Hotel Fontamar — Hotel in Barranquilla

With limited allowable text, this is an incredibly shortened version. I would recommend reading the full review I’ve written at tripadvisor. ||We stayed here during Carnaval for 3 days & it was definitely not worth the price they charge for the room (~$200/triple/night during Carnaval). I would say this hostel was just about the same, if not worse, than hostels i've stayed at for 1/6th the price. ||||What I would recommend if you're traveling to Baranquilla during Carnaval & are worried about booking an available hostal, I'd say it's worth jotting down a list of hostals & just come here, pay the taxi fare to cruise around to the hostals in better areas of town or ones with better reviews & avoid this one.||||Cons:||1. This hostal is in a not so great part of town. I didn't feel safe walking around in the evenings (& we were advised by taxi drivers not to).||2. When we asked about hot water, they insisted that the plumber was coming to fix it rather than inform us that there is no hot water in the first place & being honest, they just continued lying to us.||3. It appears they had stuck us into a room that they often don't use (maybe overbooking in light of Carnaval). We didn't get a minifridge as all the rooms are said to have, the bathroom toilet was leaking water onto the floor & the shower was also leaking water into the bathroom floor. The staff were condescending in addressing this & it was a fight to get extra towels to put on the bathroom floor. Unsanitary.||4. Minor issue with the television location & low hanging metal frame. I hit my head a number of times before we shoved a pillow on/into it so that we'd only hit cushion.||5. Although they are kind enough to include breakfast in the cost, don't be fooled when they say it goes until 9:30am. They start putting the food away around 9a. ||6. When asking for assistance in booking a puerto a puerto to Parque Tayrona, the front desk staff at first insisted that the bus lines were closed that day & likely closed the next day & kept trying to sell us on taking their "carro particular" which cost about 3x more. She was then weird about giving me the contact number for the puerto-a-puerto company & I noticed the number she used to call them was different than the one she gave me. Shady.||7. When we were asking to request to speak to the manager, the manager was "too busy" for us. He/she didn't have the courtesy to at least step out and apologize for not...

We booked this hotel as as were late planning accommodation for Barranquilla carnival. Most of the good hotels are booked up by Xmas so were left with limited choice i.e Hotel Fontamar.||Firstly, the hotel is in a pretty seedy part of the city, so if you do stay here, I advise to get taxis.||Secondly, the rooms! Pretty dark and dingy, wardrobes dirty, poor shower, wifi that didn't work, view of a washing line, and ac unit that pumped out hot air rather than cold air.||Breakfast was included in the price - below average. Definitely could do better!||On the plus side the staff were friendly and helpful throughout the entire stay. ||We stayed here purely because it was carnival but I am afraid I wouldn't be recommending this to...

This hotel had above and beyond service, every staff member was extremely friendly and helpful. The rooms were clean. The air conditioning was lovely. My one problem was that they accept credit cards to place a reservation online and then don't accept credit cards to actually pay for your stay unless you want to be charged a hefty fee. The little restaurant is awful though, the service is good but the food is bad so...