I could simply advise any TripAdvisor reader simply to avoid this hotel and leave it at that but I feel I would be doing the travel community a disservice - and being generous to this sorry excuse for a hotel.

The enjoyment begins with an unnecessarily long, protracted and inefficient check-in by staff who would clearly rather be somewhere else, doing anything but working where they are. Saying that customer service was poor would be unfair to the world of customer service; there was no real service. Sour-faced, incompetent and dismissive are better adjectives.

The receptionist looks at me with something close to disgust as I ask for more than one wifi code as I have multiple devices - and so begins the incessant problems with the hotel's supposed wifi. I am told I need to log in separate passcodes for each device but that the process is simple. Once settled into my cold, soul-less room, I type in the codes. First device - no problem. I admit I was surprised. Second device - user not recognised. It took three separate visits to reception, using a very slow and putrid lift, to have it eventually sorted but not without a derisory remark when I started showing frustration at their incompetence.

If only connecting to the wifi had meant actually getting a decent internet connection. I'm still not sure why they bother. Downloading emails took an age, never mind attempting VoIP calls, streaming or even looking at not-so-graphic-heavy websites. The old dial-up modem I had 20 years ago was faster than their sorry excuse for an internet connection.

Positives, there must be positives. Well, the room was clean, of a decent size if very poorly-designed with a wall jutting out into the centre of the room making it very impractical. If only everything else was clean. Annoyingly, I only noticed on my second day that the very bottom of the bedsheets were soiled - not sure with what, I tried not to think about it as I was trying not to feel sick. Something I did notice though was that the toilet water had a definite yellowish tinge to it when I first lifted the cover. Perhaps São Paulo water isn't all that clean, you might think. A quick flush revealed that the local water is indeed not yellow. Well done house-keeping for an efficient job there.

As I'd been travelling for over two weeks, I had some laundry to get done. Not on a Sunday though, apparently- too sacrosanct a day to do any work - maybe that was the problem with the receptionist? To add insult to injury, the 'normal' laundry service takes 36 hours to be returned to you. If you want same-day service (even if you give your laundry before 10am), they charge you an extra 50% for their express service. Express service! Someone should really tell them that their express service is standard service in most normal hotels. But I guess the Transamerica Prime Plaza is just a sorry excuse for a hotel rather than an actual one.

Please do yourself a favour and do not stay there. There are better places in São Paulo for a similar price and actual service.