Isla Roots — Hotel in Isla Tintipán

High hopes turned into deep frustration. Best way to start is “Service? What is that?” Upon check in, the only person that works the counter was rude. The woman was bothered by the fact we wanted to check in. She insisted that my friend’s group staying there as well had not finished paying their stay meanwhile they had records and receipts from their bank and the hostel itself confirming they paid everything and were booked. Afterwards, they said they had paid but only paid for 5 people not 6, and were trying to get them to pay for another person. For my partner and I’d room, we booked a private room for two people with AC (mind you, the AC was an extra charge). The hostel’s AC system did not work. The lady from before said that it would be fixed that day. She then told us it was not going to be fixed at all. Our door did not close or lock. Our lock became a conch shell we had to place behind the door to hold it closed, or else it would swing open. There was a safe, but the staff didn’t know the code to open it so there was really no place to store any valuables.

We tried to make the best of it and get a drink from their “bar.” My friend and I went to order drinks and asked for mojitos (based off their cocktail list). The first “bartender” asked me what’s a mojito and how does he make it. We then asked for a daiquiri. He said he knew what a daiquiri was, but made margaritas? (This conversation was happening in Spanish. I’m Colombian.) The second bartender was better but there for only 5 minutes every hour. For dinner, we were excited thinking we would get seafood like they advertise, meanwhile, they tell us all they had available was chicken, ham and cheese sandwich or a hamburger. We came here for seafood, and other guests were pescatarian and vegetarian having no option for what to eat except two slices of bread with a piece of cheese on it. Okay, now it’s shower time. They don’t provide water to drink or towels for free. If you were thirsty, good luck finding a staff member to be able to pay to get the water. I was willing to pay for a towel, but there was never anyone attending the desk where you can buy a towel so we had to shower and wait to air dry. Our group had decided we needed to leave the next morning. We called the boat company that brought us to the hostel, and they said the boat back to the mainland is at 11am from the island nearby where we had been dropped off the day prior. We asked to be on the first boat out at 10:15am., because the only other boat was leaving at 11:30am. They said they weren’t doing the 10:15am boat today (the boat was there and the boat driver was there sitting doing nothing). We desperately told them we needed to be at the island nearby by 11 to make the boat. The rude lady insisted that no, we can leave at 11:30. I called the Tranq It Easy company again to confirm that their boat would leave at 11, and they said to be sure to be there before then. I showed the rude lady the proof message, and she shrugged and went off saying to stop asking and it’s fine. She then said we need to pay for our consumables which was fair, but then she grouped our expenses with another room who was checking out’s expenses “to make it easier for her if we pay together.” We had very different consumption from this other room, and WE WERE ON SEPARATE RESERVATIONS. They overcharged us for what they offered and charged us for drinks and food we did not get.

We paid just so we could leave, and we thought that was over with. We went to get on the boat to the island to get back home, and then another guy came out saying, we didn’t pay. We went back to the rude lady, and she was like yeah we don’t have proof you paid, WHEN WE JUST PAID HER IN FRONT OF HER EYES. We needed to email her a bank confirmation to “prove we paid.” They held us there saying we could not leave and they would not take us to the island over. We LITERALLY HAD TO GET TRANQ IT EASY TO CHARTER A PRIVATE BOAT BECAUSE THEY REFUSED TO LET US LEAVE.

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Amazing place, HORRIBLE experience. Since arriving in Isla Roots, it was immediately clear that something was wrong. There were barely any staff, it almost felt abandoned. The reason for that was clear soon after that; the "lady" that manages the place is one of the worst hostel administrators I have ever met and I've been working tourism in Colombia for 12 years! Leading a tour group, we arrived to find that the room for my clients was in complete disarray. We ordered lunch and went to the bar to wait for the room to get fixed up and we ended up waiting over 3 hours for a very basic lunch. After returning to the room (well after sunset), we were met with a room in the same condition as before. Seeing us heading back, the woman jumped up and said that she was just about to fix up the room... While we were sitting at the bar, a couple of guests had rented out some kayaks to enjoy the beautiful mangrove islands surrounding the hostel. The enjoyment was short lived since the kayaks started taking on water and quickly went underwater. The water had gotten into the hull of the kayak making it too heavy to float. The boys struggled against the current for a while until they finally made it back to where we were and finally received some much needed help. The list of cocktails at the bar was limited to Piña Coladas, which isn't the worst in the world, but even those ran out pretty quickly. Dinner was very much like lunch...3 and a half hours late. Other guests signed up to do the "plankton tour" offered by Isla Roots and they were guided by the woman's 6 year old daughter...needless to say, it wasn't a very complete experience. The state of the hostel itself is pretty poor; the floors are falling apart, the dock isn't doing so well and the thin catwalk to get to the bar has handrails that have been broken and fallen in the mangrove who knows how long ago. We went to a different island to have a proper meal on the second day and it was the best part of our time there. We eventually returned to Isla Roots, signed up for dinner and went about our evening. Dinner time came across and we were given a tiny piece of chicken and 5 plantain chips TO SHARE. After complaining, she ordered the BARTENDER to come in and cook us a pasta and meat dinner which got the job done...but it wasn't very good. On top of everything, another couple came back from a day on the islands and realized that their belongings had been rummaged. They were missing their airpods, a wallet and all of their cash. They were staying in a private room. It goes without saying that the woman refused to accept responsibility and said that she couldn't go through the footage from the security cameras without a police warrant (not true). They offered to pay for the food and drink they had but did not want to pay for the accomodations...the lady said that she would be filing a police report against them. All in all, it was one of the most stressful and frustrating experiences I've had in over a decade of working in tourism. I do NOT recommend anyone to go to Isla Roots...

Starting with the pros, the best part about Isla Roots is it’s location. The hostel is situated on its own island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea and it is beautiful, one of the best hostels in terms of location that we have stayed in. The dock is good for sunbathing, swimming and relaxing. The dormitory was basic yet had everything we needed; lots of space, nice beds, cool and breezy. The hostel also offers lots of activities including seeing the bioluminescent plankton, snorkelling trips, beach trips and lots of water sports. Despite this, the negatives seriously outweigh these positives and we won’t be visiting again. ||||However, the toilets are so dark that you cannot see anything and have no locks for privacy. There is no place to secure your belongings as majority of the lockers are broken. The ‘showers’ consist of a tiny dribble which is barely usable so we just accepted form the get go that we would not be able to shower for the duration of our time there. I ended up washing my hair in the sink as it proved slightly more achievable than using the shower. One of the worst parts of our stay was the food situation. We dreaded mealtimes for a number of reasons. The waiting time for eggs in toast on the morning was atleast an hour and the bread wasn’t even toasted. The chef was useless, she struggled with even the simplest of tasks. Lunch/dinner is exactly the same everyday so you would expect it to be fast and simple but a lack of common sense made the whole thing very stressful to witness. If you are vegetarian you will only eat rice for the entire time. Flies are EVERYWHERE as they don’t clean the tables/surfaces after mealtimes. Prices are extortionate for the quality/quantity of food you get (obviously because you have no other choice).For a hostel with so much potential, they really let themselves down with these things that could easily be improved! ||||And the worst part of our stay was my sister was sexually assaulted by one of the staff. The staff slept in the same room as us which is red flags from the get go. The first morning he woke everyone up playing a loud movie at the crack of dawn. He lingered in the room hoping to watch us change and tried to hit on a number of female guests while we were there. He approached my sister two night in a row trying to kiss her then on the third night he climbed into her bed in the middle of the night and forcing himself on her. She had to physically push him off her. We reported it first thing but it wasn’t handled well. All that happened was the owner told him to apologise and then he simply went back to the work at the bar afterwards. We decided to leave immediately rather than stay another night as we didn’t feel comfortable being on the island whilst he was...