Hotel Santafe Real

I arrived late very tired after a long trip.

The room was a disaster, more like a motel than a hotel room eg. sheets were dirty, there was no toilet paper, not even a plug to charge my mobile phone, no desk, weak wifi that kept going offline, etc... to make things worse there was a lot of noise from the nearby rooms and from the street until very late (mostly from the reception guy who kept chatting over the phone in the street).

In addition they had no room service only a couple options from trashy deliveries, and there were no restaurants nearby. I preferred skipped dinner instead.

Unfortunately for my stomach the breakfast was even worse, I finally decided to check out and went to another hotel for the next nights.

Not a good experience...

Got there at night, and was headed to a room straight away, so far so good. The room was small, but I didn't mind of that, also no window, but it was cheap enough. First annoying thing was the breakfast time 6:30 till 8:30 while check out is in 12pm, can't you give a guy a bit more time to sleep?! The real problem started when I wanted to sleep, at that point I noticed that I hear everything in the reception! That was bad! After going down and complaining the receptionist told me I can change but in the other rooms it's noisy as well - seriously?! In the end change to a more normal room, but in a hotel, I think it's disrespectful and inappropriate to have a room with so much noise (also in the other room it was noisy, but less...
in the morning breakfast was okay, eggs, coffee, juice and fruits.
The morning receptionist was very nice however :)

Albergo condotto da dilettanti, camere piccole con letti scomodi, bagni piccoli e colazione inesistente (spiego) Al mattino ti chiedono se vuoi un toast o le uova, io ho chiesto il toast, non scaldato nel tostapane ma nella padella dove avevano cotto le uova, uno "schifo". Mi sono lamentato e mi hanno risposto che hanno una sola padella per tutto.
Siamo partiti per visitare il paese e per comodità e pigrizia abbiamo riservato una camera per il nostro ritorno. Al ritorno la camera non era disponibile e della riserva nessuna notizia. Dilettanti. Abbiamo cambiato e siamo andati all'hotel Boutique Superior, a 100 mt. leggete la recensione. Comunque il Radel è un albergo da dimenticare, oltretutto non è nemmeno economico.

I visited Hotel Radel Bogotá during a business trip for almost a week. It is located in the center of Bogotá and therefore you can go everywhere very easliy by taking a taxi (caution: only the yellow, official ones!!!).

Before I start why I cannot recommend this hotel, here are the pro´s:
It is located quite centrally and there are a lot of places around where you can eat. I can especially recommend Los Hornitos if you are craving for pastry. The Wifi in the hotel works perfectly fine. When I booked the hotel, I asked for a balcony and I got it. The room has a flatscreen TV that also offers some channels that air a program in English.

And now here are the con´s, be ready:
The rooms are not as spacious as suggested in the pictures provided by the hotel. Some of them do not even have windows. When I entered the room, first things I noticed were traces of previous visitors, stainy sheets, splotchy furniture and a broken bathroom door handle.

Regarding the hotels´ safety, there is one big issue: On the bathroom ceiling of my room, there was a 1x1m plexiglas porthole that can easily be lifted up to reach the roof. Considering you are in Bogotá (not the safest city in the world) and the hotel just has two floors, you automatically start to think the other way around. Someone might just lift the porthole and can access your bathroom. Which seems an interesting idea considering that there might be electric devices charging because the only power plugs in the whole room are the two in the bathroom.

But the biggest issue was the following: The first day being in Bogota I withdrew money. Since there is no safe available, i hid part of it in my dirty laundry and hid the laundry bag. Returning to my room in the evening, 60000 Pesos were gone. Since I did not want to blame anyone half-cooked, I hid a small amount of money again. And it was gone as well by the next evening. Additionally, I noticed that my cosmetics were not in the same position as I left them in the morning. Therefore, I equipped the zipper of my make-up bag with a hair of mine: It was positioned in a way that it breaks when you unzip the bag. And tadaa - when I returned in the evening, it was broken. So not only stole the cleaning lady money from my room, but also used my make-up products. When I told the receptionist, he did not seem to care. When I insisted I wanted something to happen because of that, he told me he will call the manager and will tell me by the next morning. Of course, nothing happened. And when I showed up at the reception, only the staff that exclusively speaks Spanish was present and nobody seemed to care or was interested in my well-being as a guest. Even when I left the hotel that morning, clearly struggeling with carrying my luggage and opening the door at the same time, the receptionist just watched me having a hard time.

So to sum up, I really do not recommend this hotel if you want to be in good hands.

I've visited two times this hotel and in both times it was quite pleasant. Just for executives or for people looking for business in Bogota, they have the infrastructure for having a nice rest and a good breakfast prior going to work. The place where it's located is quite interesting considering the security of the area, just behind the USA embassy, so for a nice walk towards the Gran Estacion mall. Anyway they don't have a restaurant service so if you’re hungry at night it's quite difficult to get some meal.