Clean rooms, friendly staff, great breakfast, gated..... what more could you want. It is a little pricey for normal peru hotels but worth every penny.

We spent two weeks traveling around Peru, at times finding accommodations to be less than desirable/ a bit uncomfortable. We found La Gruta in our Lonely Planet and I can only say that it vastly exceeded our expectations. It was a great price and offered fantastic facilities. The staff was helpful and friendly. Upon returning to the U.S., we realized that we left our camera charger behind in the room. Upon emailing the hotel, the owner offered to ship it to us at no cost!

Quite simply, if you are staying in Arequipa, this is where you should stay! It is only a short walk (through a park) from the main shopping/dining district on San Fransisco avenue and a few blocks from the main plaza. Great place. I highly recommend.

The service is excellent with unforgattable breakfast. Carmen, the administrator, and her crew is always available to give you advices, suggest where to go and to eat and organize your visits. Rooms are well maintened and clean and hotel is located in a quite area, near to a garden but enought close to the center of the city to allow you to take a short walk. If you go to Arequipa, do not miss a tour to Colca valley.

We stayed for two nights here. As others have said, it takes several minutes to walk into the central area, but it's really not a big deal. The hotel is located in a little gated area, which seems good for safety. We were afraid walking through the park to return to it, which we did against advice, although nothing happened. The hotel booked us a trip to Colca Canyon, which I really did not like very much. The tour was bilingual, except it was clear that the leader was not the best English speaker, and the tour booked us into an undisclosed hotel that turned out to be quite bad. One of our rooms at La Gruta was very nice and the other was not so nice, so you might even test the waters with them to see if you could angle for the better rooms. The hotel had a lovely garden adjoining it.

I had an odd experience with the staff, in that they did not speak English, and for some reason, even though my Spanish was sufficient elsewhere, they could not or did not want to understand me here. I ended up writing out a lot of notes to them. You might have some difficulties if you can speak only English. I forgot my cell phone in the room while we were in Colca, and when I called, they reliably picked it up and saved it until I got back.