My family and I have just returned from a wonderful 10 day stay at the Hotel Regente Luxor in Rio. We had a fantastic time and enjoyed our stay very much. Our 2 deluxe rooms were adjorning and on the tenth floor, both had brillent uninterupted views of the sandy clean Copacabana Beach. Please see the attached photos taken from our room. The rooms and decoy were bright and spotlessly clean as was the whole of the hotel.
The hotel food was superb, breakfast buffet included cereals, meats, fruit, breads, rolls, hot dishes such as sausages, scrambled eggs, potatoe cakes as well as waffels made to order.
I could not beleive some of the comments I have read about the Hotel they seemed such a contrast to my families experience. Having read them I feel that they must have been unlucky or we were very lucky.
During our visit the staff were very pleasent and attentive, though most spoke little English. The girls in the Guest Relations Office, Carla and Giselle could not do enough to help and seemed genuinely happy to help, the both speak very good English and if they dont know the answer to your questions they were only too pleased to find an answer. They helped us on several occasions were the language was a barrier, do go and speak to them, they will assist with all sorts of matters. They checked our flights, helped with shows, rang almost every bank in Rio to find one that would exchange English money and wrote out in Portugese, the national language of Brazil, instructions for us to hand to banks. They can also advise on local transport times and routes. Do try the local transport it is clean cheap and runs quite frequent to most of the major attractions, the girls, yes they get a mention yet again, will write you a note to give the bus conductors asking them to let you know where to get off.
Luxor Regente is in the centre of everything, Ipamena Beach is about a 15 mins walk, the Sugar Loaf Hill can be seen from the hotel (1 bus ride) and the statue of Christ is a 45min road journey, we went by Taxi. The town with shops, banks, resturants and bars is a 2 minutes walk. There are several large shopping Malls, a bus ride away. One runs a free bus service, tickets available from guess who, yes Carla and Giselle.

The only minor fault I could find with the hotel is the leisure facilities, the swimming pool and sun bathing areas are minute, the pool is about 15 ft x 10ft and 3ft deep, it was freezing cold but had spectacular beach views. The gym had three peices of working equipent, the main exercise machine was out of action. But with the beach right outside your door who wants to spend their time indoors exercising?. THe hotel also lacked a games rooms which I feel would have been useful on those rare rainy days.

If you are English travelling to Rio, take enough money or travellers checks in Euros or US Dollars as it is extremly difficult to change up English money. The banks dont do it and the Money exchanges give you the Euro exchange rate, far less than the pound is worth.

Also be aware of the shoe shine boys, they quietly approach you, throw a disgusting goo all over your shoes then introduce themselves and ask if you would like your shoes cleaned, my husband had it happen to him, on a pair of suede shoes!!

Local resturants to try included Mario (not the correct spelling but pronounced like this) at the end of Copacabana beach, in the opporsite direction to Ipanema. It is one of the more expensive resturants costing 80 real (£20) each, but offers a superb buffet if you like seafood. Copacabana palace Hotel resturant has a varied menu and is well worth a visit.
The Hotel resturant is also good value offering a buffet dinner or Al Carte menu, but there are loads of open air resturants along the sea front.

If you visit Regent Luxor ask for a deluxe ocean view room, I'm sure you will have a very comfortable and enjoyable holiday, I know we did. Have a great holiday.