Resort Details
Customer Ratings & Reviews
TripAdvisor Traveler Rating
5614 reviews
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Mar 28, 2025Be careful with your money and keep an eye on it
Pleasant enough trip I love to fly with Air Transat. In all the complex is very good only had one bad experience where I locked myself out of my safe, the technician arrived and opened it I did not check it at the time and locked it, in the morning I found half of my money missing. It was the day before I left. I reported it with security they made it look like I was at fault probably losing it Etc I knew exactly how much money I had in there. They said they would get back to me it's been over 3 weeks I have not heard a thing.
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Mar 24, 2025
An unbiased perspective
For context, we flew here with Air Transat and stayed in an ocean front room. Overall I would recommend this resort with a few caveats to consider. 1- Resort is on a hill. Gardenview rooms are on top of hill and Oceanview are on the bottom of the hill. Most restaurants and pools are at the bottom of the hill as is the beach. Being in an ocean view room, you’ll avoid the hills for the most part (minus going to the lobby and some restaurants). It’s about 70 steps from bottom of the hill to the top. Might not be the best resort if you have mobility issues although the resort does its best to overcome them. 2- Language barrier. Staff speak mostly Spanish. Some have basic understanding of French and English. Most menus are translated in English. Si vous parlez seulement en Français, ça risque d’être compliqué. As a bonus, the timeshare people (yes they have some, dressed in kakis and white shirts) only speak Spanish and tend to leave us non Spanish people alone :). 3- Location. The resort is huge and at the base of the airport. If your are flying Sunwing or Transat, it takes less than 10 minutes from the hotel. You’ll have planes land over your head all day long. Luckily most are small aircraft’s. Sunwing and Transat only fly in a few time a week and you get the Sint Marten (Maho beach) vibe when they land. Otherwise, you are 2 hours drive from most excursions (like the Panama Canal). Small nearby village has a few restaurants, a convenience store and a gift shop. That’s about it. 4- Availability of entire resort activities. Resort was about 50% full when we were here (March 2025) and not all restaurants or pools were open. Some staff were aware others had no clue as to why. Some guest expressed disappointment to Transat representatives as they specially requested a room near some of the resort amenities which were closed. 5- Weekenders flock this place. Resort fills up over the weekend with locals. Expect delays at bars and restaurants. Most only stay the Friday night so Sunday seems quieter. Pros of resort. 1- Service. Overall really good. Very quick and attentive staff, minus language barrier. Reception can be slow at check-in but they pre-check you in upon arrival at airport. Bar staff very good. Will adjust alcohol amount based on your preference. They won’t just dump a bunch of booze and next to no mix. 2- Unlimited a la carte restaurant. Resort has 7 a la cartes. Reservations were easily obtained. Food was ok at some better at others. 3- Ample chairs around pools or beach. Same with beach parasols. Very few beach parasols around pools. 4- Water is drinkable. A nice luxury to have that most resorts in the Caribbean do not offer ( think Cuba or DR). 5- Lush greenery of site. Lots of trees and vegetation. 6- Most pools are open until 8pm. A bonus because most pools close at 6pm at other resorts. Cons of resorts 1- Resort showing its age. Rooms ok, everything works, and it’s clean. Can heard noise in adjoining rooms. That’s about it. Could use an upgrade. 2 - The birds. You read that right. Resort has birds everywhere including in the restaurant. Watch your plate. Birds also get crazy loud at dawn and dusk. If you are light sleeper, they will wake you up. 3- Beach sellers, they literally hang out at the resort. Some move around, others will stay there in front of you (near pool areas) for minutes on end. Generally move on when you say no. 4- No minibar or coffee maker in room. Not a big deal for me. But some Transat customers were livid about it. They will leave you a 1L bottle of water per day. Minibar with plus guest. Plus versus oceanfront. - A few perks with going with plus room, stocked minibar, private pools and 2 private restaurants. In speaking with plus guests, not worth the upgrade. - Real upgrade seems to be going from gardenview to oceanfront room. Tips - Go with Oceanfront but skip the plus. Try to get a room with an adjoining door. - Bring a thermos for your pool drinks (Iike a Yeti or Bubba). Paper cups ( served at bar) aren’t allowed in pool area. - Bring extra sunscreen and after sun cream. Sun is hotter than Dominican Republic, Cuba or Mexico. - Bring face clothes of that’s something you need. - Bring small USD bills if you want to tip for service. - Airport (Riu Hato) is very small with no services past security. Bring your food and drinks (security allows it). Also, no duty free so buy your duty free in Panama City or elsewhere. In conclusion, we enjoyed our time here. It compared to a solid 3.5 in the Dominican Republic or a 4 in Cuba (with better food in Panama). But having travelled to several other Caribbean destinations before, not sure I would come back to this resort. Panama is a great country worth exploring and would consider returning but would stay elsewhere.
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Mar 23, 20253 Days. NO Water in the Shower. NO one cares
Overall not a bad resort. We checked in Saturday and had NO water in our shower. Talked to front desk. Sunday. Still NO water in our shower. Talked to front desk 3 times. Monday still NO water in shower. Talked to front desk. By afternoon we finally had water in the shower. At the hotel they would do nothing to compensate us for this except late check out. What a joke! Sent complaint to The Head Office. They got back to us two weeks later saying they checked into it and front desk only had one complaint from us and the water fixed right away. WOW. So never staying at any of their properties again. Very disappointing.
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Mar 06, 2025Hotel,lost our luggage
The hotel lost our luggage. At the airport our luggage ( 2 suitcase) were mislabeled by the hotel employee. The tag was #1903 room . We went to the bath room when we got to the hotel. When the bellboy or the bus driver put our luggage back in the bus when I got back our luggage was not with the other luggage in the lobby 3 with all the other luggage. I went to see the bell boy to ask him if our luggage as in our room he said yes no problem. Our room wasn’t ready until 16h30. And they told us our room was 4903 but it wasn’t t ready yet so they gave us an other room witch was 4606. I said the bell boy told us our luggage was in room 4903. They called the room or someone and our luggage wasn’t there. I be waited probably a good 30-45 minutes while the people at the front desk were making phone calls to find our 2 pieces of luggage nothing was happening then. My wife had a panic attack not knowing were our luggage was. She decided to walk at the lobby 2 and 1 ( witch is about 750 m from lobby 3)to see if our luggage was there The hotel employee was no help what so ever I couldn’t understand what was going on . We didn’t have any clothes other than our jeans and sweat shirt since we flew from Canada. So the employees at lobby 3 didn’t t do anything for us but phone calls that didn’t t do any thing. My wife witch was pretty mad and disappointed saw a rep from Air Transat witch was leaving the lobby 1 after his shift was over. So he took care of our big problem. He managed to find our luggage witch was put back on the bus by the hotel employee and our luggage was on the bus 2 hours away from the hotel . We didn’t have no clothes , no toothbrush, or any hygiene product or sunscreen etc. Our luggage arrived at the hotel that night at around 21h00 we had to stay in our room waiting all that time. At that time the front desk called so we could get our luggage . We work very hard to go on vacation we trusted your hotel , at the airport we were told our luggage was going to be safe and not to worry. It is the worst service I got at the hotel and this first day almost ruined our vacation.
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Mar 05, 2025
Disappointing
The staff were amazing. This was our second trip to this same resort which is something that we never do. We had asked for the same room as we had last time but that didn't happen. We moved twice in the 11 days that we were there. We upgraded to the Plus which we really liked. The adult pool for Plus guests had a couple of times that it was abit much. With a group of women who obiviously drank from the time they arrived, the security tried to get them to leave. They were loud and very disrespectful. A couple of the young women were so drunk before 11 am that they were throwing up. They finally left only to come back a couple of hours later with a boombox playing as if they owned the place. The security was on it quickly but had to get reinforcements to get them out of there. The food wasn't as great as the last time. The rooms are dated and we had a dehumidfer in the room that we had to empty at least 4 times a day. It was very loud when running.