This is a post I never thought I’d write. I remember staying at the completely horrendous Hotel Ushuaia in Argentina in 2010. It was a hotel from the Fawlty Towers repertoire complete with their own Basil Fawlty. However this week, it got worse. Heading to Rio in Brazil for the World Cup Final had me bouyant and after weeks of hostels, flat shares, airport floors and night buses, I was looking forward to staying in a FOUR STAR hotel. That’s right – a budget backpacker in a 4 star. However, unbelieveably this four star ended up being worse than all the other hotels, hostels and guesthouses from the last 7 years of my travels.

Worst Hotel From My Travels! Hotel Sao Francisco in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In our four days there, it was disaster after disaster, culminating at the very end when the staff couldn’t even get a taxi sorted for us. We walked round the corner and got one ourselves. This place is rated 4 stars and 8.2 on Booking.com – they must be paying these guys huge money as this is miles and miles from the truth. As a long term travellers some 85 countries deep, we headed to this place and were outraged by the standard of the place.

Here are some of the many faults:

– No hot water in the shower
– No kettle in the room (standard for all 4 star hotels)
– No complimentary water in the room ( a disgrace for any 4 star hotel)
– A bar on the top floor by the pool which was advertised as being open until 10pm, yet we waited for half an hour from 8.45pm and nobody turned up to serve us
– A beer that took 30 minutes to arrive
– A coffee that took 20 minutes to arrive and when it did there was a dead fly floating in it
– Rude staff on reception who told me that the bar would be “open in 30 minutes” on the phone
– Glass broken while having a cold shower, with blood all over my feet and legs (I have photo proof)

I’m just letting you all know that this is a place to avoid a complete rip off with arrogant managers who even charged us for beer and coffee that was delivered over 30 minutes late! Stay in Copacabana instead and stick to REAL 3 and 4 stars. This place isn’t worthy of a 1 star rating.

In fact for even better advice, here’s a site that let you pick your budget hotel and I can guarantee it will be much better than the awful Hotel Sao Francisco in Rio de Janeiro.