Hotel is located in a safe neighbourhood. Front desk staffs are friendly & can provide a lot of useful info, however the room is not worth for the price I paid; bathroom cleanliness is a big concern, I can see dust all over the ceiling.

Went to the attached restaurant, A bit on the pricey side but the food is excellent

This hotel was recommended by colleagues in Rio for its location (Flamengo). We made our reservations two weeks before our arrival, but when we got at the hotel, they were "overbooked" and couldn´t find our reservations. The frontdesk guy was rude and after a 30-minute wait, he put us in horrible rooms ( mine was #508). Everything was old, the window was broken and didn´t close completely, the air-conditioning was at least 20 years old and made a terrible noise, the carpet was dirty and dusty and the whole room smelled mould. To get to these rooms, there is a very old elevator ("service elevator"), after the dining room, near the kitchen. This elevator is almost manually managed.

I came back to the frontdesk to ask for another room, and the guy was extremely rude, saying "We don´t have another room available, I can´t do anything." Then my colleague and I decided to check out and find a better place to stay. For our surprise, they wanted to charge us one night! We couldn´t believe that. They had lost our reservations, put us in the worst rooms of the hotel and still wanted to charge us (we had stayed in the rooms for less than 5 minutes)! The manager only let us go after I said I was going to call Procon (the Consumer Defense Service) and the police.

I think the main problem of this place is the total lack of respect towards the clients. The frontdesk man was completely unpolite, so was the manager, who clearly seemed not willing to solve the problem created by themselves. I had never been so mistreated in a hotel... congratulations, Paysandu, you won the oscar...

Fortunately we could find another hotel (Argentina Hotel), with very helpful and polite staff, similar rates, very good rooms, and only 2 blocks away from this sty. Definitely our staff in Rio will never recommend Hotel Paysandu again.

We booked this hotel online and were able to get a very good rate. The hotel is on a reasonably quiet street in the residential neighbourhood of Flamengo, somewhat removed from the beach scene. That being said Flamengo is a good place to hang out for a day or two. We had booked a "suite" and paid extra for it. However, the room was very small with worn furnishings and seemed to be pretty much the same size as any of the others we looked at - definitely not a suite. Furnishings were worn, couldn't close the bathroom window. Lots of food smells coming in from the restaurant below. Front desk staff quite helpful. Breakfast about average for Brazil which means it was pretty good. We moved after three nights to Copacabana and were very glad we did. There are many nicer hotels in Rio and if you want to be closer to the "action" of Rio you will be better off in Copacabana or Ipanema. However for the price the Paysandu isn't too bad. Just a bit old and worn.

It takes a lot for me to leave a hotel, but there was a lot going against this one.
- moldy smell, strong, on the rooms.
- bad mattress
- old dirty furniture
- bad breakfast, only one item on the menu each night.
- expensive since it it a glorified youth hostel.

One night was all I could take until I found another place where I gladly paid 3x's the price without hesitating.