ibis Styles Buenos Aires Florida

Booked one night here due to the location before moving to another hotel. Great location, but I couldn’t get any work done and missed an important Zoom call because of their poor wifi network. The speeds are appalling. Front desk team friendly and welcoming and the room is your basic Ibis which would could expect anywhere. Probably won’t stay again.

Good stay on Buenos Aires. Some complains: - Crew could not support or provide Subway (Subtle) cards for customers. - Crew forgot to provide 3 body towels on different days, althought the reservation was for 3 guests. - Shower box in bathroom was broken, and would not close, so the bath floor would be flooded by water. - For an Ibis Styles hotel, there was not actual freedom to came and go, as there was a doorman open and closing the main door for guests. - Expensive breakfast for kids. - As an Accor guest, I requested a top level floor, but they could not provide, so they provide a first level floor room.

This hotel is located in the heart of the city and just a few mins walk to the Obelisk and shops. The service at the reception was extraordinary; the staff were extremely friendly and polite and never said no to anything we requested. The rooms are small, breakfast is good, coffee is available free and round the clock at reception. In all, a great place to stay and high value for your money

Breakfast coffee was not good at all. Eggs made only once for the entire morning. Pastries and bread sometimes old. Water pours out of the shower wearing the bathroom floor. Linens could be better. Excellent and busy location even on weekends and at nights. Excellent value. With somewhat little improvements could be even better.

Despite some misgivings, this hotel’s positives outweigh its two negatives, one of which I consider to be rather serious. The bad bits dropped my rating from 5 stars to 4, but frankly, this is one of the better Ibis-line hotels I’ve stayed in; and I’ve stayed at Ibises over hundred times. In several ways, this hotel equals or surpasses most of them. I’ll start with this hotel’s many virtues, mention a few neutral aspects, and end with its two vices. The last one is by far the most serious one. There’s also something odd about the ratings, which I’ll cover at the very end. POSITIVES: Location: For a budget hotel in B.A., hard to beat! It’s at the SW corner of Av. Corrientes and Florida, within half a mile of Teatro Colon, the Plaza de Mayo, and Plaza San Martin. Corrientes is a major BA thoroughfare, though not one of BA’s grand boulevards. Florida is a pedestrian shopping street from Corrientes to Plaza San Martin, lined with shops on either side. During the day, additional vendors line the street itself, selling everything from original paintings to Argentine leather wallets. Day and night, you’ll also hear street musicians ranging from classical violin to Argentine guitar to pop, all “playing for change.” After dark, I found al fresco tango shows, street musicians, and even a burlesque comedy team (earthy humour, NOT striptease, sorry lads). Galleria Pacifico. retailing at its most refined, is on Florida, a short stroll from the hotel. In addition to the eateries at Pacifico, there are excellent restaurants close at hand: I returned several times to both Classic BA and the La Posada de 1820. The notorious ABC German restaurant (alleged hangout of Mengele and Eichmann) is also just off Florida. The other HUGE benefit to the Ibis Styles location is the Florida Subte station, a few meters from the hotel door, on Corrientes just east of Florida. Hence you have easy subway access to Recoleta, Palermo, San Telma, you name it. Hotel Staff: Excellent. Friendly and helpful. Whether it was day or night, at least one staff member spoke fluent English. Housekeeping did a good job. I had no issues with AC, plumbing, TV out of whack, etc, which is the mark of a good engineering and maintenance staff. Safety and Security: Some side-streets of this neighborhood might be dodgy late at night, but I had no qualms on either Corrientes or Florida. Hotel security is tight. You enter on the ground floor; a doorman is on guard 24/7 to let you in and out. From street level, take the elevator one stop up to the lobby floor. Once you’ve checked in, your room-card activates your room’s floor—and only that floor—in the elevators. The street level and lobby are the only two floors that don’t require a card scan. Bedroom: Small, but bright and cheerful. Plenty of open-rack storage. Its large double bed was luxuriously comfortable. A large flatscreen TV is opposite the bed. The powerful AC system has a remote control. Great room-safe: I could easily fit my laptop, all my papers, cords, contraptions, medicines and other important gear, including a professional camera, into it. One wall was decorated with graffitiesque art: showing a packed theater as seen from the stage, with three spotlights: two are painted on the wall and the third is an actual spotlight. In addition to the working spotlight, are two other general room lights, and three artsy focussed lights: one on either side of the bed, and the third at the work area. (see Bed photo and Theatre on a Wall photo). Work Space, WiFi, and Power: The desk and chair is minimalist in style, but a good wide workspace: you can get a full-sized laptop, and business or travel papers spread out on the desk; with your phone and other gear up there as well. The chair is basic, like the table, but at the right height to make working comfortable. WiFi was strong and dependable. Electrical power is quite convenient: Electric sockets and charging stations are on either side of the bed, and at the work-desk. The socket only takes Argentine plugs, but if you ask downstairs, the staff will loan you a converter so your US or Japanese plug will fit. Bath: the bathroom’s lights are very bright, particularly those surrounding the large mirror. In addition the toilet, shower and sink, they’ve got a bidet, hair-dryer, and an electric socket. Toiletries were limited to a meagre bar of soap. (See Bathroom photo). BUT NOTE: I’m keeping showers as a separate (negative) category. Value: eminently affordable. Great value for money. NEUTRALS: Mini-fridge, Kettle, Bottled Water: None. Fridges, electric coffee-pots, and a daily re-supply of instant coffee, tea, and bottled water are all standard at Asian Ibises, but this Ibis isn’t in Asia. However, a Starbucks is right next door; and 24-hour mini-marts are plentiful in the area, including a “25 hour” one on the corner diagonally opposite the hotel. Breakfasts: The hotel serves them, but I never had one, so I can’t rate them. View: I kept the window drapes closed to reduce street noise and the afternoon sun’s heat. My view from the 8th floor was average at best anyway. The views from the 3rd floor, or the highest floors, might be pleasant. But the white drapes were plush, and the room looked fine with them shut (see View photo). NEGATIVES: Street Noise: Since Corrientes is a major thoroughfare, and Argentines stay up late, there’s street noise day and night. On Fridays and Saturdays heavy traffic roars past all night, since bars and clubs stay open till dawn. I was in room 857, on the street-side of the hall, and it kept me up all night. It would have in 851, 853, and 855, too. Rooms on the opposite side: 852, 854, etc, might be less noisy, but I strongly recommend you bring ear plugs if you book here. I slept reasonably well with earplugs the rest of my stay. Shower: BEWARE the shower. It’s modern and clean, with great water pressure and temperature, but it’s a serious slip-and-fall hazard. You can only turn on the shower if you’re inside the tiny cubicle with the door closed, standing directly where the shower-head is pointing. There are no hand rails inside the cubicle. Every morning, as soon as I turned on the water, the plastic floor was slicker than banana peels on wet ice. I needed to brace myself with both hands for a minute or two before moving, to give the shower water time to rinse away most of the soap, and then I moved slowly and cautiously to avoid slipping. Why? The cleaning staff mops down the slick plastic shower floors with soap every day; but they dare not turn on the water to rinse away the soap, because if they did, they would get totally drenched every time they cleaned each room. Don’t blame them; housekeeping is innocent. The design itself is flawed, probably by some designer thinking about available space and aesthetics, but oblivious to guest safety. This hazard could be mitigated by glueing safety strips onto the shower floor, or putting down slip-resistent rubber mats, with ridges on top and suction cups to keep them glued to the slick plastic below. Adding safety bars to one or both of the two sides with walls would be beneficial, but insufficient. The best solution would be to install new, slip-retardant permanent shower bases. (My background’s in an industry where safety is critically important; we assume that if something can cause serious injuries, sooner or later it will. Guests could reduce this injury threat by spreading out one bath towel on the floor before turning on the shower: but how many guests would actually do that? One in a hundred? I hope hotel management addresses this safety hazard pronto. Frankly, I had to grit my teeth to even rate this hotel a 4, despite all its great plusses.) Summing Up: despite the street noise and shower safety issue, this is an excellent hotel for the value, with stylish modern rooms and comfortable beds in an excellent location. But if you book a room here, bring ear-plugs and use extreme caution when showering. p.s. Ratings Confusion: This hotel has a total of 215 ratings in all languages. Of these, other than mine which I haven’t submitted yet, only five ratings were based on stays in 2020. All the others are about stays from 2008 to April 2018. The Ibis Styles Florida is a brand-new hotel. I believe that they just opened this year. All the earlier reviews must refer to the old hotel that used to be in this building. Of the five reviews from 2020, one rated this hotel a 1; the other four all gave it five stars. But for the safety issue, I would have given it five stars too. I hope that somehow TA and Accor can remove the 2008 to 2018 reviews, if they’re not pertinent to the brand new hotel that is now at this location, and drag down the high rating it deserves.