I cannot praise this hostel enough! Recently renovated, clean, hot showers, most comfortable mattresses in all of South America and the most friendly and welcoming host I have ever met. Like coming home!!

We want to thank you so much for your hospitality during our stay at Hostal Reloj de Flores, You treated us like family and made us feel most welcome. We enjoyed our stay in Viña and hopefully will return again one day.

We made our reservation 5 months ago with HostelBookers.com and paid an account with a credit card. So, we expected that the payment will be in the same way. Very too simple! At our arrival, we had to pay the complete bill in cash (4 nights). We were obliged to find a bank to get the pesos and then find a trading house to get US dollars because it was 20% cheaper to pay in US dollars instead of pesos.

Looking back, if we hadn’t paid for the complete 4-days period, we would certainly have stayed elsewhere. We did rent the bedroom number 5. Our private bathroom was infected by fungi and moulds. The smell was so hard to support that they had installed 2 electric scent diffusers in the bedroom. Also, the hot water for the shower was available only in the morning until noon. Otherwise, we had to go to the kitchen to start the water heater and be dressed to do so. The hot water heater was also too small: you hoped that nobody else was taking a shower at the same time because the water was quickly turning out cold when it would happen. Also no hot water was at any time available from the tap. My husband was obliged to make his shave with cold water. One day, the bathroom wasn’t cleaned and did complain about it. The other days, it was cleaned but not thoroughly.

During our stay, guests staying in a ground floor room asked to be relocated because of an invasion of ants in their room.

Hostal Reloy de Flores is definitely not a Bed & Breakfast but rather a youth hostel with 10 bedrooms. The standard characteristics of the B&B (as in North America and Europe) were not there. Very commercial, with limited common space, and noisy until late at night. The breakfast included only commercial food, was insufficient and calculated very precisely (they ran out of items for us when they miscalculated the number of persons staying in the hostel). The meal was always the same for the four days we were there: 1 slice of cheese between 2 pieces of bread for every one, one fruit, plus 1 yoghurt. No juice. The only spread available for toasts, some kind of marmalade, was put in an empty pot of Nutella and they ran out on our last day. What a charm! Just one kind of cereal was offered. For our last breakfast, there wasn’t sufficient milk for the cereals.

The hostel offered the possibility to watch films in DVD. We choose one and it stopped playing before the end. Maybe because it was a copy like the 100 others ones they have.

A few positive aspects, however, should be mentioned: we appreciated the location of the hostel, and the staff was very kind and helpful.

I liked this little hotel. It was safe and secure and only had ten rooms. My room was meant to be "en suite" but actually the bathroom was next door to my room so late night visits meant you had to make youself decent before stepping out and when in the shower you had to remember to lock the bedroom door. The shower was a bit temperamental. I stayed in Room One.

There was free access to a computer and the breakfast room was in a proper kitchen where clearly some guests regularly cooked their own meals. A pleasant young lady called Connie greeted me upon my arrival and in pretty good English explained what Vina and Valparaiso had to offer visitors. She was very helpful and when I paid up front for my room it was all very fair and straightforward. I paid $40 US for each of the first two nights and then we agreed the exchange rate calculation before I paid for my third night in Chilean pesos.

Los Banos street is very steep and you have to bend to get up it . The hotel is a five minute walk from the Miramar metro station from where you can easily reach Vina's more edgy and interesting sister city - Valparaiso with its jumble of buidings tumbling down the hills and its various funicular railways, alleyways and steps. Fascinating place in spite of the cut-throat bogeymen who allegedly lurk in its worst neighbourhoods.

The hostal isn't some samey corporate Holiday Inn or Sheraton, it's a genuine little Chilean hotel with character and quirkiness - not where you'd stay if you wanted that cosmopolitan, standard, samey characterlessness that so many hotels seem determined to offer.

Upon arrival we were given a standard spiel of the 'things to do in Vina del Mar". Any specific questions could not be answered and no attempt was made to provide a satisfactory answer. We were given the choice to pay in US dollars or in Chilean pesos. We opted for the latter. However, an exchange rate of 630 (!) instead of the 547 (the official rate in Las Condes, Santiago of that same morning) was used as a basis for the calculation. This was the 'official' rate used in Valparaiso and Vina del Mar according to the staff member at the Reloj de Flores. We decided to pay in USD, but didn't have the exact amount. 'Surprisingly', she couldn't give our change in USD, but only in pesos at the rate used in Santiago!!! We therefore stuck to our guns and demanded our change in USD.
As for the rooms, the size was fine with walk-in wardrobe, which had a thick layer of dust on all shelves, except for one. In addition, the room was very damp, including the bedding and the fan in the bathroom was not working, adding to the moisture level in the room. The 'sea' view consisted of a little bit of sea that could be detected spying between the buildings and the overgrown vacant lots below. Not a pretty side on the whole, definitely different from the promised views.
Breakfast was another suprise. A piece of bread with a slice of cheese and a jar of marmalade with traces of butter and other unidentifiable elements donated by previous guests. There was no coffeemaker (in South America?!), only instant coffee. For a rate of USD62 a night, they can't invest in a coffeemaker to brew fresh coffee for their guests? It came as no surprise that our request for fresh coffee was also met by a mere shrug of the shoulders.
The building seems secure, true. On the other hand, at night it was entirely empty. Just the two of us in our room. The area didn't seem all that safe at night and the steep street with many steps leading up to the hostal is not suitable for elderly people. The beach is relatively close and pretty average.
All in all, not one of our better experiences with South American hospitality.