Galapagos Paradise — Hotel in Parroquia Puerto Ayora

We stayed as a group tour package. Wanted to stay at a hotel near the bay, but it was booked, so was not a choice based on ratings. There are much that can be done to improve the quality of the stay here. One of the room did not have a mirrow. None of the room has towel racks, nor even simple hooks for hanging your towels or clothes in the bathroom, a very simple and inexpensive addition, both inside and outside the bathroom. The restaurant was under a different management, so they did not cooperate with the tour schedule and hotel's direction, guess were told breakfast was served at 6 am to be ready for a 6:45 am trip, and food was not served until 6:45. Rarely is the kitchen opened on time. The food was usually good, typical Ecuadorian plates. But two people in the group suffered minor food poisoning and vomitted. There is lack of seating and table in the restaurant due to the large crowd at times. The restaurant staff was somewhat rude, they will not give seconds, even if you offered to pay for the food. Asked if we can have more rice or side dishes, they said, "no"... Coffee is not served with breakfast or other meals, but you can ask for it. Hotel staff is friendly, but they do not control the kitchen. Pool is shut down at 6 pm for safety of guess as the walk way is wet. Air conditioning is hard to understand and control, and the cleaning service will always set it to ice cold and you have to reset it when returning to the room. There is no safe in the room, nor at the front desk. They will guard valuables, but not sure where it is exactly. Location is not too bad, about 3 blocks from town, about 10 minute walk to the port/harbor. You can see plenty of wildlife at the dock at night, with stingrays, black tipped sharks, and sea lions. I took only one day to dive, with a set up called Nauti diving, on a sailboat Nautilus. We dove twice at Gordon rock, and saw all I could expected - school of large hammerheads swimming in circle, a group of about 8 turtles swimming together, few white tipped sharks, school of bottle nose type of rays, and two manta rays, many large dense schools of fish and barracudas. Amazing how many varieties are packed in a small volcanic crater! During the surface interval, we snorkel and swimmed with playful sea lion pups. They said a girl was attacked once by a territorial male sea lion, but all we saw were juveniles happily playing with us in the water. Well worth the $160 for the long full...

The hotel was very clean. Beds were made daily and there were no issues with any insects in the room. The pool water always looked a little foggy and didn't really make me want to swim in it, but my days were always so packed with activities and tours that I never had time to swim in it even if I had wanted to. Plus, it is a small pool and there were always kids playing in it taking up all the room. The staff was very nice, generous and understanding. They had our activities schedule written on a white board every day so we knew when to get ready and what to bring. They were always kind and helped clear up any questions I had about my planed tours. Also, although check-out is in the morning, they let me keep my room until I left to Isabela Island at 14:30. The rooms all have air conditioning, which made for a great escape from the humide and hot outdoors in the Galapagos. The Charles Darwin research station was a 15 minute walk away, and the port to the different islands was also a 20-25 minutes walk from the hotel. Near the port is also where downtown is, where you have access to many different little shops for clothes, souvenirs, restaurants (even though food is included at the hotel), etc. The food at the hotel was tradition Ecuadorean and was always very well prepared. The restaurant staff at the hotel was also always very polite and smiling. This is obviously not the same as a 5 star hotel, but all in all this was a very pleasant stay and I have no regrets here. The quality of the hotel was great and I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting this area. After all, you are visiting to see what the country has to offer, not the hotel! All I needed from the hotel was a safe place to stay, which is exactly what they...

I just stayed there with my husband and another friend last week. The hotel is about 10 years old but it's well-maintained. The rooms while basic are very clean, and have air conditioning units that work very well. The Wi-Fi is spotty at best. If you can, please request a second floor room, otherwise expect to be disturbed by people sitting on the patio till about 9 in the evening. The second-floor rooms each have a nice balcony, so you can enjoy the evening, while not disturbing others or being disturbed by others.The staff is extremely helpful, particularly Gonzelo. If your booking a vacation package, I don't recommend that you have all your meals included. The Restaurant Next door serves very basic bland food with little variety and charges $7 for each meal. You can get much better food for a few dollars more if you walk into town. My package included breakfast and it was the same thing every day for five days. Rather than working with hotel staff to book your daily excursions, I recommend the short walk down to Darwin Avenue where as you walk towards the pier you'll see many different travel agencies. They basically all book the same tours, but you can bargain with them if you combined tours. Be sure however to check out reviews of the different day excursions so you know exactly what to expect and what type of clothing and other equipment to...