Hotels with Kitchenettes in Santa Catarina, Ranked for Longer Stays
Small kitchenette in a beachfront apartment hotel in Santa Catarina
The 8 areas where an apart-hotel saves you R$800-1,500 a week over restaurant meals, plus which kitchenettes are actually usable.
The Brazilian apart-hotel, explained
Santa Catarina's coast is full of what Brazilians call flats or apart-hotéis — condominium buildings where individual apartments are rented nightly like hotel rooms, usually with a kitchenette in the same room as the living area, a separate bedroom, and daily housekeeping. The kitchenette typically has a two-burner cooktop, microwave, small fridge, and basic pots and pans. What's usually missing: oven, dishwasher, real chef's knife, and enough counter space for anything ambitious. What you can do: breakfast, lunch, and simple pasta or fish dinners.
The financial argument is straightforward. A family of four eating three restaurant meals a day on the coast in high season spends R$450-700. The same family cooking breakfast and one other meal in the apartment spends R$120-180 on groceries and R$180-280 on one restaurant meal — a saving of R$150-300 per day, or R$1,000-2,000 a week. On a two-week stay the math pays for the marginal cost of the apart-hotel over a room-only hotel several times over.
Balneário Camboriú: the apart-hotel capital
BC has more apart-hotels than any other beach town in the state, mostly in the high-rise buildings along Avenida Atlântica and one or two streets back. A typical two-bedroom with a functional kitchenette runs R$550-950 a night in January, R$280-500 in shoulder months. The kitchenettes in newer buildings (2015 onward) are noticeably better — proper induction cooktops, decent fridges (300+ litres), and sometimes a small oven or combination microwave. Older buildings have the same layout but with 15-year-old appliances that mostly work.
The supermarket infrastructure is excellent: Angeloni and Big Bompreço within a 10-minute walk of most beachfront apart-hotels, plus smaller mercados on every block. Fresh fish at the Mercado do Peixe on Barra Sul (arrive before 09:30 for the best selection). The catch is parking — many apart-hotel buildings have one spot per unit, and additional vehicles pay R$40-60 a day. If you’re a family with two cars, verify this before booking.
Meia Praia, Itapema
Meia Praia has an equally deep apart-hotel stock, cheaper than BC (R$400-750 a night for a two-bed in high season), and closer to the beach in most cases — the buildings sit right on the beachfront avenue rather than one street back as in much of BC. Kitchenettes are similar quality to BC's newer stock. Supermarkets: Angeloni Meia Praia, plus Rede Vivo and smaller options. Padaria (bakery) culture is strong here; a fresh French bread run at 07:30 is R$8-12 for a family's breakfast.
The particular strength of Meia Praia for a self-catering week is the beach itself — 5 km of wide sand with less scene pressure than BC and better swimming conditions in most weather. The apart-hotel plus beach chairs plus one nice dinner out per week formula works cleanly here. Downside: fewer restaurant options within walking distance compared to BC, so plan to drive or Uber for dinner variety.
Bombinhas peninsula
Bombinhas and Bombas have smaller apart-hotel buildings — usually 3-4 floors rather than 20-30 — and the kitchenettes are correspondingly simpler. Expect R$450-800 a night for a two-bedroom in January, dropping to R$220-450 in shoulder. The advantage here is proximity to the peninsula's beaches (Quatro Ilhas, Sepultura, Retiro dos Padres, Praia do Mariscal), all within a 10-minute drive of most apart-hotels. Self-catering is common because restaurant dining on the peninsula is expensive and slow in January (long waits, tourist-price menus).
Fresh seafood is the point of cooking here. The Mercado do Peixe in Bombinhas has fresh linguado, robalo, camarão and lulas depending on the day's catch — arrive between 08:00 and 10:00 for selection. R$60-90 buys enough fish for a family dinner. Grocery infrastructure is thinner than BC or Meia Praia: one main supermarket in Bombinhas (Mercado Mariscal or similar), plus small mercados. Stock the pantry on arrival day rather than dropping in daily.
Florianópolis: island apart-hotels by area
Canasvieiras and Ingleses have the highest concentration of apart-hotels on the island, driven by the Argentinian and Uruguayan summer market. Rates R$400-700 for a two-bed in January, cheaper than BC or Meia Praia for similar space. Kitchenettes are functional but often dated. Lagoa da Conceição has fewer apart-hotels but the ones that exist are more design-forward and pricier (R$550-950). Campeche has some good newer apart-hotels behind the dune, quieter than Canasvieiras and better for surfers who want to self-cater.
For a family stay, Canasvieiras works if you want walking-distance restaurants and Argentine steakhouses, Ingleses if you want the wider beach and better swimming, Campeche if you want surf and space. Supermarket options are strong in Canasvieiras (Angeloni, Big) and adequate in Ingleses (Rede Vivo, Fort). Campeche is smaller — plan a shopping run to the Rio Tavares BIG on the way in.
Praia do Rosa: pousadas with kitchen access
Rosa doesn’t have traditional apart-hotels, but many pousadas offer chalés or bangalôs with a proper kitchen — this is a different product from the beachfront apart-hotel, oriented at couples and small groups wanting a fuller cooking setup in a wooded, hillside setting. Rates R$650-1,400 a night for a chalé with kitchen. Kitchens vary widely: some have proper ovens, wine fridges and terrace grills; others have a basic two-burner and a coffee machine.
The Rosa self-catering scene works because the village has excellent small food producers: local cheese, artisan bread, fresh fish from the Ibiraquera lagoon, organic vegetables at the Wednesday feirinha. Budget R$180-280 for a couple's dinner-in of fresh grilled fish, salad and local wine, versus R$400-600 at the good Rosa restaurants. The infrastructure rewards effort — you assemble the meal from four different small suppliers, but the result is worth the drive around.
Blumenau and Pomerode for city-based kitchenettes
Away from the beaches, Blumenau has a handful of apart-hotels in the Centro and Velha districts oriented at business travellers and Oktoberfest visitors. Kitchenettes are functional, useful for a longer conference or event stay. Rates R$220-420 a night. Not really a leisure product — the point here is that a two-week Oktoberfest trip in October is much more comfortable in an apart-hotel than a room-only hotel, given the food excess of the festival.
Pomerode has a few pousadas with kitchen access, mostly aimed at cyclists doing the Vale Europeu bike route. Rates R$180-350. The regional food — smoked pork, homemade sauerkraut, farm cheese, colonial pastries from the Sunday feira — is worth cooking with. Combine an apart-hotel base in Blumenau with day trips into Pomerode's farms for the ingredients, and cook something that tastes like the region rather than eating restaurant Oktoberfest food every night.
How to pick the right kitchenette for your trip
Match the kitchenette to the trip length. For 3-4 nights, any basic kitchenette is fine — you’ll cook breakfast and coffee, snack lunches, one dinner. For 7-10 nights, insist on a proper fridge (at least 250 litres for a family), a real cooktop (not a single portable induction plate), and a freezer compartment. For 14+ nights, you want an oven or combination microwave and a dishwasher; without those, self-catering becomes a chore rather than a saving.
Ask three specific questions when booking: (1) size of the fridge in litres, (2) number and type of cooking burners, (3) whether basic cookware includes a knife that can actually cut. The last one sounds trivial but a family self-catering with a blunt bread knife for a week produces daily frustration. Some higher-end apart-hotels rent proper knife sets and equipment on request for R$40-80 a stay; this is worth paying for on longer visits.
Before you book
The questions people ask about Canasvieiras, answered with this month’s numbers.
Apart-hotels operate with a front desk, daily housekeeping, and hotel-style booking and payment. Vacation rentals (Airbnb, direct owner rental) are usually self-check-in, no housekeeping unless you pay extra, and require full payment up front. Apart-hotels cost 15-30% more than the equivalent vacation rental but include cleaning, offer better cancellation terms, and give you a reception to solve problems. For families, the apart-hotel is usually worth the premium.
Angeloni and BIG (Bompreço) are the main chains, well-stocked, with locations in Balneário Camboriú, Itapema, Florianópolis and Blumenau. For fresh fish, go to the local Mercado do Peixe — Bombinhas, Barra Sul in BC, and Ponta das Canas in Florianópolis have the best. Feiras (farmers markets) run weekly in most towns: Rosa on Wednesdays, Lagoa da Conceição on Saturdays, Bombinhas on Sundays.
Standard stocking includes 2-3 pots, a frying pan, basic cutlery for the room capacity, plates and bowls, a coffee maker (usually filtered), and a kettle. Missing from most: sharp knives, a proper chef's pan, spice rack, olive oil or basic pantry items. Bring a small kit for a longer stay — a folding knife, small salt and pepper, olive oil — or budget R$60-100 on arrival day to buy these at the supermarket.
