We first arrived at the Vila Velha tired and disoriented. As I FELL out of the cab and sprawled at the feet of the commissionaire, they must have wondered!! But I was picked up, whisked into the comfortable foyer, sat down very firmly and told to "stay" in sign language, while other hands retrieved my bags. My Portuguese is a joke, and the Vila Velha doesn't seem to get many English-speaking guests, but they are very nice to the ones they do have.
The room was clean, fairly basic, the twin beds comfortable. Extras we asked for were provided cheerfully and promptly. The bathroom was good, beautiful white cotton towels with the hotel name woven in. But it was the breakfast buffet- and the staff- that really won my heart. My sister and I came to Bahia from 5-star accommodation in Sao Paolo,but were still impressed with the breakfast at the Vila Velha. The open-air dining-room is bright and welcoming, the food sufficiently varied from day to day to avoid boredom but always retaining the essentials-divine coffee, beautiful fruit, a fresh white cheese whose name I don't know, bread and cake and cold cuts and fruit juice.
And the staff-wow!! courteous, patient, helpful. I think they appreciated our efforts to use Portuguese, and we found that our attempts to order a dinner one evening were greatly helped by our waiter. He COULD have just sold us two orders of soup, but he knew the serve was immense, and he persuaded us to take just one. We could help ourselves to bread and butter, we could have bottomless "cafe leite", he would be surprised if we finished one "canja brasileira". He was right, of course, and as I stumbled through asking for the bill he gently corrected my pronunciation then showed me the book he was reading behind the desk. At least one of the staff at the Vila Velha is learning English!!