Wyndham Golden Suites, Foz do Iguacu: Bottom Line Review

During our team’s recent Party of 5 challenge, we visited the incredible Iguazu Falls – our final destination of our whilrwind 2-week trip. The Iguazu Falls are less remote than you might think, only 20-40 minutes from the Iguazu Airport depending on which country you’re viewing the falls from – Argentina or Brazil. But as you might also imagine, it’s obviously in the middle of a National Park – and just like you might expect from any National Park, the points-hotel presence can be slim. I thought it was fair to keep that in mind with this Bottom Line Review.

Wyndham Golden Suites, Foz do Iguacu Bottom Line Review

In a wrap-up post about their team’s itinerary, Tim painted a great picture of why this hotel can make a lot of sense for Iguazu Falls visitors.

There aren’t many options to use points and miles near Iguazu Falls and the Airbnb options that we found weren’t terribly inspiring either. We wanted to be in town so that we could go out once we were done with the Falls (and the challenge) the next day. The two options were the Wyndham Golden Suites (4.5 on Google Reviews and a 4 on with a reader’s choice award on TripAdvisor) or the Doubletree that was out of town and expensive on points for the cash price.

I think that’s especially true because of the large group we were trying to accommodate for our Party of 5 Challenge where we needed 5 individual beds. Searching for similar dates with only two people seems to bring up some promising options on Airbnb, (for anyone up for booking an Airbnb instead of a points hotel that is.)

But as it was, I think this hotel was a very practical choice, despite the sort of confusing blend of frills and no-frills design. We decided that all the shared spaces in this hotel were way more thoughtful than the rooms themselves. For example, the rooms were fairly bare-bones with empty walls of dark, scuffed paint. But the breakfast was actually fairly impressive, with a decent variety of pastries, hot and cold dishes, and even some interesting local Brazilian Pamonha, cooked in a corn husk. We also found the lobby to be pretty stylish and comfortable. We enjoyed some hangouts in this lobby, then returned to our dark, creepy hallways where the lights would flicker for a solid 4 or 5 seconds after the elevator doors opened. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that 4 or 5 seconds of pitch dark is plenty of time to get eaten by something. Needless to say, the breakfast was our favorite part.

• • • Price: For this trip, we booked one double room for $59, and another 3-bedroom premium suite (which would have been $109) for 6,750 Wyndham Points (7,500 + 10% off for being a Wyndham cardholder). All room types were available for that same points price.
    • Value: This felt like a totally appropriate price for a very basic hotel. Then consider that the breakfast was surprisingly good for a place that otherwise felt like a budget experience, I’d say this was a good value.
    • Location: The location was right on target for what we were doing. We were in a neighboring town to the National Park which put us in a good position to find a place to eat at the end of the day, but also put us only ~30 minutes from the park entrance.
    • Room: The rooms were totally adequate. No frills, but also nothing serious to bemoan (except for the hilariously creepy flickering lights once you exit the elevator on your floor.)
    • Parking: Valet parking was $4/night
    • Resort/Destination Fee: N/A
    • Internet: To be honest, I didn’t spend a ton of time on the internet, but others did, and I heard no complaints.
    • Service: No complaints – what you’d expect from a hotel like this.
    • Turndown service: I don’t think there was any turndown service.
    • Dining:
      • Locanda: The Locanda Restaurant is open daily for lunch from 12:00 to 3:00, dinner from 7:00 to 11:00. We did not get a chance to try this.
      • Breakfast Buffet: More importantly for us, this is I believe the same dining area where they serve the breakfast buffet in the mornings. We were all quite impressed with the breakfast, especially for a hotel at this price point. In addition to the usual cold cereals and salads, there were hot dishes, pastries, and even some local dishes like Brazilian Pamonha. This was included in our room rate.
    • Fitness Room: I know there is a gym (which gets sort of mixed reviews on Trip Advisor) but none of us had time to check it out.
    • Would I stay again?  I wouldn’t be opposed to staying here again since the rate was so competitive and it made a lot of sense for our group, but in the likely scenario that I’d be returning with just my husband, I’d be a little more likely to find something outside of the standard points-and-miles chain options, like an Airbnb for instance.

    Pros and Cons

    Pros

    • The free breakfast was great! Especially for a hotel at this price point.
    • The price is competitive – cheaper than or on par with many other options in the area.
    • We were within easy access of restaurants for our evening meal.

    Cons

    • Pretty much just the spooky lights when coming off the elevator. 😛
    • The beds were hard, but not awful.

    Image Gallery

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  Here’s the spooky hallway at the Wyndham Golden Suites, Foz do Iguacu:
  

  And here’s our impressive free breakfast at the Wyndham Golden Suites, Foz do Iguacu:

   

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