Best Things Nearby:
This resort is in comfortable walking distance to the open-air markets, churches, parks, and actually everything you can imagine! A short taxi ride takes you to the central city core, where even more activity takes place.
Best Things About the Resort:
The absolute best part of our stay at this resort was our contact with the staff, primarily the dining room and bar staff. They are absolutely the friendliest, smiliest people you can imagine. The food (all-inclusive for a very reasonable price) was excellent, rooms were clean, grounds were immaculate and very brightly and well-landscaped.
Resort Experience:
This resort is probably about the biggest in Antigua. The rooms were quite adequate--the bedroom was fairly large. The furnishings were clean and in good repair, even though they weren't spectacular. The kitchen appliances and facilities were actually quite good--we really could have cooked in our suite if we hadn't already decided to go all-inclusive. A large bottle of drinking water was on the kitchen counter, which impressed us all--there wasn't even any charge for the bottled water! Our suite was in a corner on the bottom floor. A lovely tiled walkway/patio all around the bottom floor area (very large) and between the various buildings was kept spotless--I was always walking in my bare feet with no problem. Just off this area was a central courtyard--very nicely landscaped with fountains, benches, and lots of flowering shrubs, flowers, and trees, making it an ideal place to sit and read a book or have our morning coffee in privacy. The entire grounds were extemely well-kept, and the pool was large and clean.
The only problem was - there was no open poolside buffet - although we didn't realize this until day 2. It seems this resort is well used by the native Guatemaleans and they would come for the weekend - so, on the weekends the buffet was on - the rest of the time there was no poolside service at all!!
The food in the restauant was great - mainly buffet style, but some days was menu only. Nothing seemed to be "not included". Food was top notch - a dessert buffet to die for! The dining staff were the friendliest we've ever come across and very eager to please. (They even insisted we try to learn some Spanish and tried their best to teach us a few sentences).
The bar staff also was very friendly - WHEN the bar was open! This was the most frustrating thing with the resort - the fact that what appeared to be there (ie, the poolside service) really wasn't available! Our first night we enjoyed playing billiards in the bar - then, the bar was not open most other nights. We finally complained very loudly and they actually sent someone in to open it for a couple of hours so we could play billiards. Since there was no live entertainment, the streets were really not safe for walking at night, and the weather too cool to spend time at the pool in the evenings, we really had absolutely nothing to do in the evenings with the bar not open. That makes for a very boring vacation.
This resort really seems to cater to those who live in Guatemala and not to the tourists from other countries. It was advertised as a 4 or 5 star resort I believe however, with facilities closed 5 days out of 7, I would not classify it as such.
- Unit Type: 1 Bedroom
- Activities: Poor
- Amenities: Poor
- Unit Satisfaction: Very Good
- Family Friendliness: Good
- Service: Excellent