E Refugio de Vichayito

The beach was the one thing we loved about our five-day family stay. It’s probably the best beach I’ve seen in Peru. The hotel, though, felt like a letdown from the moment we arrived. It overpromises, and we felt completely scammed. The building is old, dirty, and badly maintained, with areas that looked abandoned or untouched for ages. WiFi worked for only half our stay. Room cleaning was poor. They didn’t replace toilet paper, towels, or sheets unless we specifically asked, and the toilet wasn’t properly cleaned. The most worrying part was that two rooms seemed to have bedbugs: my parents and sister woke up with small bites across their arms, neck, and face, and they found blood stains on the sheets. Breakfast was a joke for what the stay costs. Each day there were only two options, served in tiny portions by a staff member: scrambled eggs with baked potatoes, or eggs with the smallest mini pancakes imaginable. Food ran out by 9 a.m., and it took ages for more to arrive. At lunch and dinner, the food and drinks took so long that we spent three hours sitting there, with just half an hour actually eating. We found hair in our food at least three times. The food quality also varied from day to day, which wasn’t acceptable at those prices. The staff were friendly, but extremely slow, and some didn’t seem trained for restaurant work. Sometimes food arrived before cutlery, or drinks came without glasses until the end. The pool looked dirty and was never crystal clear, even early in the morning. They were still cleaning it after 9 a.m., which is late. The hotel’s rules don’t let you order food from elsewhere or bring in outside food, so you’re stuck with its inefficient restaurant unless you walk or take a taxi somewhere else. The activities weren’t much better: the bonfire was tiny, and the music could be random and too loud, including before dinner when it was hard to talk. The location and beach seem to be what bring people here. Stay somewhere else in Vichayito.