Sea San Blas | San Blas Tours — Attraction in Calidonia

San Blas Nightmare I’ve been to 77 countries, countless paradise beaches, islands, and accommodations. I’m the classic backpacker type, used to cheap hostels and rough conditions, often staying in $5 rooms. San Blas was one of the biggest disappointments of all my travels, combining the standards of the worst places I’ve stayed with the highest price tag I’ve ever paid.

Less than a year ago, my wife and I spent 9 days in the Maldives, which are very comparable to San Blas in terms of natural beauty—pristine beaches, turquoise waters, and the quintessential paradise island setting (San Blas is beautiful!). However, for food, activities, accommodations, and more, we spent less money per night in the Maldives and received an infinitely higher standard of service in return. The service, hospitality, facilities, food, boats, and overall experience in San Blas were shockingly bad in comparison, especially given the cost.

The Guna people have complete control over tourism in San Blas due to their semi-autonomous status. While this helps preserve their traditions and independence, it has also resulted in a monopoly that discourages competition and improvement. Many visitors may hesitate to provide honest feedback, fearing it could come across as culturally insensitive, falling into the trap of what some call the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” However, constructive criticism could help the Guna not only improve their services but also enhance their own living standards.

Having visited the Maldives less than a year earlier, the contrast is stark, and unfortunately, the Guna people can’t blame anyone but themselves for the state of their services. They’ve been charging premium prices for years—my wife’s father visited San Blas in 1991, and it was expensive even then. Yet they haven’t invested in basic improvements, such as toilet seats, functioning lights in cabins or replacing the broken oars for the stand-up paddleboards, rendering them useless.

It’s also disheartening to see many beaches littered with garbage, ruining the pristine environment. The Guna people, living and working next to trash on their “front lawn”, seem indifferent. This lack of reinvestment in infrastructure and environmental care suggests that the Guna prioritize short-term financial gains over long-term sustainability.

The islands themselves are undeniably beautiful and have the potential to be a true paradise. With proper allocation of income, investment in facilities, hospitality training, and environmental care, San Blas has the potential to rival the world’s most picture perfect islands. Unfortunately, the Guna people are letting this slip away. With the current state of San Blas, I cannot recommend it to anyone. There are far better, cheaper, and more hospitable places to visit—even within Panama, such as...

We did a 2 night tour in April 2023. Format is collect at 5:20am, arrive around 9:30am then you have all of the first day on the same island - this is a very long day, if you want to relax all day it is great, but we would have preferred to have left around 8-9am given there was nothing scheduled for the day. The second day we left for other islands at 9:30am and returned about 15:30, and then on final day leave at 9:30am to go to other islands (mostly ones we went to the day before) then head back to Panama City around 3pm. I think a single day would be a huge amount of travelling, and 3 or more nights would be quite repetitive, so I'd say 1 or 2 nights would be a good choice as most of the activities are going to very similar islands (albeit all stunning Caribbean islands) to do the same things - swim, play volleyball, drink beer and lie on the beach. There isn't much snorkelling, and the sites whilst nice enough are not anything like places such as Caye Caulker. You might want to take videos and reading material, as you have a lot of free time. There is a bit of phone signal (no wifi), but never very strong and sometimes no signal at all.

Good points - Price is good, organisation was good albeit not much information was communicated (eg, what the itinerary of the day was, what things there are to do at each location, etc) but just relax and things work out. Boats were all in good condition, crews were friendly and competent and cars to and from Panama City were excellent (many reviews said the road was terrible and the boat trip out to the islands is very rough - this was not our experience at all, both were fine). Room was as expected - a basic bed in a beach hut. Note that ants are an issue everywhere and will be crawling over the bed, we got bitten quite a bit by them so try to keep room free of any food, crumbs, etc.

Bad points - Although it is said there are vegetarian options, in practice this just means you are served whatever others are having just without the fish/meat and with more of the side dishes. This meant our main meals included potato with side salad, rice with side salad and plantain with side salad. If you are vegetarian or vegan, bring some of your own food. No other food was available on our island to buy, just drinks, and mostly only snacks on islands we visited. The food for those who eat fish and meat looked good, so I'd say only an issue for vegans and vegetarians. Toilets and sinks were in very poor condition, with toilets not flushing (a barrel of water with scoops is provided for manual flushing, but the barrel was empty most of the time) and the single sink on the island was blocked for half of the time...

I personally had an absolutely horrible experience. Overall, I felt my safety nor comfort were considered and Kevin, the tour guide, truly had a negative impact on this experience. I would like to note that I was already aware of the bumpy car ride, which imo, was not too bad. However, what I did not expect, was the boat ride. Also, adding the weather was not ideal however that was not the problem. It was the lack of logical and critical thinking that made this experience much worse that it should have. The tour guide(Kevin)/boat driver lacked professionalism, very rude, uncaring, and had absolutely no regard for the guests’ safety. We were going at ultra high speeds and in result caused the ride to be extremely uncomfortable. More than the usual bumpiness that would expected. It was raining pretty heavily(which is not the problem) but they did not action appropriately. They were speeding which caused the boat to continuously crash against the waves and had passengers yelping out in pain throughout the course of the ride. We also were completely drenched as a result (our bags, entire body, etc.) and they only covered themselves and first two rows of the boat with the tarp; leaving the rest of us passengers to fend for ourselves. Other boats that arrived at the port (around the same time as we did) were not soaked like we were so I can’t stress enough to please train Kevin and the boat driver on how to appropriately handle rainy days and how to logically/critically think when interacting with guest. This truly ruined my San Blas experience and the only excursion that failed their expectations. Additionally, the islands could use better upkeep (imo) but overall were decent. The island staff could have been friendlier so it def feels like they are mostly in it for the money (which I know is a duh) but I don’t know maybe hide it better lol? The drivers def were the highlight. They absolutely tried their best to make the ride as smooth as they could and I truly appreciated that. They took us to a very busy gas station not a grocery store so I recommend grabbing things before hand. All in all, I hope my experience is a one-off and the company really puts some protocols in place to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Safety is the most important thing and I truly don’t understand why our boat was the only one...