Vizcainos Home Away

The biggest concern for me was privacy. The owners entered my locked bedroom while I was out, without asking, so I felt I had to put a camera in my own room. Cameras also recorded the house around the clock, and their feeds were streamed at the hotel, where strangers could watch us without our consent. That was frightening and felt deeply unethical. I was a first-year student living at Vizcainos, my first time abroad, and it became one of the worst experiences of my life. Most reviews seem to come from hotel guests, but the main business is renting flats to students, many of them international and paying as much as 2000€ a month, as I did. We weren't always perfect tenants. We held parties, had people over, and behaved like students. Still, the owners handled problems with hostility instead of professionalism. They called us “favelados” in front of others, putting us down by associating us with poverty and slums, and made several false accusations that they later had to apologize for. They didn't show us basic respect, and seemed to let anger drive how they managed the place. They also encouraged people in their own circle to dislike our apartment, leaving us isolated and targeted instead of resolving things fairly. There was intimidation, stress, and intrusion into our privacy, where a student home should have felt safe. Parents looking for a place for their child should know I don't consider Vizcainos safe or trustworthy.

The room was clean and affordable, and the staff were friendly and happy to accommodate us. Breakfast was the letdown: on both mornings the eggs were ice cold and the bacon was really greasy. That's why I can't give it five stars.

The other residents were really pleasant, and it was a great place to make friends. The location was good too, but a lot else fell short while I lived here. The kitchen was poorly equipped, and broken pans left metal residue on my morning eggs. They provided dinner, including what they called the local special, suspicious chicken. Communicating with the owners was difficult because they didn't speak any English, despite saying they were bilingual. Somehow, though, the invoice could be translated when charging for basic things like printing, or for repairs to things I hadn't broken.

Lovely staff when I checked in. This is a cozy little hotel, tucked away but right in the center, just a two-minute walk from the aqueduct.