Hotel be La Sierra — Hotel in Santa Marta

The rooms don't look anything like the photos, which is to be expected, but this place carries this to the extreme. Upon checking in, the imbecile at the counter kept asking me about my address in Colombia. I kept telling him that I'm a gringo, but he kept insisting that I give him an address in Colombia. After getting through that by telling him my address was the hotel, he finally gave up. At that point, I expected to pay for the reservation, but he told me that payment is made at checkout. This is a red flag because it gives the staff free reign on playing money games. When we saw our room, it was a shock because the room was very spartan, nothing at all like the photos. Plus, we had opted for a bigger room, but clearly this one was nothing out of the ordinary, especially for the price: nearly 100 bucks a night! At that point we wanted to leave, but I foolishly paid for a non-refundable reservation to save a few bucks. Very bad move. We then discovered the room safe was busted, so we had to carry around all our cash; others reviewers reported they had money stolen from their rooms so we didn't want to chance it. The food in the restaurant wasn't good either. We ordered a fish plate and the fish was raw in the middle. We sent it back to get it properly cooked and it came back less raw. Perhaps the fish was really old and wouldn't cook properly. When it came time to leave the dump, my feelings about paying at checkout came to pass. They charged us a much higher rate, saying that we paid for restaurant meals inclusive even though they told me point blank that meals were included in the rate when we checked in. Plus they charged us for the higher refundable rate. After going around and around with the incompetent idiots behind the counter, I asked to speak with the manager. She couldn't have cared less and was a real AH about the whole thing. So, the rotten attitude of the staff clearly come right from the top. The worst part is we ended up paying for the higher refundable rate, and had I known this, we would've jettisoned out this flophouse after the...

This hotel is showing its age, it still looks like the 1980's. Even the key is one of those real keys they give out one per room with a big plastic tag on it. However, for the money it is still a good value. It has the best location on Rodadero beach, right in front and in the middle of everything. The elevator has been upgraded and worked well (though there is only one). ||||We had a family room on the 10th floor (though only 2 of us) for the beach front balcony and a bit of extra room. The beds were comfortable enough but could be better. The staff was friendly and helpful. My wife loved that there was plenty of hot water in the shower, something rare for this area.||||The breakfast was simple with scrambled eggs, pancakes, rice and breads. They put onion in the eggs so I only had coffee. I believe they would make you fried eggs if you asked. We ate at the restaurant a couple times for lunch and dinner and it wasn't bad. ||||The absolute worst thing about this hotel is the WiFi connection. It requires you to log in for every session (even when you phone just sleeps). This also means no chrome cast device on the TV. This was extremely annoying as WiFi is used all the time...

I stayed here for work and I thought the place was really nice. The guy that made my check-in helped me upgrade my room to one with a beach view, not charging anything additional because it wasn't a high season. The room was very nice, though the bathroom was extremely tiny. It had a mini-bar with beer which was perfect since an alcohol prohibition was in place due to elections. Rodadero beach is only crossing the street, so you can enjoy the beach view and the sunset from the balcony of the room. The surroundings have music all the time, great restaurants, all kinds of street food and there's joy all the time. I felt a little disappointed with the hotel not having a pool. Once I checked-out I needed to go to work so the hotel kept my suitcase as long as I needed it, great...