This is difficult review to write since Maria is very good at the friendliness aspect of her guesthouse, and the people she provides to give tango and Spanish lessons, conduct walking tours and take one to milongas are fantastic - I'm pleased to have met them. Her friendliness wins over many international fans who return here time and time again, and I know I'm not the first person to feel that speaking up on this site is some sort of betrayal of all those nice people.
However, we have written to Maria laying out the causes of our disappointment and how things could be improved, and in far more detail than I can here. We know of others who have offered similar feedback. If these individual dissatisfactions are not made public, unsuspecting tangueros from around the world will continue to go away disappointed from Casa De Maria Tango.
The bottomline is that Maria charges far too much for what's actually on offer. We paid US$1150 for a 10 day "tour", which included airport pickup and dropoff, Spanish and tango lessons daily and accompaniment to a milonga, as well as a city tour and a couple of dinners, plus US$70 for nine nights outside the tour. This total amount was handed over in cash on arrival and receipts, though asked for, never eventuated. An air of unprofessional disorganisation hung over our entire stay, and there were several muddles and misunderstandings that resulted in a waste of our precious holiday time.
The rooms are delapidated and dirty (we're talking food going rotten and stinking in a fridge), the linen is grey and thin, furnishings scrappy and inadequate, service (including breakfast) erratic. Our rooms were cleaned and linen changed only twice in two and a half weeks.
Most disappointing of all, although we were entitled to 10 tango lessons each and we received only six, and a refund has not been forthcoming. This is a breach of contract. So, no, I'm afraid we won't be going back here.