I was upgraded to the executive floor because I am a Hhonors Gold member (and, of course, because they hadn't sold all of the executive floor rooms). I stayed in room 2418 on Sat Nov 10, 2007.
It doesn't often work this way for me, but the minute I walked into this hotel, the stress started to evaporate. My (executive floor) room was wonderful, I actually found myself singing in the shower! Contrast this to my review of Hilton London Green Park, where I'd stayed the previous night.
I stopped in Sao Paolo for a day on my way to Iguaccu Falls, where I was keynote speaker at the Latinoware 2007 conference. I had been keynote of the Olswang Open Source Summit in London, UK, on the day previous to my arrival in Brazil. The only direct airline connection to the Falls was leaving just as my flight arrived, and it was easier to spend a night in Sao Paolo than spend most of a day at the airport waiting for connecting flights.
I'd just flown to Brazil from London on TAM, which was OK (I slept through most of it), but long. This hotel is at least half an hour from the international airport, taxis are the way to get here if you aren't renting a car (parking here is expensive). I was paying USD$175.52/night inclusive of taxes via Orbitz, and got wonderful value for that. This is a much more expensive room on a guaranteed reservation, and I guess it's mainly a business hotel, with lots of space on Saturday.
It's a pretty and spacious room done in light wood tones with king-size bed, a large desk with facade by the window. Large bathroom, separate bath and shower, separate water closet. Quiet, the heat worked correctly and there's a Farenheit/Celsius switch. The view, on the spectacular side, included the new bridge (still under construction), the river, many nice parts of the city, and the nearby native ghetto (read up on Brazil).
The staff was friendly and very helpful. After my arrival, someone at the house desk called to check that the room was to my liking and suggested that I call them at "0" if there was any thing I wished. During the afternoon while I was out, they cleaned and reprovisioned the entire room. At 19:30 a small box of very nice chocolates was delivered, along with a printed welcome card from General Manager Patricio Alvarez. Another chocolate arrived with the turn-down service at 20:45. I wondered: if I turned up my head, would someone arrive to drop peeled grapes into my mouth?
The Executive Lounge is large with nice amenities. The lobby, hallways, and elevators are pretty and perfectly maintained. The key-access system in the elevator won't work unless you leave the key in there for a few seconds, and one guest told me his girlfriend had trouble figuring that out and called him for help to get to another floor!
At the desk is a HP printer/copier/scanner with the driver CD and a USB cable, and wired internet (expensive, and it's actually tiered, at about $25/day for 256 KiBit service and about $50 for 512 KiBit). The internet worked properly with my Linux desktop (some hotel internet providers do odd things that are Windows-specific). No competing wireless internet providers were received.
One very odd thing is that the Hilton web reservation site did not show vacancies for this property, while Orbitz did, and thus I reserved through Orbitz rather than Hilton's own site as I usually would. Perhaps Orbitz is buying up blocks of properties such as this? If so, they should implement a through-sell from Hilton's own system. Or perhaps something else was wrong. I'll have to check for this again the next time Hilton's web site tells me a property is full-up.
This is picking nits, but the shower drain gurgles loudly when the sink is used. I would prefer not to be reminded how the sewer system is connected up, but this is perhaps a note for architects on future facilities more than anything else - it might be a lot of work to fix this on an existing building.
I walked past the ghetto a few times during the day, one kid asked for a handout and nobody else bothered me. None of the ATMs in the nearby malls took my ATM card, the Hilton staff helpfully pointed out a nearby Citibank branch. You must have your passport at hand to use a money changer. Generally I use ATMs exclusively, as their rates are better.
General Manager Patricio Alvarez is to be complemented for the state and operation of this facility. - Bruce Perens