The hotel is on N Ocean Drive and New York Street / Fillmore St. The compound is pretty substantial, 9 buildings and parking lots takes up the entire blocks on either side of New York St.
Building #7 and 8 are the closest to the beach. #3 is closest to the office. $12 for parking. They offer beach towels and chairs for free. Their office opens 8am-11pm. Daily maid service.
Our unit has a mid sized refrigerator and mini cooking top for simple need. Dish washing detergent is provided, with some pots pants and some tableware. One of the two wine glasses is dirty, unwashed.
Santos Dumont Airport SDU is the 2nd airport in Rio de Janeiro, named after Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos Dumont (1873–1932). It opened in 1973; operates by Infraero since 1986.
Bossa Nova Mall is connected to it, that hosts many shops, eateries, Xian, WeWork, and a hotel. When we got there at 7:30pm for dinner, it was relatively calm. By the time we were leaving around 9:45, it came to live with music and crowds.
Alberto Santos Dumont (1873–1932) was a Brazilian aviation pioneer. Near the hotel is Rio’s 2nd airport SDU that is named after him.
We booked this in early January and by then, not many hotels were available, due to the carnival, which runs Feb 9th to 14th.
The glitters remain in the lobby, as we’re leaving on Tuesday, Feb 13
It’s in ‘central’ but the surrounding area is rather desolated; except every morning, the dressed up or down carnival crowds gathers by the hotel.
The room is small but functional. The bed and pillow are ok. Shower water pressure is pretty strong, which is good. It provides a mini refrigerator and a safe. Same dirty plates are often left in the hall way for extended time.
condensation fm the air conditioner drips, and they never provide an extra towel to absorb it
slow elevators
room isn’t cleaned every day – no biggie
The bar in the lobby is ok. I didn’t visit restaurant on the first floor. We used Uber or taxi to get around.
… the Carnival starts from our hotel – on the mornings of 10th Saturday and 11th, Sunday by our hotel:
Location is excellent, in a tree lined street in Recoleta neighborhood. Across street from a small shopping mall Patio Bullrich, which has movie theatre and cafe. A few blocks north (left) is the good restaurant Fervor and cute cigar bar, both highly recommended.
Very good service; again most of the staff don’t speak English.
Hotel has a restaurant Alma on the ground floor. A gym, pool (could use some cleaning!) and sauna on the first floor.
Our room is spacious, so is the bathroom. The electrical power outlet uses Type I – 3 prong. (Some other hotels in Buenos Aires use European Type F – 2 round prong). I only find one usb port in the room.
Bathroom. The corner of the bath tub is beautifully rounded out. Water pressure in the shower is very good. The three essential, shampoo, bath gel and conditioner (that’s how my shower’s sequence) are good but very difficult to get to – the pumps are too small and too close to the wall. Can’t imagine how some one with bigger hand …
Open drainage – ok it isn’t ‘open’ but it feels like it – you’ll hear every drop of water down the drain. Maybe it’s their way to remind you to conserve water.
Two elevators function well and quick. But at group check out time, it can take for long time. Remedy: go up first.
The 10′ ceiling again causes problem: 84″ is the norm height but I need 96″. Again looking high and low for a while – a couple of artisans make the doors to order at exuberant cost (would have been in five figures after shipping, hardware and labor), I finally settled on one through Home Depot, at a reasonable price.
We paid $40 measurement fee to HD that can be used toward purchase on November 22, 2022 and in full on December 15 to order the doors. They are installed on March 15, 2023.
It could be a week earlier but when the installer went to HD to pick up my stuff, he realized that the hardware wasn’t there. A HD staff called, to apologize that by mistaken, one of her associate returned it when she didn’t find link between my doors and the hardware. I just laughed. The hardware arrived shortly after ordering, which was 2022. I got two calls from separate staff on two separate dates to pick it up. I asked if I could leave it with them since my house was still in the state of chaos of a sort. They said it’s fine. In hindsight, I should have picked it up because HD is always in a much larger state of chaos -:).
HD immediately ordered the hardware and offered me $50 discount eagerly, while I was still trying to comprehend the situation – I’m not that slow but kind of surprised that such thing could happen. Another lesson learned.
The installing subcontractor is pretty nice. Offered to deliver the doors for free since I had asked if I could stain it ahead of the hanging. Normally is no unless we pay: either $99 HD to deliver or rent their UHaul for an hour at $20 to take them home.
Matt is the installer. When he delivered the doors, he was very kind, giving me some much needed pointers – a few things to buy that are not included in the hardware:
door handles
floor guides ($)
It has been a while, I don’t remember what are included in our order. As it turns out, handles and guides are in the bundle.
Looking at hardware on Amazon, HD seems to charge an arm and a leg -:). $18.98 for handle: 5 star from 7,727 ratings; and $14.42 guide: 4.5 star from 4,612 ratings.
We stain it with Varathane polyurethane 聚氨酯 $26.99 on Amazon and $25.68 at HD. This is when I saw many chips and cracks. One can (1 qt / 32 fl oz / 946 ml) is barely enough for two doors, one layer.
There are few types: paneled, flush, or glass. I prefer simple, so flush is it. Again, there are many nuances to consider:
shape of the door
material of the door – wood, glass, etc.
type of wood
style of the door
paint or stain, and the color
The doors are installed on March 17. Matt came with a big garbage can -:) even there won’t be much garbage but some dust. He spent 3:30 to install.
Home Depot’s subcontractor
By watching Matt to install, I learned a lot. To align two hanging doors isn’t a cake walk. Over all, I’m very happy with this HD’s subcontractor’s responsiveness and consideration (office). However, the actual workmanship is so so.
Unsatisfied with HD or the door maker: it’s too short. Matt did say that they don’t make any door taller than this. But HD charges a fee to come to measure – how does this work, or what’s the point of this??
Cancer
What’s this cancer claim? The paint causes cancel and the dust of wood may too? With the claim upfront, so the producers / manufacturers won’t get sued?
My second pet project – can’t call it a furniture because I don’t know what to use it for yet …
Everyone must has something that they simply can’t walk away from. Wood is for me. Although I don’t know exactly what to use it for but after seeing this small piece of oak, I knew I just have to buy it.
Our front entrance door is solid white. After a while, I find it boring. So we shop around for a glass one.
Home Depot is the first place we look while we were getting the barn doors. All the associates are helpful most of the times, but sometimes they can be deadly wrong.
They’re the one who told me that we can use insert (22″x48″) instead getting a new door. However one of the associates insisted that we need storm impact front door … in fact, we don’t. So diligent research is important. I know, with mountain of things to tackle, sometime one may just get lazy … then mistakes mount …
One of the neighbors referred us to this shop that did his. Two staff in the smallish store and the process is very simply and straightforward. Look around the samples. Ask questions if there’s any. Order and pay.
Waiting for HOA approval takes some time. When we finally got the approval on March 25, month and half later, the design Sonnet is no longer available.
Two cheerful kids came to install on May 12. The text message began the day they received my product (May 10) and wanted to schedule the first thing on Friday. They are polite, pleasant, skilled and thorough. I couldn’t have asked for a better team.
Here are their steps:
take off the door, one side at the time
cut out
put the door back
insert the glass insert, and screw in
fill the screw holes
clean up
settle the bill
The inserts look nice. Their attention to small details, such as the creased screw covers: the corner ones are dented to match the 90? corner trim. Also, the little credit card reader is cute and awesome.
P.S.
The vendor offers $25 credit for referrals after the customers ‘place their first order’. So please use Irene Eng as your referral, I’ll donate it to Tampa Bay Refuges.org to support its efforts.
Thank you in advance. My review on Google and Yelp.
Moving in in October 2022, my indoor kitchen redone is completed on Jan 13, 2023, except the backsplash tiles. The outdoor kitchen becomes my next project. From our initial contact of two contractors in October 2022 to installation on Feb 24, 2023 with one do over, it took four months. The backsplash tiling is done on March 8.
Here is our outdoor kitchen’s journey:
Step 1: Shop for a contractor
Oct 28, 2022, we started to visit the out door kitcheners, the two companies that we got referrals for. After initial contact, we found them to be very unresponsive – It took a week or so for a reply.
