I just learned by a fellow Boutique hotel´s owner that there was a way to comment the reviews we receive… so after all the effort Mr. JSR-70 put in this large review, the least we can do as a hotel (unlike JSR-70 opinion, we still think we can be called hotel) is give a detailed answer to his review.

1) Independent Hotel:
First, Mr. JSR-70 says in his review that we try to fool our guest about being part of a chain to which the Faena Hotel supposedly belongs!!! What Mr. JSR-70 doesn´t understand (fortunately most of our guests do), is that one of our assets is not being a big chain hotel, meaning that in the 1-year restoration of the 1915th building, we could freely seek for the balance between maintaining the feel of a traditional house of the 1900s, combined with state of the art comfort. The latter was a very hard and detailed task and even though we had put considerable effort to this entrepreneurial project, we know some people may not appreciate it, and rather go to a classic hotel… and it´s perfectly ok! However, it is misleading when they blame the hotel for their mistake and actually very dangerous when they can freely slander the hotel, making up lies that could badly harm the reputation of the hotel, because they had to pay a fair penalty.
2) Rooms:
As many Boutique hotels, our rooms are all different sizes. The room JSR-70 is referring to is one of the smallest ones we have (std. room) even though it is around 25 square meters, which we think is a good size for a room. However, if you are looking for a bigger room, please choose an upgrade. Regarding the windows, this particular room has the original restored 1900th century glassed door, with the original top window that can be opened (of course they have black-outs and curtains, and the windows are tinted for your privacy). Moreover, you can check the photos on our website, because, even though JSR-70 doesn´t agree, I assure they are from the actual hotel (with no Photoshop!!!). Following the same line of thought, if you are carrying a lot of clothes, please try to book a room category higher than the one JSR-70 chose, but if you are an average traveler you will be fine in all our rooms. All the rooms have local air conditioning, but we did have a problem for some time where we had to control the AC from the reception, but now you can set the temperature from your room.
3) Noise:
About the noise, our cleaning staff starts in the morning with the common areas, which are isolated to the rooms and they move to the rooms later when the guests have already woken up. Finally, we have no domestic animals in the hotel and even though we always do our best to please our guests, we are very fond of wild nature, so there is nothing we can do about the “strange bird” JSR-70 refers to… apologies…
4) Beds:
The sizes of our beds are 1,40 mts. and 1,60 mts., which I think is a normal size for beds. Moreover, I have a 1,40 mts. mattress in my house and my wife and I sleep perfectly OK… and I am a pretty tall guy (1,82 mts.), however, if you need a bigger bed, I would recommend a higher category than the one JSR-70 chose, because being a bigger room, it can fit a bigger bed.
5) Staff:
About JSR-70´s comment about the staff… the comments we get on our guest book, on the surveys the guest kindly fill and in Tripadvisor, almost all our guests give outstanding remarks about the staff (and I know they deserve them!)… most of our staff have hotel management studies, professional experience (local & international) and what´s most important, they love what they do (it´s a major point when we interview candidates).
6) Breakfast:
Our breakfast is indeed “not buffet”, therefore everything is fresh and we give a tentative menu, but we suggest our guests to combine menus or even ask for things outside the menu, and we do our best to please them (the latter is not only suggested by the waitresses, but also written in the menu). Also, you can ask for as many coffee (Nespresso) or tea cups as you like.
7) Particular situation with JSR-70:
The story is quite simple. This JSR-70 booked a standard room, checked in, and came to the reception demanding to have an upgrade to a bigger room… we told them we could give them the upgrade from the following night, given that the hotel was full for that night. They didn´t say anything and then they showed up late in the afternoon at the reception, saying they were checking out, and that he didn´t want to pay the cancellation fee (even they were aware of it), and that they wouldn´t even pay that same night. We explained them that any hotel in the world has to refuse other reservations to honor the ones that are already made. Moreover, after we explained this in several ways and by different members of the staff, JSR-70 started yelling and speaking badly about the hotel to the astonished guests that were staring at them at the lobby, and started threatening us that if we charged them a penalty, they would give us a bad review on the internet. We weren’t really going to give up on a situation we knew it was fair because of a threat, but when we saw that they were molesting the other guests, we told JSR-70 that we were going to charge them 50% of the penalty, and they agreed.
Then, after several weeks, we saw that they had posted this malicious review all over the internet, talking extremely bad about our staff and the hotel.
Please make no mistake: We definitely appreciate the honest feed-back of our guests. Moreover, we encourage it, by a multiple-choice survey we give our guests upon check-in, together with a letter asking them to review us in Tripadvisor (this is also remained it on our periodic newsletter). What is more, this honest feed-back actually gave us several times the opportunity to improve, but we do make the distinction of a feed-back review (even if it´s negative) and a malicious review that only intends to hurt the image of the hotel.
So, you can read all the reviews Vain has in Tripavisor and our blog (you can go through our webpage)… and also read all the comments JSR-70 left in different hotel reviews in Tripadvisor... and make your own conclusions…