CRALS - Casa da Praceta

I rented this for 30 days and paid about $4,000 American dollars. Owners were very nice and responded quickly to problems. Had the 3 bedrooms and 1 ½ baths that I needed. I felt safe there. I picked this location because it was near my grandchildren's school. Owner brought me wine and a big bag of coffee beans. Great Espresso machine. The washing machine was also a dryer but you needed instructions to figure that out. Secure building. They replaced the chipped plates. They replaced the microwave after the knob broke off. They traded out cooking pots and took the stained pots. TV & WiFi work well.

I rented this unit for a month; it was not what I expected after paying about $4,000 American dollars. "Garden Views" is misleading; you walk on a walkway in the middle of the gardens, but, unless you're standing at the main bedroom window & looking out, you don't see the gardens. From the living area, the balcony looks over buildings behind you with white delivery truck, parked cars, some recycling bins. The shower was a nightmare with 10- 20 second timer - so, every 10-20 seconds the water turned off while you were taking a shower & you had to push the button to turn the water back on. The kitchen was a surprise: rusted, bent can opener, dishwasher that didn't have any hot water so kind of washed the dishes, but they were always dripping wet & I had to either dry them, or pull the racks out to let them dry, lots of chipped plates, no measuring cups or spoons, hairdryer cord had taped area, fork tops were coming apart from the wooden handle, the elevators sometimes worked, sometimes didn't - very random. The phone in the hallway for letting people in the door was broken and held together by a broken strap - you could buzz people up but you couldn't talk to them, so you weren't sure who it was. After a couple of weeks, I was standing in water in the shower which wasn't draining properly, so I called & he told me to take off the grid and clean the top part and he would send someone to clean out the bottom part - it smelled awful. Instead of sending someone else, the owner came and did it himself, but it still smelled and was slow to drain. A cleaning team was supposed to come mid visit and I was asked to meet them, so I agreed, but they never showed up. After the microwave knob broke on Friday, the owner came and brought a new one on Monday and I was able to use pliers to turn the knob until it was replaced.