The location is great, almost a stone's throw to the San Martin subte (subway) stop. Just around the corner from the busy pedestrian street Florida.
The lobby provides a glimmer of hope as it is fairly attractive and looks fairly recently remodeled.
We had prepaid for a five night stay with octupustravel.
Our room was another story. First of all, it was small, as was the bathroom. Very small in fact, although there was adequate long term storage in drawers in the closet. It was also very worn, dingy carpet, scuffed walls, etc.
It was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. The door to the bathroom almost touched the toilet when opened making it very awkward to get in and out.
As far as the "cold breakfast" goes, one out of two ain't bad. It was cold but hardly a breakfast. We sat for 10 minutes before being acknowledged. The breakfast consisted of a big bowl of fruit salad which was 95% pears, a bowl of prunes, a plate of cheese and one type of cold meat cuts. After being served our coffee and a bowl with two pieces of toast and two croissants we went up to the food. The cheese plate was empty and never refilled with hours to go. We tired of waiting and set out on our first day in the city.
We spent one night in that small room and asked the front desk for a bigger room. We were told that bigger rooms were on the front of the hotel overlooking the street. We went up, looked at the room. It was big, it was bright, it was sparkling with fresh paint. But is was loud, even with the European style metal louvers down. We foolishly assumed it would be less noisy at night. We were wrong. It was unbearable. And don't plan on sleeping in past 6 AM, when the garbage truck literally sits outside for 10 minutes, making sounds that I did not know existed.
The hotel advertises that it is air conditioned, and this is true technically. However, be aware there are no controls in the room. When the air comes on everybody gets it. And it is not set very cool and they turn it off at night completely. It was cool outside but the windows have no screens and coupled with the noise, opening the windows is not an option. And if you are cold and want heat, you are out of luck.
We then convinced ourselves it wouldn’t be so bad the next night (weekend) but we were wrong. We didn’t want to go back to “the hole” so even though it was prepaid, and we stood a chance of losing our money on the last two nights we checked the Internet and found out the Howard Johnson’s around the corner was the only hotel available in a reasonable price range. That turned out to be the best decision of the trip (see our review of that property for our glowing review) and after checking out of the Dora and into the Hojo’s, I told my wife I felt like I was out of an abusive relationship.
I have heard that you should not consider the best or worst reviews of a hotel but rather the average. I hate, hate, hated this hotel. Remember, I left a prepaid room empty for two nights, rather than spend another ruined night of my vacation.
If you can live with the small dingy room and a horrible “breakfast” and don’t mind being warm at night, then maybe you will be happy. But I doubt it.
They will not hold your baggage for you after you check out as most other hotels will (a must if you are planning a trip to Iguazu and only want a few nights worth of clothing).
