Review of the Ibis Santos Gonzaga Praia Hotel
My mother and I spent just 27 hours at this hotel while waiting to join a cruise departing Santos. We chose it for its distance from the cruise terminal (3.5 miles), price and because it was near the beach. We paid extra for a sea-view room although no room has an unobstructed sea-view due to the sky-scraper residential block immediately in front of it and with which it shares, along with several other businesses, the ground floor. In fact we accidentally first went into its reception thinking it was the Ibis before being directed 20m or so to the Ibis.
Ibis is a no-nonsense international chain aimed at providing basic but comfortable hotel stays. This Ibis had 15 floors on a very small footprint. The room floors are just one straight corridor with rooms off either side and three lifts together at the end. The reception floor has a three-person reception desk, a few seats in the window and a compact combined cafe and bar. The bar is open 24hrs but the cafe part only for breakfast (06:30-10:00) and dinner (19:00-22:00). When the cafe is closed, it is roped off leaving only two tables and a working shelf to sit at, other than the seats in the window.
We had completed online-checkin via the Accor site so actual checkin was little more than each of us signing a form three times and showing our passports.
The lifts up to the room floors (starting at 6) are a little mysterious as, apart from the marked ‘G3’ parking floor, the indicated but not request-able ’G2’ and ‘P5’ floors there is at least one other floor that it passes through between ‘0’ (reception) and 6 that is neither is neither request-able nor indicated.
We were on floor 11 out of 15 in room 1155, which was really room 5 in the corridor as they started as 51!
The room was compact with twin single beds (mattresses were not great, slipped off their bases easily and bedding was cheap poly-cotton), sparse furniture and a smallish window with an excellent near view of the neighbouring sky scraper and, looking to the right, a more distant view of the magnificent beach and sea beyond. The wardrobe, such as it was, comprised two boards, one to the side and one to the front, joined with a horizontal shelf with hanging rail under, along with an empty mini-fridge on a platform. There were no doors to worry about neither were there any drawers in the room. There was a perfunctory desk under the window with the room’s only chair - a basic plastic one. There was small shelfs between the beds and either side of them. The room could not have coped with a suitcase of luggage!
The shower room was fine but compact, with a marble-top with inset washbasin, toilet and shower with single overhead shower head. Hot water took an age to arrive very early in the morning. The one luxury here was a wall-mounted hairdryer though it was very weak. Obviously there was no kettle, nor place to put one. There was a TV but the only English channel was CNN so we didn’t bother with it. The rates include ‘free wi-fi’ but it didn’t reach our room and I suspect why the working shelf in the cafe area was always occupied by people with laptops. I got by with mobile data instead.
Our rate included breakfast. The breakfast buffet was adequate with two convincing fruit juices, teas, coffee, hot water and milk, a selection of cereals, yogurts in pots, cold meats and cheese, scrambled eggs, tinned sausages in sauce, a sandwich toaster and a small range of breads. There was also butter, margarine and jam all in individual little tubs. Most of the fellow guests appeared to be local work people but we did spot two couple who looked like foreign tourists.
One aspect we very much appreciated is that there was a taxi rank right outside the entrance. Taxis in Santos are very cheap, always use there meter and all take card payments. The minimum fare starts at R$6.80 (just over £1 GBP) and you can get to most of downtown Santos for under £2. Our 3.5 mile ride to the cruise terminal cost £4.52.
There is little more to add. The Ibis Santos Gonzaga Praia Hotel is a functional, adequate working hotel in a good location near the beach suitable for a short stay or a longer one providing you have hand luggage only.
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Tim Millea, April 2023.