IBUKU hotel — Hotel in Antioquia

We booked a stay at Ibuku Hotel in El Penol, Colombia, to celebrate a birthday on July 13th, and it turned out to be a complete disaster from start to finish.

Upon arrival at noon, accessing the hotel was challenging, which was just the beginning of our troubles. We left our luggage with the staff and returned at 6pm, only to discover that cabana #3 was in deplorable condition. The room had numerous issues, including exposed electrical wires near the faucet, which raised safety concerns that were not adequately addressed by the staff.

The real nightmare began when we found out that there was no hot water in the room. Despite attempts by a staff member to fix it at 10pm, we were informed that nothing could be done until the following day. The solution offered was for me to use the restaurant's bathroom for a shower, which was highly inconvenient and unacceptable for a hotel that claims to offer a luxury experience.

The next day, the hot water issue persisted, and we were forced to leave the hotel at 10am without having showered. Adding to our disappointment, the hotel failed to disclose that it is situated on an animal farm. Throughout the night, roosters crowed incessantly, dogs barked, and ducks quacked, making sleep impossible. To make matters worse, loud Colombian music blared until 3am from other guests and residents on the farm.

In the morning, when we sought to discuss these problems with management, we were informed that the owner was on vacation and they could do nothing to assist us. After persistent efforts, the owner finally responded days later, offering a refund for the birthday package but refusing to take responsibility for the litany of issues we encountered. She defended the animal noises as part of the "nature experience" and falsely claimed that the water heater was fixed.

Her dismissive response was utterly unacceptable. As guests, we expect basic amenities like hot water and transparency about the environment we are staying in. Instead, the owner avoided accountability and fabricated excuses to deflect criticism.

In conclusion, I have never felt compelled to leave a negative review until now. Potential guests, beware: do not be fooled by the attractive photos online. Ibuku Hotel is a nightmare waiting to happen, exacerbated by an owner who refuses to acknowledge or address legitimate concerns. Avoid this place if you value your vacation and sanity.

I anticipate the owner's response will likely attempt to dismiss or distort the truth. Based on my experience, it's clear that the owner's disregard for guests and her unprofessional attitude were major factors in our disappointing stay.

If you come across a generic or defensive response from the owner, please take it with a grain of salt. Our encounter with the owner revealed a complete lack of concern for guest satisfaction and an unwillingness to take responsibility for the numerous issues we faced during our stay.

In conclusion, I urge potential guests to disregard any misleading claims or excuses from the owner. My review stands as a warning to others: Ibuku Hotel is not worth the trouble or expense, especially under the management of someone who cares so little about their...

I stayed here awhile back and was brought to the attention by a friend who was interested to learn about my stay because of wanting to visit. Rehashing the details with a few people, they urged me to share my experience here that may be similar to a few of the experiences left in the reviews: the room was beautiful and the accommodations were splendid. It was pretty cold during the nights even though we used the heater provided and noisy (construction, dogs and workers walking past, the walls of the room were thin so you could hear everything- contrary to the “nature” experience they claim in another review), but we enjoyed the stay none the less bc we enjoy the simplicity of a gorgeous stay. We were even gifted a bottle of wine by the staff for our stay which quickly became a nightmare. We had paid for our room fees and tipped the staff generously due to the excellent service we received at the time. But only after leaving the hotel did the owner basically try to extort us to pay extra fees for the wine- which to our understanding was a gift from the staff and himself, and the extra snacks- which we’ve sent over proof of paying through WhatsApp portal. He had left us a terrible review on the Airbnb app (despite how he gushed over us being great customers on our way out) and after appealing the comment to customer support and providing proof of our interaction, payments and supplementals the support staff sided with us and our proof and we were able to have the comments taken down. He claimed that we scammed him, but if we have screenshots of the payments and the amounts we tipping the servers, how would that be a scam? Putting together all that we had paid for our stay, we came out of pocket more than we should have. We didn’t even mind because of the relationship we thought we built with the staff, and it sucks bc we really...

ABSOLUTELY NOT COME HERE!!!

We experienced the following issues while staying at this nightmare stay.

-When booking the accommodation, there is told that you can make use of free paddle boards and kayaks. However these weren't even free. You still had to pay 'insurance'. -So many issues with the jacuzzi not heating. The personel not able to fix it. -Restaurant has terrible service and food is not good. To place the following in perspective, there was 1 other table sitting at the restaurant. After 20 minutes we eventually got the menu. After we ordered it took them almost 3 quarters of an hour to bring all the drinks, to the point we had to walk to the front to ask them to give it to us. The food took even way longer. After 2 hours from ordering the food arrived. Unfortunately half of it was cold and half of it was overcooked. Complaining felt pointless as communication was very hard, because of the language barrier. -The shower is ice cold. -Loads of spider webs and dead bugs in the room, the apartment was not clean when arriving. -cockroaches, mosquitos and many other bugs in the apartment, as the accommodation is open at the top. -the second night an enormous possum was in our house. It came in through the roof and wandered beside our beds. These kind of animals can under no circumstances be able to get into a room with guests. -our nights were terrible because of all the bugs and because of the huge possum.

We booked a 5 star accommodation to relax. This was completely not the case. This accommodation and service was not what to expect of a '5 star' hotel. We are very disappointed with the delivered service and the accommodation and exhausted of the bad nights.

The hotel offered a compensation which we accepted. However we are now threatened by the owner.

ABSOLUTELY NOT...