I took my family down to Rio de Janeiro for New Years this year for a week. By recommendation of a friend I decided to rent a luxury penthouse instead of going for a hotel....we rented from www.holidaysinrio.com and was well worth the money. I was worried about the state of a Rio flat before we arrived, but everything turned out great....very clean, fully stocked flats, and we had a great location directly on Ipanema beach...definitely a good alternative to hotels