Llao Llao Bustillo Wing vs Moreno Wing: Which Should You Book?

Every Llao Llao room listing forks in two before you’ve chosen anything else: Bustillo Wing or Moreno Wing. The site doesn’t explain what that choice actually changes about your stay. It just assumes you already know which one you want.

For Audrey, the pull toward this hotel goes back further than either of us booking anything. She grew up in Argentina, and her parents used to talk about the Llao Llao the way people talk about a place they’ve promised themselves for someday — this hotel on a hill between two lakes they always meant to visit. She’d been hearing about it since she was a kid, long before she ever saw it herself. On two earlier trips to Bariloche, the closest we’d gotten was dinner at the Patagonia restaurant and afternoon tea in the Winter Garden — always as day visitors, always looking up at the guest floors from below. This time we finally booked two nights in the Bustillo Wing, with our daughter Rei along for it, and got to see what the other side of that arrangement actually looks like.

I want to be upfront about what this guide is built from, because it’s built from two different things. Everything about the Bustillo side below comes from that stay — the room, the bathroom, the genuinely absurd business of finding our way back to either. The Moreno side, we haven’t slept in. What follows there comes from working out exactly what the hotel puts you in over there, room by room, and from finding out what the current renovation status actually is, because that matters more than any brochure lets on. I’ll flag which is which as we go.

The Bustillo Wing: Where We Actually Stayed

Bustillo is the original building, or more precisely, it’s what got rebuilt after the original burned down. The hotel opened in January 1938, architect Alejandro Bustillo’s alpine vision built out of cypress logs on a hill between two lakes, and less than two years later a fire took the whole thing down to nothing. What you’re walking into today is the replacement: stone and concrete this time, built to survive, reopened in December 1940. Worth knowing before you book — “historic building” here doesn’t mean the 1938 structure. It means eighty-plus years of a fireproof rebuild wearing the original’s spirit.

The Room

We stayed in what the hotel called, at the time, a Standard Double Room, and it didn’t feel standard in the deflating hotel-chain sense of that word. The centerpiece was a two-post wooden bed carved like it had opinions about itself — genuinely one of the nicer pieces of furniture I’ve slept under anywhere — piled with more pillows than two adults need. Rei has a habit of wedging herself between us at night no matter what’s on offer, but the hotel had left a crib up in the room anyway, unasked, in case she wanted somewhere of her own to nap or watch cartoons. Nobody mentioned it at check-in. It was just there.

Beyond the bed: a decent flatscreen, a small sofa worth sinking into, a closet big enough that Audrey briefly considered actually unpacking for a two-night stay, and a desk positioned to catch a view of the lake and the mountains behind it. The small touches did real work — slippers by the door, a laundry bag with its own printed price list, a bottle of water waiting as a welcome gift, floral curtains and artwork that leaned into the property’s decorative style instead of fighting it. The in-room safe sat there unused, because it always does; I’ve never needed one and I’d almost certainly forget the code before I forgot to pack.

Now for the part I can’t tidy up for you: our room’s actual view doesn’t line up with what the hotel currently calls a Standard room. The current listing for that category describes partial or obstructed outlooks, or a view toward the gardens and Winter Garden — not the lake and mountains our desk looked out on. Whether that’s a naming shuffle since our stay, a quiet upgrade nobody mentioned, or just loose language on our part, I honestly don’t know. What it tells you is simple enough: don’t trust a category name on its own. Confirm the actual view before you book.

The Bathroom

The bathroom turned out to be its own quiet highlight, the kind that sneaks up on you mid-trip when you’re not expecting a hotel bathroom to be worth mentioning. Toilet and bidet, because it’s Argentina and that’s simply how it’s done. A sink sat under a mirror strong enough to magnify every pore, which is either useful or unkind depending on the morning. Handheld and wall-mounted showerheads both worked. The full amenity tray was there — soaps, shampoo, the works — but the detail that actually stuck with me was sillier: a roll of two-ply toilet paper thick enough to notice, printed with a tiny Llao Llao sticker, and two full bathrobes laid out for a room booked for two. It’s a small thing, tile and toiletries, but it’s the kind of small thing that tells you the hotel is paying attention even where nobody’s watching.

Renovated or Original?

Here’s the fact that matters more than which wing you pick: not every room in Bustillo is currently the same hotel. The building is partway through a phased renovation — a second stage covering dozens of rooms began in September 2024 — and the split shows up directly in the room names. Superior Room and Superior Lake Room are the renovated categories, with new bathrooms, rewired electrics, and air conditioning added. Standard Room and Lake Room are the categories that haven’t been touched yet, and they’re listed without air conditioning at all. Bariloche evenings rarely get brutal enough to make that a dealbreaker, but if you’re booking in peak summer and climate control matters to you, the category you choose inside Bustillo matters just as much as choosing Bustillo over Moreno in the first place. Since which categories count as renovated will keep shifting as the project moves through its remaining phases, it’s worth checking each Bustillo room type’s current photos and amenities directly on Booking.com before you commit to one.

Finding Your Way Around

Then there’s the part nobody puts in the brochure: we got lost, more than once, badly enough that we ended up back at reception asking a very patient staff member to physically point us toward a restaurant we could practically see. Bustillo alone holds 162 rooms, 11 studios and 12 suites, spread across floors and staircases and elevator banks that don’t obviously talk to each other, and on our first day we needed an actual paper map just to get to dinner. At one point an elevator dropped us into a corridor that felt like a secret passage we’d stumbled into by mistake, windows showing up where we hadn’t expected windows.

Audrey put it better than I would have: it felt like a bit of a maze, but that’s half the fun of staying somewhere this size. I’d add one asterisk to that. If you’re travelling with a toddler on a nap schedule, or you just don’t love wandering the wrong hallway at 8pm hunting for the restaurant you booked, build in extra time on arrival day. Nobody at Llao Llao is in a rush except the guest who hasn’t found their room yet.

The Moreno Wing, From the Outside In

We haven’t stayed in the Moreno Wing, and I’d rather say that plainly than let the next few paragraphs pretend otherwise. Everything here comes from working out exactly what the hotel puts you in over there, not from a night we’re dressing up as one.

Moreno went up in 2007, a separate building connected to Bustillo by an enclosed bridge with panoramic windows — you can walk between the two, but you’re crossing into a different hotel when you do. It runs its own restaurant and its own check-in desk, and holds just 43 rooms across four categories, all built around the same promise: a lake-and-mountain view, a terrace, and air conditioning, guaranteed, in every single one. That last part is worth sitting with, because it’s precisely what Bustillo can’t currently promise you depending on which room you land in.

The entry category, the Deluxe Moreno Lake Studio, runs 40 to 43 square meters — close to double the footprint of Bustillo’s smallest rooms — with a jacuzzi and a terrace facing Moreno Lake and Mount Tronador. Move up and the suites add a fireplace and a proper living room: the Deluxe Moreno Lake Suite around 63 square meters, the Master Suite closer to 96, and at the top, the Royal Suite, an enormous space with a sauna, a kitchenette, and a double jacuzzi, built for people who want a hotel room that behaves like an apartment. The look is the deliberate opposite of Bustillo’s florals and wool blankets — polished hardwood, cleaner lines, a more contemporary hand throughout.

What Moreno doesn’t have is history you can feel in the walls. On paper, it reads as a different hotel bolted onto a legendary one — newer, more consistent, and without a single room I can vouch for personally. If that consistency sounds like the safer bet, compare current rates and photos across the Moreno Wing’s four room categories on Booking.com before you decide — seeing what’s actually on offer for your dates tells you more than any description can.

Bustillo vs Moreno: Head-to-Head

Stacked side by side, the practical differences are easier to see than any brochure will show you:

That table flattens one thing I’ve already told you, so I won’t let it stand quietly: “Bustillo” in that left column isn’t one product. A renovated Superior Lake Room and an untouched Standard Room are functionally two different hotels sharing a wing name. Moreno doesn’t carry that asterisk — every room in it plays by the same rules, which is really the entire case for booking it.

Once you know which trade-off you’re actually making, the fastest way to settle it is to compare live rates for both wings side by side on Booking.com — what’s actually available for your dates will narrow the decision faster than any table can.

Which Wing Fits Which Traveler

If you want to feel like you’re inside the Llao Llao you’ve seen in decades of photographs — the reading room, the cypress-paneled halls, the main hall Rei treated as her personal running track before every nap — book Bustillo, and ask specifically whether your room is one of the renovated ones. Don’t assume. Ask.

If air conditioning, guaranteed square footage, and not gambling on your exact category matter more to you than sleeping inside the historic building, Moreno removes the gamble outright. I can’t tell you firsthand whether it’s actually easier to navigate than Bustillo’s tangle of staircases, since we’ve never stayed there — but forty-three rooms in one newer building is a much smaller haystack than a century-old lodge with corridors that don’t obviously lead anywhere, and I’d be surprised if it weren’t simpler to find your way back after dinner.

For families, I can really only vouch for the Bustillo side, and there it worked well: wide public corridors a toddler can burn energy in before meals, staff who anticipated what we needed before we asked, a crib that showed up without anyone requesting it. Just build in some slack for getting lost on day one.

How Not to Book the Wrong Room

A number of the Bustillo room listings note that connecting rooms are available on request when booking, which is hotel-speak for likely, not locked in — confirm it directly if you’re travelling with kids and need adjoining doors rather than just adjoining floors.

Here’s the trap almost nobody flags: browsing by wing, you’d expect anything called “Moreno” to live under the Moreno listings. It doesn’t, not entirely. The Moreno Lake Cabin — a freestanding two-bedroom cottage with its own fireplace and deck, tucked into some of the best private views on the property — is filed under the Bustillo Wing on the hotel’s own site. On Booking.com, the fastest way to actually find it is to pull up the Llao Llao Hotel’s full room list and scan the Bustillo Wing entries for the Moreno Lake Cabin rather than filtering by Moreno alone.

On price, I won’t hand you a number, since rates here shift with season and category and I’d rather send you to check current availability than print something that’s stale by the time you read this. What I’ll say in general is that Bustillo tends to book for less than Moreno, which tracks with everything else in this guide — you’re paying a premium for the guarantee, not just for newer paint.

Which Wing We’d Book Next Time

We’d book Bustillo again. That’s an easy call for us, because it’s the wing we actually experienced, and it handed Audrey something no amount of planning could have arranged — an actual night inside a hotel her own parents used to talk about wanting to visit, decades before we ever did. That’s not a small thing to hand someone.

But I’d book it more carefully the second time. I’d ask, specifically, whether the room on offer is one of the renovated ones, and I wouldn’t assume a category name means what it used to. If air conditioning is actually non-negotiable for you rather than a nice-to-have, or you’d simply rather not gamble on drawing the older half of a wing still mid-renovation, Moreno takes that risk off the table entirely — at the cost of the creaky, mazy, unmistakably historic charm that’s the actual reason most people put this hotel on their list in the first place. Whichever way you lean, check current availability and room-specific details for the Llao Llao Hotel on Booking.com before you book — it’s the only way to confirm you’re actually getting the wing, and the room, you think you’re getting.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the real difference between the Bustillo Wing and the Moreno Wing?

Bustillo is the historic side of the hotel, rebuilt in stone and concrete after a 1939 fire and reopened in 1940, with 162 rooms across a wide range of sizes and views. Moreno is a separate, smaller building added in 2007 with just 43 rooms, all built to the same standard: air conditioning, a terrace, and a lake-and-mountain view guaranteed in every category.

Does every room in the Bustillo Wing have air conditioning?

No. The wing is partway through a phased renovation, and only the renovated categories, Superior Room and Superior Lake Room, currently include air conditioning. Standard Room and Lake Room, the untouched categories, don’t have it yet.

Is the Moreno Lake Cabin actually part of the Moreno Wing?

Despite the name, it isn’t. The Moreno Lake Cabin is filed under the Bustillo Wing on the hotel’s own booking site, so anyone specifically searching for it under Moreno listings alone will miss it.

Which wing is easier to find your way around?

Bustillo’s size is genuinely disorienting; getting lost more than once and needing a paper map was part of the actual stay. Moreno’s much smaller footprint, just 43 rooms in one building, seems likely to be simpler, though that’s a reasonable inference rather than something personally tested.

Which wing is better for families with young children?

Based on a firsthand family stay, Bustillo worked well: wide corridors for a toddler to run in, a crib provided without being asked, and attentive staff throughout. There’s no personal basis for a family verdict on Moreno specifically.

Which wing is cheaper to book?

Bustillo generally books for less than Moreno, though exact rates shift with season and room category, so current availability is worth checking directly rather than relying on a fixed number.

Can you request a specific room or wing when booking?

Some Bustillo listings note that connecting rooms are available on request, which means likely rather than guaranteed. Confirming the exact room and wing directly before booking is the safest approach.

Is the historic Bustillo Wing the original 1938 building?

Not exactly. The original 1938 structure burned down in a fire the following year and was rebuilt in stone and concrete, reopening in December 1940. The building standing today is that 1940 reconstruction, not the literal original.

Project 23 Argentina: This guide is also available in Spanish. [Leé la versión en castellano: Ala Bustillo o Ala Moreno en el Llao Llao: ¿cuál conviene reservar?]

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