Las Americas

I came to Caracas for business and needed to stay somewhere in Chacaito, Chacao area of town, as booking via Internet sounded very expensive, a friend drove me and brought me to this hotel that looked fairly OK, at least, that is what I thought, the lobby looks ample, but the reception desk is hidden in one side of the lobby, the bellboys are helpful and nice, the recepcionists are very tight and not helpful, even if they think they are. The hotel rooms, and I took what is called a suite, were old, with old furnishings, and I just could not bear the touch of the blanket they use....on the second day of my stay, after a strong rain in Caracas, ( something that is not unusual), the energy went off, and I left the hotel on the second day and there was no energy, no water, etc....horror, and they have no generators in case of emergency, no emergency lights in the stairs....and the breakfast I had on the first day, was very poor, maybe to be blamed to the current situation in Venezuela, but they can try more for the money they charge. That is the problem in Caracas, that the rates are way high than what is worth for the services offered or the quality of the rooms, and the main chains, have very high rates. DO AVOID THIS HOTEL

There are certain hotels that are expensive because they are antique. This is not one of them. This place is just old. I stayed here years ago, and it was very expensive for the quality of beds, continental breakfast, etc. I will say that the service was good though. The people were friendly, helpful and prompt. But in terms of accommodations alone, I felt that I ought to have received far more for the money I paid.

We had an reservation problem at another hotel and had to rent two rooms here on our last day in Venezuela and were not very impressed. This hotel is expensive (mid $200 price range) and may have been nice 25 years ago but today the rooms are just shabby and run down. The elevators are missing floor buttons and some floor buttons don't work so you have to walk up or down a couple of flights to a floor where the elevator will stop. This could be a safety problem in a city with a lot of earthquake activity. Our room had a massive dripping leak through the roof from the bathroom above. The furnishings are at least 25 years old. Our king size bed was just two full beds pushed together. The bedding was dirty and probably not changed from the previous visitor. The curtains, bathroom, closets, and cabinets were all pretty beat up. The tiny T.V. wasn't worth watching - The remote was an old funky set of knobs in the headboard. I think I would have been o.k. with the hotel condions if I had paid about 1/4 the price... Barely. The reception desk staff doesn't seem to be aware that they're working at a dump of a hotel since they have quite a snooty attitude and are not at all helpful (with the exception of the bellman who was very nice). The taxi the hotel desk arranged for us to the airport tried to rip us off charging about 5 times the going rate but we insisted on, and got, a better rate; but only after a fair amount of unneccesary and heated negotiation. We visit Venezuela about once a year but our stay at Hotel Las Americas was our first (only out of necesity) time there but I won't be staying at this hotel again.