San Martin Hotel is above average overall. The main attribute for this hotel is its location. It’s 10 mintues from the airport by car. You are also walking distance from the bird park and the Foz do Iguacu Center (Don’t even bother taking a taxi. You will be wasting your money). All you have to do is make a right from the hotel, walk down and follow the signs. Another good feature is that there are little shops that sell souvenirs directly across the street.

San Martin Hotel is a basically a long house, so you don’t have to worry about taking any elevators. The pool area is cool place to hang out. They have hammocks, lawn chairs and a bar. Don’t expect anything special from the rooms though. When I went there none of the rooms had a clock, so bring a watch!

If you are going to see the Iguacu Falls, then this hotel is well worth it. But I suggest not staying here for more than 2 days. Besides the falls and the bird park, there are no attractions remotely close to this hotel.

I stayed at this hotel for 2 nights while visiting the Falls. This is THE place to stay while visiting Iguassu Falls. The location is just outside of the park, for half the price of the Tropical hotel inside the park. You can walk right up to the free shuttle that takes you to all of the sights. The grounds at this hotel are amazingly beautiful, with a nice pool and spa area. They also had great gift shops and a spa with VERY cheap services, by US standards. I think that a massage was only $35. We thought that the buffet meals were fine, and a good value but could use a little more variety. It was pretty much the standard food that we found throughout Brazil. If I can ever make it back to this part of the world, I will definitely stay at the San Martin Hotel again!

I'm writing to endorse most of what the September 7 2005 review said about the food and the service. The Hotel San Martin is right near the falls, which makes it a perfect location for seeing the falls and the bird park, but which means that you're COMPLETELY restricted in food choices -- there are no other nearby restaurants, and to eat anywhere else you'd have to take a taxi to the city solely to dine. As the September 7 reviewer said, the a la carte menu is very overpriced, which relegates most travelers to the buffet. The buffet appetizers and entrees are terrible--gloppy overcooked food and meats. The breakfast buffet is also particularly limited, and the food isn't very fresh. The waiters also make a point of telling you that they don't receive a service charge, even though their service is terrible--we had to wait 15 to 20 minutes just to get a bottle of water. We thought the rooms were fine, though.

My Fiancé and I stayed at this hotel for 2 nights in August 2005.

HOTEL & NEARBY ATTRACTIONS:
The hotel is just a short drive from the Foz Do Iguçu International Airport. It was very cold during our stay so take warm clothing if you go in the winter season! The hotel is quite luxurious-looking and has 2 shops where you can buy the usual souvenirs. There is a kids / games room which has a table-tennis table, pool table and card games tables. All these are free to use. There was a restaurant, bar, sitting area, swimming pool, pool bar and extensive gardens. We didn’t have time to use most of these facilities as we were only there for 2 nights.

Just along the road is the ‘Parque Das Aves’ which is a beautiful bird park where you can see birds, reptiles, butterflies etc in large open cages. It has a café and shop, and is well worth a visit (very reasonably priced). Also along the road is a helicopter attraction where for US$60 per person you get approx 15 minutes flight over Iguaçu Falls (they accept US$ Travellers Cheques here). This was good fun – we went up twice (make sure you get the front seat if you can!). They film you getting into the helicopter and you can buy a souvenir disk at the end if you wish. Next to this is the ‘Parque Nacional Do Iguaçu’ where you can walk around and see the falls by foot. Another trip available is a jeep/speedboat tour. This was AWFUL and a waste of money. The boat goes right under the falls – you get soaked. You can supposedly take photos from the boat but we couldn’t see a thing. Another option is to go to see the falls from the Argentinean side, which is not far from the hotel.

THE ROOM:
The room was average sized. We were a little disappointed to find that our ‘double bed’ was actually two single beds pushed together. We had a TV with satellite channels (including CNN), a mini-bar fridge, a table and two chairs, and air conditioning / heater unit on the wall, a safe (free hire) and wardrobe with hangers. We had a large window with wooden shutters that looked out onto a pathway that leads around the hotel. We could see wildlife from here, which was nice. All the rooms are ground-floor level. The bathroom was average sized and featured a toilet, bidet, shower (fixed head), shampoo & conditioner, soap and shower cap. Fresh towels were supplied daily. There was one 220v socket in the bathroom. During our stay it was FREEZING in the hotel, but at least our room was kept warm by the heating.

THE RESTAURANT:
The restaurant was large and breakfast was a buffet of ham and cheese slices, cereals, scrambled egg, sausage, bacon, toast, croissants (with jam & butter), fruit smoothies, milkshakes, tea, coffee and hot chocolate. Dinner was a choice of either the buffet or a set price menu. I thought the meals on the menu were over priced, and we opted for the buffet both nights. I wasn’t particularly impressed with what was available. A mish-mash of everything was on offer. Hot and cold meats, pastas, various sauces, rice. I didn’t have much at all. However, the desserts were nice, a selection of 4-5 gateaux, cakes, jellies etc. At the end of our meal we were handed our ‘bill’. At this point I will tell you that upon check-in at the hotel reception you are told you do not need to pay for anything until checkout, so we did not carry any money with us. The waiters were keen to point out that the service was not included and that we should tip them. We explained that we were told it was not necessary to carry money with us but they were starting to turn unpleasant. We felt very uncomfortable about this and went to our room to get some money and returned to the restaurant to pay them. The only service, if you can call it that, from the waiters was to take an order for a bottle of wine…..take a month of Sundays to deliver it to the table……and even then we had to pour it ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a lazy person, and I have no problem pouring my own drinks, but I do object to tipping these guys if they haven’t done anything!! At the end of the day, we had a buffet. We served ourselves.

THE STAFF:
The staff were average, if not a bit less to be honest. The reception staff did the bare minimum. When we were due to get picked up for our taxi transfer to the airport we just missed the driver. The man on reception had seen us waiting for ages and it was only when I happened to walk past the reception desk he thought to pass on the message that the driver had left for us that he would be back soon. Why he couldn’t have just come over to tell us I don’t know. Very poor. The restaurant staff were slow, rude and made us feel very uneasy (see above). We never met the cleaning staff, and although the rooms were cleaned and towels changed, they left our windows open, which I didn’t like as we were ground floor level and I felt this was a security issue. We had also had some drinks in the room the night before, and they had left the cups etc on our table, which really should have been taken away. We weren’t really here long enough to judge properly, but from the two nights we were, I was disappointed.

OVERALL:
Overall, we had an OK time. We were only at the hotel for 2 nights and had a busy schedule visiting the Falls etc, so did not have enough time to fully review all aspects of the hotel. The hotel does not accept Travellers Cheques, but credit cards are accepted. It was very cold in the hotel, and the staff standards were poor. If we had stayed longer I expect I would have had more complaints. I was just pleased we only stayed a short time. The actual hotel and grounds are very nice. Just a shame about the staff and service, or lack of.