Terrado Cavancha in Iquique

Giving an overall 3 star cause we expected high quality & service for the kind of hotel (modern) & the price.

We got.. average.

Some people mentioned a few things, which I agree with:
-At a city that size and a hotel that large I expect the staff to speak English, at least basics and I don’t mean the cleaning lady but the reception, restaurant, bar and the concierge
-it was brand new maybe 10-20years back, now is the time to fix things (little things from interior usage, cleaning the windows so one can enjoy the few, to bigger renovations like one elevator was not working)
-the staff is not very happy / friendly (we were there 3 days, also had dinner at the restaurant top floor) and they were never pro-active nor smiling - the only truly nice person was one guy at the reception who checked us in
-the gym is very tiny & no air conditioning - my partner went for a run and had to stop early cause it was too hard to breathe, I decided to do a workout in the room instead
- the pool area is nice, but since the hotel was fully booked it was very crowded, thus we never used it sadly but went to the beach instead
-we did not have breakfast, it’s very basic and we decided to go to town instead

We appreciated:
-help to switch rooms after our air conditioning did not work

Tip:
-one cannot hear from room to room it standing in the hallway you hear everything as doors are not very soundproof - was very interesting ..

I have mixed feelings about this hotel.

Location:

Its location albeit facing playa Brava lacks basic necessities such as decent coffee shops, cafe or restaurants. As you step outside the hotel, there is literally nothing around the hotel to get morning coffee or a light meal. The closest point where you can find coffee or breakfast is where Jumbo superstore is located.

The view from my 15th floor facing the beach had great views.

From the hotel you can walk along the well structured walkway along the water. I walked that route everyday round trip to/from Baquedano. During the daytime it’s generally safe. After dark I recommend to walk along side the water as there are more people out and about and the pathway is mostly well lit.

Amenities:
The bed was good, clean room, work desk and chair. There was ample hot water and basic amenities in the bathroom.

There was no directions on how to use the room phone to call the front desk. You have to go down to the lobby in case you need to contact the reception. Yes I did try dialing 0 but no it didn’t work.

Hotel doesn’t offer any laundry service which was a bit shocking given the size & location of the hotel.

Staff:
The hotel staff lacks basic customer service skills. The entire time I interacted with them I didn’t get a single smile/hello and anytime you asked them something they seemed irritated. I noticed this pattern since the time I checked in at night and on other days during morning/afternoon.

At the checkout around 9:30AM there were 4-5 people in the line and just one person at the reception handling the line taking a very long time. At the peak check-in/out times they should have maximum number of personnel attending the customers. What I found really irritating that there was indeed another girl at the reception desk but she was twiddling away on some papers instead of attending to the customers waiting in the line. This speaks to the lack of training and her total lack of awareness of her surroundings.

Another event that stood out was that during my stay there was an earthquake. I was in the room and there was visible shaking for good few seconds. I went outside the room and in the hallway there was a hotel staff member (not cleaning lady). I asked her if there was an earthquake and she said no. I went to USGS website and sure enough there was an earthquake. There was visible shaking but the hotel management did not take any steps to notify the guests. I found that extremely irresponsible.
Later on I asked the reception staff if there was an earthquake and I had to try hard to not laugh at the response “era un temblor”. Potato PotAto I suppose.

Gym:
I booked this hotel as they advertised gym. It was disappointing to find out that the gym only had 3-4 treadmills and zero weight training gear (no free weights or machines).

Sky Bar:
The sky bar has nice views and I used it once for dinner. The staff was marginally better than the one in the lobby restaurant. Closed on Sundays.

Lobby restaurant/ Breakfast:
I found $17 USD expensive for the choices offered for the breakfast buffet. I had breakfast only once in the lobby restaurant.

Another thing I noticed that the hotel doesn’t show up on Uber and instead the Uber app tries to populate some import/export business as the pickup location even when I was inside the hotel ordering the ride.