Coralina Island — Hotel in undefined

Major feedback items. From the moment we arrived, we noticed we were not receiving the service or positive attitude we expected by the online reviews. The "check in process" was extremely disorganized. We had to stay in the main hut with no information. The day trippers were all taken care of first and were clearly the priority. This was surprising since they paid much less than the guests (and we had the most expensive room). All we were told is check in is at 3. But we would have to check in way before that and won't be allowed in the room. Then a menu shows up to take our lunch order. 2.5 hours later, lunch was ready. (nobody told us lunch orders were taken that far in advance). When the staff, told us lunch was ready, all the great beach front tables were full and they sat us behind the bar near the kitchen with no view or breeze. We were told the table is very special. To us, it was surprising to pay $1000 USD for 2 nights and then be sat in a terrible location. After that, we quietly waited until 3 for our room to be ready, We saw it was ready but nobody came to tell us. I asked the main gentleman (English speaker) about it multiple times and he always had a poor attitude. At 3:00, we took it upon ourselves to get out own bag (so we could change into swim suits) and we sat on the chairs in front of the room but we did not go in. The main gentlemen seemed more interested in getting paid by the day guests than caring about us. At 4:15, we asked him again about the room. He snarked that he assumed we already went in. He then nicely described the room. We asked for a key to the door and never got one. After dinner on day 1, we arrived to the room and it was locked. Without a key, we could not get in. We had to walk into the kitchen to find a staff member who could help us. The room had significant issues and was in need of serious repair. There were large holes in the mosquito net (which was too small for the bed), there were cockroaches on multiple occasions, we always had to ask for towels (both blue beach ones and white ones), Food. I informed via email that my wife is vegetarian on two occasions and was told she would be taken care of. Unfortunately, that was completely false. She ate the same boiled vegetables for 5 meals (pasta or rice was the only variation). This was extremely disappointing. On one meal, she just had two orders of French fries. For me, a carnivore, I ordered all over the menu (chicken, steak, lobster), and found the flavors and sides to be repetitive. On the last day, during check out, again, nobody gave us information. Our bags almost did not make it on the boat, the main gentleman either ignored us or gave us a poor attitude, and the "going through receipts" process seemed ridiculous. I am not confident my bill was correct but I paid it anyway since we already got the sense we were not welcome. Mr. Pierre (I think the owner) and the main female leader both asked us what we thought about the food, and we mentioned the issues with my wife being a vegetarian and they shrugged their shoulders. We felt not welcome. Conveniently, our credit card # was stolen and was used for fraud at the exact time we were at this facility with no cell...

We stayed at Coralina Island for 1 night, and although the location is absolutely beautiful, we were highly disappointed by our stay at the hotel. 3 key reasons:

A. The pictures on the website and booking.com do not match reality (likewise for instagram). The place is in a terrible state, i.e. bathrooms are gruesome and do not look like the one that is shown on the photos (shower head hanging from the wall with wire rope, smelly toilet that doesn’t flush well, no hot water, mold on sink cabinet), furniture in the room is cheap, the mosquito net above the bed was dirty and way too small, and (ugly, plastic) sun beds outside are damp and some are broken. The hotel lacks acceptable changing rooms/sanitary provisions (which you need since their transfer takes you there at 8:30 AM while rooms are only available from 3:00 PM). The photos make it seem as if there is a large semi private massage area, but in reality this is a seating area and the massage area is tiny and right next to the dining area from where everyone can see you.

B. The hotel is not transparent about the additional the costs that you will incur. The transfer from and to Cartagena is 200.000 COP per person, but this is not clearly communicated beforehand. Also, there are no prices on the menu, and they don’t ask you to sign off on each order that you make. Therefore it remains a total mystery what you will pay at the end of your stay.

C. Value for money is the worst we have ever experienced. We were under the impression to go to a resort worth the 230 euros we paid for 1 night (ex. other costs). Key reasons for it not being worth the rate: Deplorable state of the property and lack of sufficient changing rooms/toilets The lack of hot water There were bats hanging from the ceiling of our room, which is just not acceptable for this rate The fact that our room was only available at 4:00 PM, which made that we were confined to our half broken sun beds for 6 hours with our luggage sitting next to us Staff was not always that nice, and passive and do not speak English Breakfast options are limited Not all food options (for lunch/dinner) were available The resort is very small. Due to the day trip visitors that come to Coralina during the day, it gets busy very quickly

Coralina Island needs a renovation, review of its rates and overall improvement of customer service.

UPDATE: Following the above review the resort’s owner called us to say he is sorry and that we are right to complain. He even offered us to refund our costs. It is 6 weeks later and we are sad to say that we never...

We were really disappointed! Very bad value for money. First, it is not normal to have to pay the boat transfer to arrive to the hotel, as it is located on an ISLAND. This was not well indicated when we booked our stay, as well as the fact that the transport only took place once a day from Cartagena, at 8am. We weren’t staying at Cartagena the night before, so it was impossible for us to take this boat, and we had to pay 120USD to have a private transfer to the hotel. Secondly, it is totally unacceptable that we had to pay for drinking water (6000 COP for 600ml, which is very expensive) on an island where tap water is not drinkable (and smelly, very disgusting). Everything was too expensive : from the 5$ coffee to all the meals. The plates were small and the food wasn’t good for the price. The menu was the same for lunch and dinner and there was no other place where we could eat. When we arrived, nobody explained us how the hotel worked. So the first morning, we chose 2 breakfast options (the breakfast was included) on the menu (which the waitress just wrote down as if it was totally normal). She brought them to us and just told us « tomorrow it’s only one ». At the end of the day, we had a bill of 60.000COP extra for the breakfast without anybody telling us they added it, luckily we checked the bills at the end of the day and made them remove it. There is clearly a big problem with the staff’s communication abilities, quite a few of our orders were also not taken down properly. They didn’t speak English at all, but even when we tried communicating in Spanish it was complicated to get what we wanted. In four days, we couldn’t figure out how the sun bed reservation system worked. The activities were too expensive. Fortunately we could use kayaks and paddle boards for free, as there is nothing else to do on this island then swim in the sea. The last evening it rained a lot. As the restaurant is unprotected from the rain, we had to eat dinner in the little lobby, almost sitting next to the other guests. The next morning, our stuff in our room was wet because the roof wasn’t waterproof. Also, the wifi was almost inexistant. To conclude, the hotel itself is very well located, with cristal clear water and good snorkeling, but the hotel is a total scam! I wouldn’t recommend this...