I recently stayed in Residencial Apartt in Arpoador in Rio de Janeiro.

1. You can not ask for a better location. Located in the middle between IPANEMA and COPACABANA you have a choice every day of walking to the one or the other.

2. You very close to a major bus stop that links you up to the underground or the rest of the city.

3. The place is clean, the staff really friendly and you do get a great breakfast every morning delilivered to your room after you phoned. Juice, coffee, buns, cheese and ham, jam and butter.

4. The place is safe with a lock-up safe in your closet.

5. The price is really unbeatable for the location.

Now for the bad!

1. The place is sooo noisy. Try and get a room at the back of the hotel because the street on the front stays busy till 2 in the morning with busses and cars and the windows just don't keep out the sound. I slep on the couch in the lounge and you could still hear the street through a windown and two closed doors.

2. I had a buch of noisy PORTUGUESE tourists on my floor and they had a perty every night till 4 in the morning. The corridor have hectic echo in, so you heard everything.

If you can live with the noise, this place is really worth it.