Wonderful views from the room. Good breakfast. Excellent service. Clean and beauiful rooms. Comfortable beds. The beach is the best in the area. They produce superb olive oil. It is very well located. You need to have a car. I recommend this places to spend some days, walking, reading, eating and drinking incredibles wines. This hotel has all the trimmings to be an absolute Uruguayan gem, but it falls way way short due to what we experienced as probably the worst service we have ever encountered in a hotel ever.
And we are fairly low maintenance highly experienced travelers. For starters, there was zero communication from the hotel before we arrived, nor was there any kind of welcome or greeting. It wouldn't be so ridiculous if the hotel were not 22 kilometers outside the town of Carmelo in the middle of lush Uruguay countryside but also the middle of nowhere. Taxis are very expensive.
Hotel should have told us that. My wife doesn't eat meat and it was mostly meat. They didn't seem to care. We finally convinced them to make us a cheese plate. Hotel should have let us know their only dinner option for that night in middle of nowhere was the costly buffet.
That was example one of a series of service mis steps. After getting to know the manager a bit, who is friendly, it's really clear that he hadn't trained his staff or set any kind of expectations around service. They haven't tried anything on menus or know anything about local wines vinyard on property close by. Which is all such a large shame because physically it's stunning. The pool, sunsets, riverside beach, winery, and countryside is an idyllic food and wine setting.
Our room 10 was just feet from the pool with a beautiful view and it was so peacefully quiet. But the service!! Our Christmas dinner was reserved at Narbona, a close 6k drive away So ridiculous. And they lied about messing up the time they called for the taxi. They didn't give us the weather forecast during the way cheaper hotels in Buenos Aires nor are there any guided tour or activity options, so we felt a little stranded, even though a day or two poolside was beautiful.
