My family and I visited Arica, Chile over a three day weekend and stayed at the Hotel El Paso. Overall, we had a good time and enjoyed staying at the hotel. The hotel itself is located in a nearby park and has gorgeous landscaping and all sorts of beautiful flowers and trees. The property itself is quite large but a bit dated. They are doing renovations as you could see some areas that are under construction. You can tell this hotel has been around for a long time. There is not a vast selection of hotels in Arica and all of the upper hotels, which includes El Paso, charge a premium. Considering that you are in walking distance of the major attractions including beach and shopping areas of 21 de Mayo and right next door is the casino (that you could low crawl back from safely to your room if necessary) – the price of the hotel room is worth the cost (although we can all grumble that we have stayed elsewhere cheaper with better quality – but that doesn't exist in Arica).

The thing that irritates me is that this good hotel and good review could have been a great hotel. If management would pay attention to the little details – the experience could be so much better. The hotel front desk service – was fantastic when we checked in – wonderfully genuinely friendly – who was eager to help every way he could. Later the next day- this person was replaced by an apathetic employee who didn’t care and gave abbreviated answers to questions. Some of the housekeepers were great and friendly – stopping to show us our rooms – again – a few others were bad – like the one housekeeper that was annoyed when we asked for bedding materials for our sofa bed (we stayed in the Executive suite) and even had the audacity to ask the clerk at the front desk if we needed to pay 'extra' (like we didn't pay enough for our 135 dollar a night room – thankfully the clerk was diplomatic and said no and asked the housekeeper to just do her job and bring the bedding)

My kids loved the pool and playgrounds located on the property. The TV had all kinds of programming including HBO and Cinemax ; but no channels in English. Our room was nice and comfortable. The air conditioning worked, but struggled to keep the room cool. We didn't complain as it was doing its job marginally. The walls and carpets were fine – only a very small patch in the bathroom with some peeling paint – you only noticed it when you looked up. The hotel gave each of us adults a welcome drink coupon which we used in their bar; that was nice. Interestingly enough – the welcome drink only includes a limited selection of exotic alcohol drinks – I would have been happy with just a beer – but oh well. Each day breakfast was included. Everything was good – there is a large selection, from eggs, cereal (several kinds), toast, prepared fruit, yogurt, ham and cheese, juice, and instant coffee. My family and I loved breakfast and ate our fill but I was disappointed that they didn’t have any real coffee – I had instant coffee – they don't have coffee machines in the rooms. Ironically, they have a coffee bar next to the breakfast room. They advertise free WI-FI throughout the hotel; I couldn’t get it to work on my laptop; but didn't try very hard nor complained about it as there was plenty else to occupy my time with. There are free internet terminals located in the lobby to use.

All in all, I had a nice visit to Arica and am satisfied with my stay at the El Paso Hotel. I hope that management will see my review because it irks me that this place has such potential to do more that it can easily earn a great review and be the best hotel in the city if they would try a little harder.