BBlueEngineerI stayed one night at the Ibis Calama on a room + breakfast rate booked through an online travel agency. This was a one night stay in Calama as part of a trip to San Pedro de Atacama as I had a videoconference I needed to participate in, and didn't have time to make it from my flight to San Pedro for it. The trip started off with an early arrival at the hotel around 10am local. As expected, the front desk staff (and everyone in Calama) spoke no English. This wasn't a huge deal as my Spanish was sufficient to negotiate the process. I was initially told that I could not check in until 3pm, despite my booking stating a noon check-in, but when I asked if I could pay to check in then, I was quoted US$29. Upon paying, I was given a room on the 2nd floor facing the Jumbo supermarket. The room itself was small, as expected, but the overall cleanliness of the room significantly missed my expectations for a chain hotel. There were crumbs and hair on the floor, lipstick stains on the towels, hair on the shower floor, and the toilet flusher was malfunctioning. The room served its purpose for my videoconference, and the free internet was sufficiently speedy with low latency. During a break I ran downstairs to try and grab lunch at the restaurant (as even the signs in the elevator claimed it should have been open) however, the front desk clerk noted that it was not open for lunch. No apology or reason, just a โnot openโ. The resturant did open for dinner, and the service and food exceeded my expectations for the type of property. There were a number of items not avalable, but given that I was looking for a close-by dinner- it fit the bill. Checkout was painfully slow. Two clerks working the front desk, but both were working on one computer (almost as if a clerk + traineee). No issues with that, but they were having significant issues with the printer. After 20 minutes of helping the first person in line, they decided to offer to email him his receipt. Being the 3rd person in line, it took almost 40 minutes to checkout at 0800. The last point of note in on Calama in general, while it appears the hotel is in the 'nicer' part of the city, it definitely didn't feel like a good place to be outside of the hotel. Pulling up, you are greeted by barbed wire surrounding the hotel, and around 1am I was awoken to the sound of about a dozen gunshots followed by sirens that appeared to not be terribly far away. Not holding that against the hotel, but thought it would be important to note. Next time I would do my best to avoid Calama, but if I had to stay in Calama, the Ibis might be the place I stay in again.
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