bug incident (information that would have been much more helpful BEFORE we got infested). They moved us to another room in the same hostel, and there were bed bugs there. They then moved us to another establishment called "Hostelo" for lack of a better word, under the same ownership in Cinelandia (informally known to us as the Porn District). Allegedly, it was a soon-to-be-open hotel, and we were the first people to stay in the room they gave us. After spending an entire day of our trip dealing with all of that—moving hotels, etc.--we then spent a good chunk of the rest of our trip dealing with the horrible management (the owner's name is Eduardo) and, unfortunately, the bed bugs that we transported with us from Art Hostel to this other, unnamed, not-yet-open hotel. Eduardo was not only unsympathetic and rude to us during our stay, he also lied and went back on his word for how he would compensate us given the horrible experience we had at both his hostel and the other Cinelandia establishment. Eduardo and those working for him made a bad situation unbearable. We highly recommend you do not stay in either Art Hostel or the not-yet-opened hotel in Cinelanda, Hotela. But if you do, watch out for bed bugs.

Overall

1

Location

1

Cleanliness

1

Value

1

Facilities

1

Service

1

MRapp stayed here in Feb '13

This is a Trusted Review. Why?

the rooms are like caves in the post war. sheets and towels, old and full of holes. insects everywhere. Cleaning fatal. too expensive for what it is. not recommended. the only thing acceptable is the breakfast, although limited.

Overall

1

Location

2

Cleanliness

1

Value

1

Facilities

1

Service

1

chavalcook stayed here in Sep '11

This is a Trusted Review. Why?

Great location, service and environment!!! just 1 minut walking you have the buses everywhere every 5 minutes, to the Corcovado, Pan de Açucar (Urca) Copacabana, Ipanema.... and you are in a shops area. 24 Hrs reception and nice breakfast but I allways went to the corner to have my natural juice at 7.30.

Overall

5

Location

5

Cleanliness

5

Value

4

Facilities

4

Service

5

Roberto85 stayed here in Dec '10

This is a Trusted Review. Why?

We stayed for a week in tween apart...guess u cant expect clean towels sheets every day in a hostel at this price...everything else was fine especialy brakfast service at beutifull terace..alot of cool people pasing thru and people at reception are very friendly and helpfull.Not to skip to mention that the place looks great..authentic n original.Location is also good..close to Lapa-party bario n not so far from most famous beaches..n metro station is there.Will recomend to my friends..Luka

Overall

5

Location

5

Cleanliness

4

Value

5

Facilities

4

Service

5

Luka8 stayed here in Jul '10

This is a Trusted Review. Why?

Art Hostel's a lovely place to stay in Rio and the location's fantastic – 10 mins from Flamengo park and beach, with great views of Pao de Acucar and Corcorvado, 20 mins walk to Lapa. It's good value for money, and the vibe's cool – very bohemian, with lots of artists and musicians coming and going, and lots of locals meeting up there. The staff are very friendly and helpful too. The only thing that put a dampener - quite literally - on our stay was the damp in the room. (We stayed in a twin room on the ground floor) After three nights of quite an overpowering smell of damp, we were ready to leave. That said, the place is spotless, the sheets daz white and the floor immaculate. It's a shame the room had damp... I'd recommend it if you were to stay just one or two nights. After that, it becomes a bit unbearable.

Overall

3

Location

5

Cleanliness

4

Value

4

Facilities

4

Service

5

ginalovesi stayed here in Sep '09

Service 2 stars because

We arrived and were assigned a room which already had people in it...
If we had been dishonest we could easily have taken stuff from the room because the girl at the reception gave us the key and left us alone with it...

The communication between the people at the reception isn't very efficient: we had to explain two times to two different people which part of the bill we had already paid and what was still payable. Again, if we hadn't been honest, we could easily have ripped them off.

Everything else we really enjoyed about ArtHostel, great location, very clean, reasonable prices and free internet. This is a place we'd go back to.

Overall

4

Location

5

Cleanliness

5

Value

4

Facilities

4

Service

2

avdemeul stayed here in May '09

This is a Trusted Review. Why?

We stayed during Carnival, so everything is expensive, but that`s to be expected. It was clean and very funky and different, gret breakfasts, and they`re great at providing information about things going on in the city, even organizing outings! We had a blast.

Overall

4

Location

5

Cleanliness

5

Value

3

Facilities

4

Service

5

sally.jane stayed here in Feb '09