I was in this hotel during my very first trip to Sao Paulo. The room in my opinion looked a
bit amateurish, the beds were small & the air conditioner did NOT work at all. I will admit
that it was clean, was near the subways & buses & the room was in fact cheap. And as
long as the door & windows were locked as soon as I came inside, I guess I did felt safe in my room. Other then that, in my opinion, the hotel is just "OK" & NOT perfect at all.

I stayed for several nights as an independent traveller in this hotel in November and found it to be a good choice, one room for two nights on arrival in the country and a different room for my last night before departing several weeks later, both were fine.

The Hotel is in the centre of Sao Paulo and within easy walking distance of many important sites in the city and metro and bus services.

Rua Timbiras has several substantial hotels used by tour companies, there are restaurants within a couple of minutes walking time.

The first night I had just arrived by taxi from GRU after a long haul flight and it was a pleasure to arrive here. The staff were courteous and helpful, I booked one of the “delux” rooms which are larger. My room was well fitted out and maintained and I did not find any problem with noise from either outside or inside the hotel. The aircon in both the rooms I had was also effective.Although an older building it is purpose built and the structure works well. Daily housekeeping of my room was also good.

The breakfast at the hotel was enjoyable in a nice dining area with a Brazilian buffet which included some hot food but also lots of fruit and choice of coffee and fruit juice.

The Praca Republica area is probably an ultimate cosmopolitan inner city experience but I was not intimidated by it, yes there are lots of homeless people in the area but there also seems to be more of a community than in many big cities, I was never hassled by beggars or anything like that. On Sunday there was a market in the square too which added to the experience. There is a lot of dining choice and shopping and you can easily stroll to places like Se and Liberdad, no need for taxis.

As long as you exercise common sense and respectful behaviour I think there should be no problem, I walked back from meals out nearby at up to 22.00 and felt quite comfortable, there were still a lot of people socialising going about their normal business. Obviously if you walk on the streets at 01.00 in the morning showing ostentatious wealth you take your chance as you would in any large city.

When I checked out the process was efficient, the minibar and international telephone calls were not too expensive and I felt sufficiently comfortable with the area to walk to the Metro with my luggage and catch that to the national bus station (Tiete) then the airport.

Apart from the TV only having local channels the one thing I thought my room lacked was a safe but I believe the hotel has safe deposit boxes if required,

All in all a very good experience for very reasonable cost.

We stayed one night, 11/04/2008, before flying back from South America to Europe.
It's very centrally located near the historic centre of Sao Paulo in the triangle bounded by Prostitute Park, Drug Dealer Drive and Bum Boulevard. Praca da Republica became a pleasant craft market on the Saturday and apart from a near mugging by the pretty fountain in the garden opposite the Teatro Municipal, it was an enjoyable daytime walk from the Praca da Republica to the Praca da Se - taking care not to trip over those sleeping in the streets.
The staff were extremely helpful. There's so much marble around the hotel. Maybe it was quite something many years ago. It's just a shame the paulistanos seem to have no pride in what should be an attractive part of the city.