Alfiz Hotel — Hotel in Cartagena

We absolutely loved our stay here, and we would go back as the experience was great. The location is great! The costumer service is fantastic, everyone was so nice and helpful. Always giving us great advise, and recommendations for places to visit, and things to eat. They were all super attentive, and they have 24/7 front desk support.

Location: The hotel is located inside the walled city, on the Centro Historico. Steps away from the Torre del Reloj. It's actually walking distance to everything, including Getsemani (at least it was for us, and we were there with my mother). You can find great restaurants, discos, icecream stores, shopping and pretty much anything around it. However, please be aware that with it's centric location you will also see and hear a lot of movement around it, so if you are a light sleeper, take notice. It did not affect us at all, as we are deep sleepers, so the centric location was great for us!

The reception: When you get to the hotel, they welcome you with a complimentary drink, which was very delicious. The place feels as if you had stepped through a time portal, and went back to the colonial times. So cool. They offer free coffee, books that you can borrow, and some binders with recommended tours and attractions. The front desk ladies that were in when we first got there, were supper attentive, and made the check-in process a super easy experience.

Room: We stayed in the room called La Republica, and it is a beautiful room. It has a balcony to the main street full of flowers, a living room, two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The bedroom on the main floor of the suite offers a little more privacy as it has a door, however, we believe this is the secondary room, as the bed is smaller than the king size bed that you can find on the second floor. The bathroom here is slightly bigger than the one found on the second floor, however, please keep in mind that they are on the smaller size. The AC can be set at a lower temperature here as well, as the room can be closed off and has it's own AC unit. To get to the second floor, you will need to use the spiral staircase. The bed on the second floor is huge, and you can find the hair dryer there as well. The bathroom is smaller than the one on the first floor. The AC for this room is shared with the rest of the unit, so it can get a little hotter than expected. It is still nowhere near as hot as it gets outside (yes, Cartagena is VERY hot). Note: Because there is a balcony to the main street, the suite can get loud at night, however it has extra wooden doors that you can close on top of the glass doors, and that will help with the noise.

Extras: The hotel offers free breakfast. We ate the breakfast at the hotel everyday, as the food was delicious. Things to know, the juice comes from very interesting fruits, my husband loved them, but I was not into them. They mostly change the juice per day. The bowls with fruits were very good, the fruit served is very fresh. There's a small pool on the second floor, same floor as the room we were staying in. It's very cute, but it is small. The water stays pretty warm as the weather in Cartagena is super hot. I loved it. There's a jacuzzi on the rooftop, you need to ask the front desk before using it, but it's beautiful up there. However, you do need to go up a more difficult spiral staircase than the one in the room. It was an adventure for me, but my husband and my mother did not find it difficult. The bedroom has a small fridge with water, beers, sodas and cold wine. These cost extra, but they are there in case you need it. We found the prices to be ok, but you can still find better prices on supermarkets or drugstores.

Overall, we loved the place, we loved the staff, and we would go back as it was an...

Either this hotel has an influencers bumping their property reviews higher, or it benefits from not having a true comparison to hotels in Cartagena even those that it neighbors. Having spent a few nights in CTG especially in the old city., here’s a brief rundown of my experiences with Hotel Alfiz||The good -|* prices are very low especially for the size of the rooms. Ours was a loft style 2 bedroom suite. |* good location - but CTG is like Venice, everything is close by for the most part. |* clean|* the wifi did not break down. ||The terrible -|* awful service quality and amenities in every conceivable aspect. Unfriendly staff that disappoint in the way they manage to be transactional than welcoming. (“Airline economy cabin crew” is what springs to mind)||* pedantic to the point of annoying checkin. They insist on you shoving off a Google form for checkin - mostly for marketing. While they take a scan of your passport. Imagine the other hotel checkins with welcome drinks and smiles while they do the typing for you. ||* no porter/help with luggage till make them - even from a cab or from reception to room or from checkout to taxi (especially if you don’t want to spring for their shuttle service)||* no proper espresso machine, a Holiday Inn express type coffee machine in the reception that you make yourself and then you take it up to the pool/outdoor areas/room yourself. ||* the pool itself is a slightly larger, slightly shallower bath tub with a pool deck for 2 people .. and then you squeeze by those unfortunate guests and try not to knock them back into the water. ||*real world amenities in the room are sorely lacking or maybe they are too first world problems - like a box of tissues or accessible phones to call the unhelpful staff (ours was a 2 storeyed loft with a phone all the way upstairs. || NO RESTAURANT.. which means that their breakfast was also brought in...

Alfiz Hotel is an exceptional small boutique hotel in an exceptional location. Easy to walk to all sites in the old city and Getsamani. In addition to location, the hotel is absolutely charming in the very thoughtful way that it has been restored. For example, each of the rooms is named and decorated to reflect the various historic eras of the area. The staff is extremely attentive, kind and thoughtful. An ironman event was held the weekend that I stayed and the roads in the area were blocked for the event. The staff helped me navigate the best spot to get to a taxi/uber to head to the airport with their own initiative. The breakfast selection was very nice and i greatly appreciated the fruit bowl and the different juice served each morning. It gave an opportunity to try something I otherwise may not. I had 3 mornings at the hotel and the selection the first morning was tree tomato juice, the second morning lulo juice and the third, orange juice. While there, one of the owners happened to be there too. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with her and her time to share their loving investment in the hotel from the name of the hotel to the design and architecture. I cant...