UXUA Casa Hotel & Spa

I hesitate to write a review in English because we Americans can treat beautiful places like Disney World, however, after such an amazing experience I can't not write a glowing review. If you appreciate natural beauty, can respect and appreciate local culture and custom, and love adventure, run don't walk to Troncoso and UXUA. Pictures can't do this place justice, it's breathtaking. All the lodging and amenities are perfect and well thought through. All of the decor and furniture are made by local artisans. Artisans you can meet and learn from. The people are really who make UXUA shine. Adriano worked security for our area of the resort (we stayed in Casa Das Artes, a beautiful villa full of local art and a beautiful private pool). He was incredibly helpful, warm, and welcoming. He helped us with our (very bad) Portuguese, advised us on local customs and good destinations, was extremely attentive and made us feel super secure (the area is very safe, the house is so beautiful it attracts lots of tourists taking pictures and asking questions). Gisele was a concierge that helped us as a translator during a very immersive experience with a local ceramicist (Ze) that welcomed us into his home and taught us about his work. She was super fun to spend time with, very knowledgeable and a great translator. Honestly, are too many great people working at UXUA to mention them all, Leo was an awesome and welcoming chef who very patiently taught us how to make Moqueca (so good!), Harlan was a super helpful, friendly, and knowledgable concierge who helped us with our plans. The breakfasts were incredible. It was such an amazing experience from the moment we got there and got the tour from Jimmy to when Harlan saw us off the the airport. Can't say enough good things about Troncoso and UXUA. We will be back.

We stayed at Uxua. It was a frustrating visit and the worst experience of our many hotels in Latin America, including hotels that cost 50% less than Uxua. The Uxua experience didn't overcome Uxua's beauty. Before posting this review, we emailed Uxua -- to share our experience and hoping they'd think it was worth responding to. We were wrong. Since Uxua didn't think it was worth even acknowledging our email, much less apologizing for our experience, Uxua must think our experience was the one that we should've had -- and so we're sharing it here. ____________________ Uxua is, design-wise, a lovely hotel. And its location is perfect. But our stay there was incredibly frustrating -- daily -- and we had the kind of experience there that was unbefitting of even a 2-star hotel. It was inexcusable for a hotel that wants everyone to believe it's a 5-star hotel. In our experience, it's not. And until the guest experience can catch up with the beautiful design, it can't possibly be viewed as a luxury or 5-star hotel. Uxua's guest experience failures weren't limited to one issue or one day or one kind of issue. Uxua's failures involve maintenance, housekeeping, technology, and concierge. It’s every touchpoint. 1. No evening staff after 10 pm -- which isn't fatal if you have staff available by phone. 2. But after 10 pm, staff doesn't answer the after-hours hotel number or outside emergency number. This is just not ok (for too many reasons to list). 3. Wifi didn't work in our room -- even though we asked Uxua to fix it. In order to get a wifi signal and make calls on our cell using wifi-enabled calling, we had to take work calls from the hotel’s public areas, including confidential calls. This not ok -- particularly for an expensive hotel where you pay a premium to be in a nice hotel room...in part, to work in...and particularly for us because we have a lot of confidential work calls. How does McDonald’s provide working wifi – but Uxua doesn’t?) 4. The phone never worked in our room -- even though we asked Uxua to fix it. 5. The door lock from our room to the outside didn't work -- even though we asked Uxua to fix it. (How is it that we, as guests, are the ones that need to bring such a basic maintenance issue to Uxua's attention? How can the housekeepers not notice that the doors don’t lock?) 6. Even as to the outside doors in our rooms that did lock, housekeeping routinely didn’t lock our doors – even though we asked that the doors be locked. (Why must we ask once, much less repeatedly, to lock our doors?) 7. We think (but aren't certain) that, after hours, there’s no way to get out of the hotel – because the gates at the front desk to the street and to the Quadrado were locked. (We hope we’re mistaken. Good thing there wasn't a fire when we were there, eh?) This was our experience. It was so frustrating that, after the first two days, we spent our third (and last) day outside the hotel becau

O hotel é maravilhoso, os funcionários são muito atenciosos e educados. A infraestrutura e o café da manhã são perfeitos! As piscinas dos quartos e do hotel são constantemente limpas, bem preservadas. Há o fornecimento de repelente, chinelo, roupão. Já indiquei para várias pessoas!!