Santiago Hotel? Vina del Mar Hotel?

[Gablin]

A friend and I are booked on a HAL Veendam cruise from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires. We plan to spend three nights in Chile before embarking and two nights in Buenos Aires before flying home.

 

We have found hotels that sound good, but I would like some first hand reports from other Cruise Critic members, if any of you have stayed in these places.

 

In Santiago, we tentatively plan to stay at the Hotel Orly for two nights. There is a recommendation to request a room at the back, if we need quiet.

 

We will spend one night in Vina del Mar, tentatively at the Hotel Del Mar, which is adjacent or attached to the municipal casino. It is supposed to be very elegant.

 

If you have stayed elsewhere in either of these cities, and been happy with your choice, please comment. Or, if you think sleeping in Valparaiso would be a better choice for us than Vina, please tell me.

[chrismch]

We stayed at the Eurotel Hotel in Providencia in Feb. It is a small boutique hotel with a very helpful staff. There is a mgr who speaks English fluently and the rest of the staff just basic English. I was able to get all the help I needed and they helped me with my Spanish which was fun.

 

There is a small restaurant attached to it where we had a breakfast buffet in the morning that was included in the price of $95 for the room. It included juices, tea, coffee, cereal, yogurt, bread, local pastry, fruit, cheese & meats and scrambled eggs. I love bread but was very disappointed with most of the bread products in S.A. (except for empanadas) as they are very bland - not the crusty artisan breads that I love. However, do buy Chilean wines as they are excellent and inexpensive. Easy to buy a good wine for under $5 USD and a great one for $10 USD.

 

One of our friends stayed at the Hotel Neruda a block from us in Providencia and liked that as well. However, make sure you don't get the appartment hotel rooms (unless that's what you want) which are like the extended stay hotels here in the states. They are really basic but they do include some kitchen facilities and are located in a different building.

[Rusty]

We stayed at the Hotel Orly--during the earthquake. They were fantastic in every way, during a very difficult situation.

 

The hotel is in a good spot on a side street in the Providencia section. Nice local restaurants in the area.

 

The rooms are very nice and up to date. The breakfast room area and sitting rooms are also nice. There is a small restaurant/cafe, indoor and outdoor. Great place to have a drink and watch the local scene.

 

We paid $125 per night during late February 2010, which includes breakfast. The service is wonderful. They will arrange direct pickup at the airport.Plenty of shopping in the area and easy to walk to the older section or take a subway a few blocks away(very safe).

[helpmesailaway]

We stayed at Orly - charming and a great location. We had a King room - not in the back but the room was spacious.

 

Hotel del Mar - Beautiful - I still have nice dreams about that place. Be sure and see the pool on the top floor. The casual restaurant had great food. I want to go back!!!!:)

[Fattony]

We stayed at the Orly for two nights after a B.A.-Valparaiso cruise two years ago. Room was smallish, but okay. Bed was supposedly a Queen but seemed a double. Fortunately we were able to get switched after first being given a room next to the noisy elevator. It is in a pleasant area-- not particuarly historical and atmospheric, but fine. We found the service okay, but nothing great. Airport pick-up would be at an extra charge, of course, arranged through a third party (you can easily arrange transort on your own on the spot as you exit Customs). Orly is near a subway stop, which is good for getting downtown. The bistro attached to the restaurant was fine, albeit pricey (you can walk to many other restaurants). If you want to be near the museums, etc. of downtown, you could fine someplace more convenient. Look at Tripadvisor.com for reviews.

[makai 7]

We stayed at the Hotel Del Mar in Vina Del Mar after our Rio-Valpo cruise a few years ago. Very luxurious and a bargain at the time. Their web site had quite a few"specials" and we booked directly with them. Absolutely no complaints. We would stay with them again if we are in the area.

 

All the hotels include breakfast in the room rate - and you do not pay taxes as a non-chilean citizen. The breakfast was very good - a buffet with just about anything you could imagine.

 

We hired a private guide for 2 1/2 days - he picked us up at the ship and arranged several fabulous winery tours for us and took us to the airport. We also toured some very nice boutique hotels in Valpariaso that were very reasonable and appeared to be nice places to stay.

 

Enjoy your trip! We would go back if we had more vacation time!

[Gablin]

Thank you to all of you who responded! We are booked and really excited to be having this adventure!

[SmartTraveller]

I've stayed at the Hotel Orly (once) and the Santiago Park Plaza (twice, including in March this year, just after the earthquake)

 

The Hotel Orly is a very nice B & B. The people that run it are lovely but it is really pushing it to describe it as a hotel. It's also on an insanely busy street - the taxis even have trouble stopping there.

 

My review of my stay on Trip Advisor:-

 

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g294305-d314480-r7292897-Hotel_Orly-Santiago.html

 

 

For a few extra dollars, you can stay at a "real" hotel. The Santiago Park Plaza is in the same area, is as conveniently located, the street oustide is fairly quiet and the hotel is very comfortable with outstanding service. The hotel was unscathed during the earthquake and the staff gave us good advice as to what to do if there were any aftershocks during our stay. It has a nice reasonably priced restaurant. The Pisco Sours are excellent! They have a great value seafood buffet on Friday night and the breakfasts are excellent unlike the Orly where the breakfast area is so small, you can barely turn around.

 

www.parkplaza.cl

 

My review of last visit:

 

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g294305-d303106-r60820855-Hotel_Santiago_Park_Plaza-Santiago.html

[endosunshine]

Thanks for this post. I was planning on booking at the Orly and now I think I will choose the Park Plaza instead.

 

OOPS, that should be SmartTraveller...

[Berwin]

We stayed at the Orly Hotel in January. We prefer botique hotels, not cookie cutter boxes. The Hotel Orly had a great staff, they were helpful and they even knew your name. Our room was spacious, breakfast was pleasant, in a neighborhood with close restaurants. We would stay there again.