Hotel Caribe By Faranda Grand, a member of Radisson Individuals — Hotel in Cartagena

I had already been here with my wife and we'd had a nice experience. So we decided to come with out parents; however, we had to go through a series of awful experiences.

We booked 3 rooms since March (our visit was in June) and we had confirmed them, we even had confirmation numbers. As we arrived I double-checked this information with the person at the counter and he said there would be no problem.

Nevertheless, on the second day when we asked to have our room cleaned, Damián who was at the counter told us we were supposed to be leaving, that I had no booking, I showed him on my phone the confirmation numbers that I had as well as the emails I had exchanged with someone from the hotel, yet he insisted I had no reservation without offering any kind of assistance or solution, he simply said "you have to send an email to __" and just told me the e-mail quickly without spelling it or anything like that. Anyway, after a while he finally called to confirm and there seemed to be a communication error between the hotel, an agency or I don't know whom; however, his attitude and lack of willingness to help made us waste one hour and ten minutes of our time, which was supposed to be for us to relax. As I told him, I had no need to make up a reservation I had, especially after booking 3 different rooms.

That wasn't all, probably due to his unwillingness to do his job well, Damián may not have updated the information properly, so that day in the afternoon as my wife and I had been getting ready to go out another family opened our room!! They were given the exact same room where we had just gotten dressed and that I had supposedly confirmed once again. This was totally unacceptable, how can this happen in a hotel that is claimed to be a 5-star hotel? We could have been naked when this other family opened our room!

That same day we had everything, including 3 women who were staying next to us and making too much noise until midnight, they were laughing and speaking loudly. When we called to complain, they seemed to know it was a room with 3 women and they said they'd go or they'd call them, but that didn't happen. The next day before 6 am we had the same experience with them. After talking to someone else, I learned they seemed to know the ladies, so I got the impression that it's not the first time they stay there or do that, so it makes me think that if you stay there regularly, you can do as you please, even if it implies bothering other people. This time we got a room change to a much better one for the last night.

This experience was so bad that I will definitely look for better options next time I'm in Cartagena, the area is full of nice hotels to stay. I booked 3 rooms here and not in a hostel or an apartment precisely hoping to get friendly service and to relax...

I stayed here recently, and I love the facility so much. The landscape is absolutely stunning and if you are going through the reviews because you are debating staying here or not, definitely do it. The pool is amazing, they also have a “hot tub” but it’s actually not hot, it’s the same temperature as the pool which is perfect given Cartagena’s hot climate. I also loved the wildlife there, and it was overall an amazing visit. Rooms were a good size as well, with a good view, and the breakfast buffet had a lot of variety (it has fresh fruit juice, pastries, cereals, soup, arepas, omelette, pancakes, etc) and we had a great time. The reason I didn’t give the hotel 5/5 is because of a couple minor things. For one, we had to change rooms because the AC didn’t work completely in the first room, but if you’re okay sleeping in 75° F, you’ll be fine. After we switched rooms the AC worked good. Another thing I noticed is that all the macaws and toucans which lived there had their wings clipped, which I thought was sad because if they wanted to fly from one tree to another, they have to uncomfortably walk, but other than that they seemed happy. Something else which may be an issue for other guests is that nobody speaks english except for the front desk which was fine for me because I know a passable amount of Spanish, but if you don’t, I suggest you have google translate ready. Sadly, we couldn’t enjoy the sauna and turkish bath because it was under renovations and the massage were around $80 USD so we didn’t get those. However, we’re okay with not having those amenities because the pool and scenery made up for it. Definitely book here, as it is very accessible to other areas and walkable to restaurants. The maids also came and cleaned our rooms daily and are very thoughtful. If you were wondering, the wildlife includes deer, macaws, toucans, and peacocks. Apparently there were sloths too but we didn’t get to see any. There were no mosquitoes or bugs whatsoever and everything was cleanly. The staff are all super nice as well and my family and I had a...

Just awful. First of all the breakfast is terrible and not worth paying for - go to a cafe in the old town or a restaurant nearby. All they have are some soggy scrambled eggs, some sausages and fruit. Probably the worst breakfast I've seen anywhere and as a Travel Writer I travel pretty much constantly.

They were always out of juice or cups or there were empty trays. Really poor selection and badly organised, even if the hotel is busy. They only have American filter coffee for breakfast and you have to flag down one of the waitresses to ask for it as they don't come and take your order then they act like being asked anything is a big deal. The breakfast room isn't really big enough for the amount of rooms/guests.

WORST of all, on my final night I had to get up at 6 am to go to the airport. At 11.30, a group of loud people in the next room were shouting, yelling and blasting out music. I called the reception who told me they would call security. This was clearly a group of people having a party in the room and unaware of any concept of volume control.

When the noise got louder and louder, I called the front desk again 30 minutes later and the receptionist said he would send security. Security were never sent and I didn't want to call the front desk a THIRD time as they were not helpful and acted like it was annoying for someone to call with a noise complaint. By this time it was already well past 12.30.

It is beyond a joke that groups of people can be so loud, shouting and blasting out music in a hotel at that time of night and the hotel cannot be bothered to do anything. I had an extremely long day of travel the next day, needing to catch two flights and have long transfers between them. I am absolutely furious that I had a sleepless night and the hotel could not be bothered to go and ask the people to be quiet. Appalling.

Finally, room service trays were just left outside of rooms for hours on end, sometimes over 24 hours in 30+ degree heat. Various staff members would just walk past them repeatedly and nobody bothered...