We loved our stay here! My husband and I were here for our honeymoon and we had a great time. The hotel, which is very modern and cool, sits right on Lago Argentino and has amazing lake views. The hotel staff was so helpful and very nice -the front desk staff, waiters, pool up-keepers- they all spoke great English too! We had a lake view room which was beautiful - the bathroom is very clean & modern, there is a big closet and a nice TV. The room was really designed well. The pool and gym facilities were very nice - there was always friendly staff to help you, there is a nice locker room, the pool is well-heated. We also had really nice massages for a great price! The hotel helped us book our trip to the Perito Moreno glacier - same price as if you book in the city, but they only take cash. There was a free shuttle into town every 30 minutes; the town is only a 5 minute drive away. The breakfast in the morning was delicious - cereal, toast, sandwiches, pastries, yogurt , fruits and yummy juices!
We had a great time here and would definitely stay again!

Let's be honest here - there is only one reason you are coming
to El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier. One of the wonders of
South America, no doubts. But the "town" itself stinks.
There is one paved road crossing it with a few decent restaurants
and backpacking stores. Almost all the hotels are spread out
around the area with no good access. To get to them, you have
to drive those ugly dirt roads, no trees around, dust and dirt.
Combine it with the constant 200 km/h wind and you have trash
flying everywhere. Not a nice sight. What's really bad is that there
is no planning going on there at all. The hotels are popping up
everywhere, there is even an old airstrip left in the middle of that
mess. Anyone expecting a nice quaint mountain village will be
very disappointed.
We picked Design Suites based on very few pictures we could find
online. Looked new and modern. They never show the whole
building though - the reason is the building is built on dirt, no road
or even a clean flat area around it. The walls are standing straight
on dirt. The view is great, but the mountains are really far away from
El Calafate and the lake is nothing that amazing. It's more like
Patagonian emptiness.
The hotel itself is just plain awful. The service is bad, they don't
speak any English, but they pretend they do, so they say "yes"
and they never follow. They have a complete mess, they double
charged us for the minibar only because nobody refilled it
on the 2nd day so they found the missing bottles - charge again!
Try to talk about it with them. Everything is so overpriced and
there is no easy way to walk somewhere and buy it. They have
a shuttle running to town, but the schedule doesn't exist.
The building itself looks "modern" from the distance, but it's really
fake when you see it. Very cheap. Nothing works. Our first room
had a broken (like broken glass) window. The windows are
large and face the direct sun - it was very hot
(of course there is still the wind), but there
is no A/C. Even worse, there is no way to open a window!
They are all broken. We were able to create a little gap, it wasn't
enough. The room was so hot and there was nothing we could do.
All the rooms are like that. The modern bathroom don't work.
Ugly carpet and cheap, horrible furniture.
"Design"? Yeah, right. Overpriced trash. Avoid.

We booked at the Design Suites Calafate with high expectations after a positive experience at the much older Design Suites Bariloche. The Calafate hotel has a striking design (from a distance) and is beautifully situated on a bluff overlooking Lago Argentino. The common areas and rooms are reasonably nice, but it is clear that attention to detail is lacking with respect to design, construction and service. Everywhere you look there are design and construction flaws, some of which impacted our comfort (e.g., lack of ventilation made the rooms and hotel very stuffy), and the staff really did not seem to care about providing quality service (e.g., breakfast, which was superb in Bariloche, was disorganized and appeared picked over). Overall left the hotel somewhat disappointed -- probably not worth the premium price, especially considering the distance from, and difficulty getting to, the main part of Calafate.

The hotel is in a great location, with excellent views.Our suite did not have a lake view, but it did not matter, since we did not spend much time in it. I agree with a previous review, the rooms do not have ventilation. The staff was very attentive. The hotel has a shuttle running between it and downtown Calafate, free, every half an hour, that is very convenient (some other hotels in the area do not). The lobby and restaurant have fantastic views, and the service is good.