Porto Suites Natal Hotel

The beach was great, with natural pools at low tide, which is nice with kids or without. Just avoid high tide, when the beach practically disappears. The hotel is right across from Praia do Meio, and it's well located. It's also a decent option for lunch since there are few good restaurants within walking distance. The staff were friendly and quite helpful, but the hotel was being renovated in December 2024, so some advertised facilities weren't available. The room was pretty nice for the fare, though there was no view unless you like looking at the sides of other buildings. Breakfast was decent but uninspiring, with few options: scrambled eggs, bread, cold cuts, butter, and jelly. The coffee was only drinkable with lots of milk.

The observation decks were a nice place to sit in the evening and catch the cool sea breeze. The hotel is right across from the beach, no more than a 20-second walk, and our room was spacious and cleaned daily. Staff were friendly and polite. Breakfast had plenty to choose from; it started at 7am, though food was sometimes being set out by 6:40am for early excursions. Getting there a little early helped avoid the rush. There’s an artisanal fair nearby with friendly people and good souvenir options. We had a good stay and no problems.

The biggest problem for me was the WiFi. The lobby was the only place with a reliably decent signal, and even there it could become unstable. I was on the third floor, and my room barely picked it up in the evening. The restaurant, roughly the same distance away, had a weak connection, while the patio outside it, about 60 ft or 18 meters away, was a dead zone. In my room, the only usable spot was the corner by the door. You had to stand facing it to get a poor signal, just enough to send and receive messages, not read emails. While writing this in Google docs, I had full connection to the router but it was unstable, so once again there was no usable WiFi. The breakfast timing was frustrating when buses for daily excursions arrived around 07:10, and sometimes as early as 06:25. Breakfast was listed for 7:00 am, although sometimes food was out by 06:30. That wasn't guaranteed. The selection was decent, but this was one of the least impressive breakfasts I had in Brazil. Some other guests said their TVs were broken or fuzzy, one woman had no warm water in her shower, and they also had no WiFi in their rooms. Dinner at the hotel restaurant was a bad experience. My fries came on a small plate under plastic wrap, and were soggy and barely warm, as if cold pre-cooked fries had been microwaved. The chicken breast in my burger was quite hard, like meat reheated badly, and the bacon was so stiff it was hard to bite without the toppings falling out. The fish was just as bad or worse: rubbery and cold, served alone on a small plate, with water leaking from the middle. It seemed microwaved too. Calling it a restaurant gives it too much credit, and the awful food made its usual emptiness in the evening less surprising. There were flies in the lobby and restaurant as well. They bothered us whenever we sat on the chairs or couches, and during breakfast they flew around the food on the serving tables. The room itself was comfortable enough: good beds, pleasant air conditioning, and a fine TV. There was a small fridge, but its damaged door seal left a gap that let warm air in. We looked for a safe and learned that the front desk had safes for our rooms. The ocean-facing window leaked noticeably at the top when it rained, splashing the floor. The bathroom was in decent shape, with a clean toilet, sink, and floor. But there was black mold between the shower wall tiles, and the drain seemed partly clogged. Water slowly built up, crossed the small barrier, and spread across the bathroom floor, so we had to put down towels to prevent a flood. The shower head was okay for me because at least water came out. There was no hair dryer, small shampoo bottle, or shower cap, which I was told is important. The ventilation fan didn't work, so after a warm shower the bathroom got very hot and humid. This three-star hotel felt like it deserved at least one star less.

Great.