Howard Johnson Hotel Guayaquil

1. The room was very comfortable: same quality one would expect in an upscale US hotel. The price matched its quality and Ecuadorian location (1/3 of its equivalent in the US, but 3 times the budget hotel rates in Guayaquil). 2. Their service personnel were outstanding, from the front desk to the bellhop who showed us our rooms to the dinner deliverer to the maintenance mechanic (who identified and explained the problem, but couldn't fix it) to the doorman when we left. In fact, my wife had left her day bag when we left for the airport: the doorman saw it, jumped in his own car, and delivered it to her at the airport within minutes! Outstanding effort and honesty on his part, and outstanding support of his conscientiousness by the hotel management!

1. The air conditioning compressor had a bad bearing, and screamed at a high pitch whenever it came on after we had been there about 3 1/2 hours. They offered to move us to a different room, but we had already gotten ready for bed so we just put up with it. 2. We ordered dinner at 8pm from Room Service: The bad news: Room service was very slow (50 minutes). The good news: they have a "free if it takes over 30 minutes" policy, and did not charge us for dinner after we had argued with them enough about it. More bad news about room service: They did not deliver the meal I had ordered, though the grilled chicken and rice they did deliver was tasty and adequately sized. The rest of the bad news about room service: my wife's pizza crust was warm, gooey, and raw. She had ordered a Pepperonui pizza with added onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes. They got the toppings almost right: the only thing they forgot was the pepperoni. 3. One small (1/2-liter) bottle of water was free; more was available in the mini-bar at $1 per bottle; a Snickers Bar costs $5 (we passed); a small bag of peanuts was $3; a beer was $4. We recommend stocking up on snacks before getting there. 4. A coffeemaker was on the credenza: we didn't realize until morning that there was only one ceramic cup for both of us to share, and it only made enough coffee for 1 1/2 cups. Also, no half&half or creamer.