My partner and I stayed at The Vilarisi for one week during August 2009. First up, I will give you what I consider to be the positive aspects of the hotel, and then I will outline the shortcomings as I perceived them:
The Good:
The room was nicely presented and reasonably clean and tidy. The airconditioner, while not amazing, was effective and kept the room at a nice temperature. Room service and housekeeping was prompt and well performed.
The food at the hotel restaurant was both tasty and very reasonably priced. The staff were very friendly and helpful for the most part, and we had no real problems getting them to help us with any of our queries. The bed was comfortable, the shower was good and hot, and there was no noticeable smell in the bathroom as some other reviewers have mentioned.
The Bad:
As with any hotel, there are always going to be points which fail to satisfy. We booked this hotel knowing very well that it is a budget hotel, and our expectations were set at a reasonable level. In all fairness, the only failing points that struck me were that the hotel could do with some better lighting, especially in the stairwell and main lobby areas, which are a bit gloomy for the most part.
The elevator could also do with a good service, as it seems to lose its logic from time to time, traveling to the wrong floor and doing all manner of strange things. We also got stuck in it on one occasion, but thankfully the logic system managed to rectify itself after about ten minutes of cajoling it with manual door manipulation and frenzied button pressing.
Another area of mild frustration was the lack of language skills the majority of the staff seemed to have. I got the feeling that much of the time, they were nodding and smiling politely whilst having no earthly idea what I was saying to them.
And now......
The Ugly:
It saddens me to have to add this last item, as I know it will most likely have severe repercussions for the hotel, but for me to fail to mention it would be a disservice to any traveller, so here it is:
One afternoon, upon returning to my room with some supplies from the store across the road, as I rounded the corner along the hallway toward my door, I came across a staff member, crouching down with his face pressed against the door next to ours. When he saw me, he looked panicked, and put on an act as though he was carrying out some kind of imaginary repairs to the door. Not wanting to cause a scene there and then, I gave him a confused look and went into my room.
With my curiosity aroused, I inspected our door, and found that there was a small hole bored through it. I checked outside the door, and looking through the hole, I had a clear view into our room, allowing me to see the area where you would come out of the bathroom, and also the dressing table and edge of the bed. It was then that I realized that the staff member I saw earlier near our neighbours door had most definitely been spying on guests.
I then decided to take a walk around the hotel, checking out the doors. I found that most of the doors had that same hole bored through them, always in the same spot, about knee-level on the side of the door opposite the door handle.
Being hopeful that the resident pervert would be deterred from this disgusting habit after being caught in the act by me, I decided to put it to the test. I plugged up the hole in our door with some chewing gum.
Later that day, we went out for a while. We left the hotel at around 6pm, and returned at around 10pm, only to find that the chewing gum had been poked out of the hole from the outside, with the broken off bit of wood still hanging out of the inside of our door. Obviously being caught had not served as a warning. That annoyed me, so I called the front desk, and the duty manager came to inspect. He assured me he would deal with it, and the next morning the housekeeping manager came to see me. I explained the situation to him, and he was visibly scared for his job.
He assured me that he would personally make repairs to any affected doors in the hotel, and begged me not to tell the owner of the hotel, as it would surely result in him and his entire housekeeping staff being replaced. I know that by making this public, word will no doubt get back to the owner, but as I said, the paying public has a legitimate right to know about these kind of gross intrusions of their privacy. When you book a hotel, you are paying for privacy.
Upon inspection the next day, I did find that the doors had been repaired. However, the repairs appeared to have been done using black electrical tape, which is not exactly a permanent repair. I would strongly urge any future guests to closely inspect their hotel room doors. The holes are low down, so are not easily visible when standing up. Protect your privacy. It's a very basic right !!
