I have no words to say…. how nice was the view of the sea and how friendly are the citizens of Natal/ Rio Grande do Norte.
I certainly wish my friends in Michigan had the opportunity to know how wonderful is Natal.
And, in the top of that, in this great city there is a great Hotel….
Congratulation to the staff and management of the Ocean Palace Beach resorts & Bungalows

I've been in this hotel in April 2010. This hotel looks like it once was a 5 star luxury hotel. Nowadays it looks like a degradated place, with little conservation work and careless administrators/managers.

Rooms would be OK, if there were no humidity stains on the walls, broken faucets, ripped towels or TV with only 4 brazilian channels. The room I stayed in had a glass window in the wall that separated the bathroom from the rest of the room, giving no privacy to anyone using the bathroom.

Overall the hotel seems badly cleaned (p.e. I saw the same potato chip on the elevator floor for 3 days!). Service is overall slow and unefficient: p.e., I had to call reception twice and wait 40min for a pillow; went to the Pizzeria at 9pm and they couldn’t bring a pizza there was no dough anymore.

The buffet is simply depressing at night: poor lighting, no music (only the sound of the refrigerators). Little variety on the menu (and everything’s expensive for the quality offered).

The swimming pool area had the potential to be good looking and enjoyable. It has many separate pools, mini-waterfall, palm trees everywhere, benches inside the swimming pool in which people can seat and enjoy a refreshing drink at the barcounter. However, the pool water is turbid (you can actually see little particles in suspension), the pool walls show signs of "grease"and I’ve never seen an employee cleaning the pools. It also has a pool that works as a mini-waterslide. The waterslide pool is even worse, the water is turbid, greenish and it has a funny unpleasant smell. There are almost no places to protect from the sun, and believe me, the sun in Natal burns!

This hotel is one of the "top" hotels (Via Costeira) that is nearer Ponta Negra. However, it's still a long walk and sometimes there's no sidewalk, so if you have trouble walking a lot or have kids, you'll have to take a cab or the bus anyway.

The positive thing about this hotel is its easy access to the beach, its only a few stairs away and it has a shower down in the beach (good to take the salt and sand off).

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In sum, I do NOT recommend this hotel!

Do not stay at ths hotel! We arrived on Monday late afternoon. And had to wait for 30 minutes while the only staff member at the deck dealt with another guest. No one helped us into the lobby with our luggage and no one greeted us. Our first room had a non-existent air conditioner and after 3 hours of complaining we were finally moved to another room. This time the AC worked but there was mildew everywhere and the paint was falling from the ceiling. If you want a beach towel it will look like an oversized dish rag and if you dont return the towel to the desk they will charge you $40.00! Brazil is in desperate need of internationally rated 5 star hotels!

I stayed at this hotel from Dec 26th to Jan 3rd, and also spent the New Year´s Eve at the hotel event. This resort is considered one of the best ones in Natal, and the New Year´s Eve party is considered the best one in town. Unfortunately, I left the city very disappointed.

First of all, the only aspect of this hotel that resembles a 5 start resort is the price. The daily fee for the cheapest room is over 800 reais (USD470). I stayed at the Luxury Bungalow, which is a little more expensive. The check in time was 3PM. We arrived at the hotel at 1PM, but the room was ready only after 4PM.

The bungalow had several problems: the air conditioning was broken, the hot water didn´t work, there was a king size bed, although we asked for a double room, and there was missing blankets and towels. The front desk refused to send us to another room, and we had to wait until after 10 PM to get all the problems fixed.

The next morning, the hot water was broken again, and the air conditioning never worked 100%.

The hotel service is very disappointing. The front desk does not track the complains. We had to call the concierge several times for the same problems, and the answer is always the same: "we will send someone in 5 minutes". It seems like the hotel staff does not care with the customers satisfaction at all.

On the hotel web site, it´s mentioned that this was the first hotel in the city to achieve ISO14001 and ISO9001 standards, but there is no pattern at all between rooms, and no tracking of the issues:

On the last day, the air conditioning broke again. My friend (ready Siba17´s review in Portuguese below) literally had to yell at the phone, and finally they sent us to another bungalow. When we got to the other bungalow, another surprise: the room had a different TV model, different phone, better lightning, the floor was dirty with sand and there was a zillion ants in the bathroom. We were so tired that we decided to sleep and not fight with the management anymore.

The New Year´s Eve party was ok. The food was ok, but the desserts were exactly the same ones that are served daily on the hotel restaurants.

Final advice: don´t be impressed with the pictures. You will never be able to enjoy the beach in front of the hotel, and the tide gets high really early and the sand area disappears. Also, it´s a dangerous area for swimming.

The only good aspect of my trip is that Natal is a beautiful city and I enjoyed every single day : outside the hotel.