ANANDÁ HOTEL BOUTIQUE — Hotel in Cartagena

DO NOT STAY HERE ! Save yourself the frustration, time , and rudeness. Attention Diego M general manager I hope this review finds you . I would love to give your hotel a higher rating. If it wasn’t for such rude front desk staff, I would give your Hotel four out of five however We had such horrible experience checking in and it was all due to Jorge the front desk attendant and self proclaimed manager . So you get only 1 star. Jorge was so rude and not accommodating that it Made the entire stay a huge regret . I will explain the situation, we (my dad mom , gf and myself ) are visiting Cartagena for Easter , we are US citizens, we have lived in United States for over 35 years. We also happen to have dual citizenship in Columbia. Upon checking in Jorge explained that we would have to be charged as Colombian residents which means an additional tax would be added to the bill. We explained to him. We are not residents of Colombia, We live in the United States and we provided him our American passports and more to make our case. he was persistent in saying there’s nothing he could do and we will have to be charged extra tax. This is not true , he could’ve take used OUR US passports but he chose to be unhelpful and rude during the whole exchange. Additionally, We were traveling with my girlfriend who is a US born citizen. We requested/ stated she would be paying the bill and reservation to be under her name. Jorge refused to put the reservation under her name and he professed hotel /he could not waive the Colombian resident tax because there’s four of us and we have two rooms so it can’t be one reservation .. huh that doesn’t make sense at all ..right ? . We said if she is paying with her credit card for both rooms and she is a US resident and citizen , we don’t understand the complication with our request and why he can’t help. Jorge why did you choose to not accommodate us ? What do you have against colombian ex-patriots ??? Jorge got his general manager on the phone, and we asked to speak to Diego the GM but Jorge ignored us and finished the call with out Putting us in touch with GM. At this point we already felt like we were treated rudely and didn’t even want to stay in the hotel but had little options sitting at check in with our bags. We told Jorge. if the hotel cannot honor and recognize that the tariff should not be charged because we have a US citizen who will be paying the bill then we will search for another hotel. Jorge essentially said, good luck, and did not waver whatsoever. We find this to be horrible customer service, he was rude throughout the whole process, and he said he is the top authority on the matter . He then called his boss, and while he was on the phone with his boss, we asked to speak to him, he ignored us, and did not give us the opportunity to speak to a Diego the GM. Upon reading past google reviews, we find that Jorge was rude to other customers as well to no surprise, please check the google reviews for months back from this review from somebody else that had a bad experience and names Jorge as the antagonist. We will never stay in this hotel again and it is because of Jorge. We will let everyone we know about a bad experience, and we will be posting reviews on every forum possible from Yelp to Google to Tripadvisor. . Solution, we stayed one night and checked into the hotel two blocks down.. and guess what , they didn’t charge the Colombian resident tax as we are not Colombian residents. Further more the one night we did stay , we could hear the entire hotel walls are so poorly insulated you could hear people talking . The tub had a leak from Bottom and flooded bathroom , thank god I didn’t trip and break my neck . Again Save yourself from rude staff and pick...

The hotel advertises as a high end hotel and the rates are commensurate to that. As a person who has traveled to over 100 countries around the world and a lifetime titanium member with Marriott and the same level with the ACCOR hotel, I have been staying in hotels for at least 100+ days a year for 26 years. ||This was one of the poorest experiences. I always say - while the location and the amenities matter in a hotel, what matters most is the attitude of service and that was something that this hotel lacked completely. ||Located in the heart of the old city - a total tourist center. Spanish is the local language and given the stature of the hotel, one would assume at least basic knowledge of English given the tourist clientele. Even if that were not the case, one would assume an attitude of service.||Right from check in that we had to wait for over 30mts, to one of the most pathetic excuses for breakfast, there was not a single attempt to work with the guests. Even if you speak Spanish, the staff in the small dingy eating place/restaurant could not care. Even a simple tray of basic fruits were missing. ||Construction and repair late at night.. can you believe that :) It was not an emergency or urgent issue at all. Loud banging for over 45 minutes late at night. (High class hotel??)||When you ask for local simple tourist guidance/directions, there is no one who can help even with the basics. More importantly, no one who wanted to. We had them arrange “premium” hotel service for one of our tourist visits. They charge a premium, but we got a lousy ‘uber’ that was so loud due to the lack of maintenance that we were not sure if it would work. And of course the person who was supposed to be a guide did absolutely nothing to help. ||The swimming pool is small and not maintained well - There was a lot of dead leaves all over. ||What surprised me the most is the attitude and the sheer lack of interest in guests. Even a simple basic hotel would provide a whole lot more. ||As a true road warrior and veteran of hotels over decades, I have seen my share of good and bad. This would certainly be towards the bottom for the level at which it tries to...

Title NO HOT water and horrible front desk staff . Abominable experience checking in.

Recently had the wonderful opportunity to visit Colombia with my boyfriend and his family . I’ve had an incredible trip so far up up until the arrival at the Ananda hotel. Upon check in , The front desk manager Jorge was so rude to my boyfriends mother and myself , I absolutely couldn’t believe it. I don’t post reviews very often, but the experience was so horrible that I feel the need to warn other travelers and save them from booking this hotel. The hotel front desk manager if you can even call him that understands and speaks perfect English but when I asked to speak to his manager Diego that he was on the phone with he completely ignored me and ended his call abruptly with him. We ended up turning a thee night reservation into one night and booked a hotel few blocks away. Thank god because when I took a shower this morning, I come to find that not only is the hotel staff extremely rude, but the hotel does not have any hot water. No hot water in the bathtub and no hot water in the shower. Last night the only night that we stayed here my boyfriend attempted to take a bath and out from underneath the bath water was pouring out and essentially flooded the entire bathroom floor. and he couldn’t even take his bath because the water was cold this morning when I showered, I couldn’t even stay in the water for more than four minutes because it’s not lukewarm it’s not kind of cold. It was very cold. Almost as cold as Jorge’s heart was when we were checking in. Upon reading reviews on Google I found that Jorge has been a problem for other guests as well. The only positive experience we’ve had so far at this hotel was the breakfast service and food was good. But the bathroom experience was quite horrendous and as I previously mentioned, the check in procedure was extremely dissatisfied. As I mentioned above, I am not the reviewer, but I feel it is my duty to contribute to the community and help the hotel owners, as well as other future potential guests know about the shortcomings of this...