I moved to this hotel after a maid stole my Sony discman while I was staying at Copacabana Sol on Rua Santa Clara. Luckily, I didn't have any problems at this hotel! I had quite a pleasant stay. Copacabana is notorious for thieves and danger inside and outside wherever in the area. My best advice is to avoid staying at Copacabana because stress and paranoia will take their toll on your mind. If you want peace of mind in Rio, I highly recommend staying at Ipanema or Leblon. More expensive than Copacabana but well worth it. If you want or need to stay at Copacabana, then I recommend the California Othon Classic with its classy style, great location and friendly staff. But be careful, Rio is the most dodgy and dangerous city I've ever been to.

I think that some reviewers of this hotel need to put things in perspective. First, the hotel is old.. However, it is freshly painted, both lobby and rooms. Floors in the lobby, real marble, bar, etc.,mahagony,walls, (real) plaster medallions. If you want a Holiday Inn - fake marble, laminated "wood"that is new but will be torn down in 30 years, don't COME

In an ocean view room, you can open the doors to fresh ocean breezes. new hotels have sealed windows to save money. - some ocean rooms have balconies - only one i've seen on Copacabana.

Great free breakfast, staff very helpful,rooms are clean, w beautiful original parquet floors. Free breakfast, staff very friendly and helpful. One criticism = mattresses need replacing as do safes. Beach front balcony room @ this price = grab it , it won't last/
We had a problem w/ 3 stolen computers from rooms.but the hotel immediatly paid full value.It's Rio folks. .

I would stay here in a balcony room rather than at the plastic Marriot next door at the same price, and i'm not joking. Probably European and other foreign visitors will appreciate more than Americans. Not enough plastic. .

I stayed at this hotel for two weeks and had a horrible experience. The rooms were horrible. The BATHROOMS WEREN'T CLEARN, I had to go to the store to buy my own cleaning supplies so that I could take a shower without feeling like I would catch something. Even when house keeping would come to clean they DID NOT CLEAN the bathtub. Not only was the bathtub not clean every day, but there was no hot water most of the time. On a good day the water was luke warm on a great day I got hot water. If the rooms werent bad enough the staff wasn't great either. Most of them did not speak English, which in a hotel in a foreign country I expect the staff to be diverse and speak English. But this wasn't the only problem I had with the staff. I ran into a personal issue and asked the staff for assistance, all I wanted was the number to the police and the numbers to the cab companies, which the police told me to obtain. The guy at the front desk told me he didn't know the number and acted like he had no idea what I was talking about; even though I just got the number for the hotel next door, and the guy at the front desk of the Othan corrected me when I told him the wrong number. The staff was bad at helping me that night with my issue. Not only were they unhelpful, but they also overcharged me muttiple times. I was quoted one price for my hotel room, then when I got there I was quoted another price, I was also overcharged for the safe (which is only big enough to store your wallet and passport, you cant fit a laptop in there.) Because of the safes being so small several other peopel who I came with had their laptops stolen by a member of the staff. I advise anyone who goes to Rio and is staying in Copacabana to spend the extra couple of dollars and stay at another hotel. This hotel will get with the ad that they have an ocean front view and a balcony, which is true for certain rooms. There are only certain rooms that have this ocean front view, but having the view is NOT WORTH staying here. Also, there is NO FREE INTERNET. You have to pay R$20 for internet or you can sit in the front lobby near the windows to get the free internet from the beach.

The California Othon is seriously one of the WORST hotels that I have ever stayed in!

For starters, the hotel gives you one key per room and you leave the key at the front desk when you leave the hotel. It doesn't sound like such a bad thing until you realize that you can retrieve a key without providing any proof that you are indeed the inhabitant of the room. Several members of my group had valuables stolen as a result of this ridiculous method. The California Othon must be the only hotel on the planet without swipe card keys!

Secondly, and more importantly, the hotel is disgusting! We had to purchase bleach and cleaning supplies for our bathroom. In addition, we purchased bed linens and towels because we refused to allow our skin to touch the bedding.
You're lucky if you get any water coming out of your shower, let alone HOT water. One night, I couldn't get anything except brown water out of my shower. I was completely creeped out to say the least.

On a good note, some of the staff is friendly. Unfortunately, that doesn't make up for the filth. I suggest you pay a few extra dollars, and go down the street to the Olinda Othon. Olinda has great staff, clean bedding and showers, swipe cards, and ACs that you can actually control. DO NOT STAY AT THE FAVELA (CALIFORNIA) OTHON!