Hotel El Panamá — Hotel in Bella Vista

El Panama Hotel- Cockroaches and disappointment!!! Hotel is in MAJOR DISREPAIR! Spend the extra money and go elsewhere if you want a comfortable stay. Only stay here if you’re in a pinch and have no other choice.

The employees below really stood out for their unrelenting service and care during our stay: Taymara- Breakfast Buffet attendant, excellent person and really gave us wonderful service and attention. Frequently conversed with us and was such a lovely part of our morning. Jack – Valet, who genuinely cared about our experience and gave us recommendations. Remembered us, took an interest and asked how our days went anytime we saw him. Rachel - Manager on duty that helped us get settled in decent rooms. Christopher - Room attendant, who stopped in the middle of what he was doing to bring me towels that our room attendant forgot to provide, at 10:30pm at night.

We chose to stay here since my family stayed here back in 2000. We were familiar with the location and had a wonderful time. I remember the hotel as a very beautiful and luxurious property. We were visiting Panama on a family vacation and chose the property due to its proximity to major city attractions and the price was reasonable. Now I regret staying here.

First red flag was when the hotel changed my room category 1 week before arrival. I reserved premium City View rooms and the hotel changed them to Cabana rooms. I had called weeks before the stay to ensure our rooms were adequate and CLEAN, the staff assured me that all was squared away. My family arrived at 11pm and their first impression upon check in was abysmal. When they checked in, their rooms were cabana’s, which were okay, except the bathroom doors where completely see through and open at the top. Meaning no privacy at all. NOT ideal when family members are sharing a room. The front desk agent on duty did their best to help us, and changed our rooms 5 times before my family gave up, as it was already 3am and chose to sleep in grimy rooms with their travel clothes on. The following day, Rachel, the Manager on Duty helped us get settled in rooms that were in better condition.

After staying at this hotel for a week, here’s what we found….

• Cockroaches and disappointment!!! We spotted roaches frequently in our room and throughout our stay. • Hotel is in MAJOR DISREPAIR and is evident many common areas. Entire hotel needs a revamp. Shame since it has the potential to be a very beautiful property offering a unique combination of space for a resort style stay and conventions. • Service is not consistent. Unfortunately, most other employees really didn’t engage or even bother to say good morning/good afternoon when they passed us by. This applies to valets, room attendants, restaurant workers. Front desk agents usually were engaging and greeted clients. • No towels - Room attendants kept forgetting to give us towels the last 2 days of our stay. • The breakfast was adequate but don’t have high expectations. Could do with more variety. • The redeeming factor was the few hotel employees that stood out for their kindness and care during our stay, mentioned above. • My impression, the hotel workers/management are doing their best with what they have and owners refuse to address the serious issue of the putrid disrepair of the resort, which in turn is hurting the team morale. It is apparent in the service. • Looks like the hotel's focus is catering to large groups/conventions and that’s what’s keeping them afloat. They don’t generally care about individual families...

My stay at this hotel has been a disaster from I woke up the next morning after checking in that evening. When daylight was up I saw how old the room was and how bad of a condition it was in…walls, air conditioning vents and windows were dirty especially the ac vent. This room I booked is supposed to be a wheelchair accessible room but the bathroom is only accessible to the point we’re only your wheelchair can fit in it that’s all no other features. also can someone tell me why would they put the phone up on the wall by the tv away from near the bed away from the nightstand in a wheelchair accessible room in order for me to call them I have to make my way in the wheelchair if I’m in bed to go to the phone that I can hardly reach due to it being up a bit high on the wall by the tv. when I first came in the room it was so cold tried to fix the temperature but come to find out I’m unable to be because the monitor was broken and it took them like three days to fix it you can literally smell the musky smell in the rooms I had to got out and buy a diffuser for the room, there was no mirror in the room the bedside lamp was twisted and deformed and not plugged in and the socket for the lamp is hardly visible and when I first came to the hotel I paid in full for three separate rooms for me and my family all due to the lies “misleading misinformation” they have up on the hotel website and third party websites prompted me to book said hotel I will never ever ever come back here even if it was an all expense paid trip I will have to decline honestly I have been keeping my anger at bay for all the nonsense that is going on here at this hotel they should be ashamed to allow guest to enter the rooms as they had allowed me to enter it was like a slap in the face with an uppercut of disgust and disrespect I had ask to speak to someone of authority to voice my complaints and concerns in person but a week and few day later I still haven’t seen them and they have the audacity to say this is a five star hotel at the entrance and other parts of the hotel smh tonight before I decided to write this review I got a notification from my bank after 1:00 am stating that a purchase was made from this hotel to book a room I already paid for… caused me had to get up out of bed and go down to the lobby at that hour to try figure out what the hell is going on as I got down there there was only one lady a the desk and I told her I would like to know why I had just received a text from my bank at this time of the morning stating that a payment was made from my account at this hotel she tried to get me some garbage information which didn’t make any sense next thing she saying that she had canceled the payment so I asked her why was the cash taken from my account in the first place and she couldn’t even give me a sensible answer so I just left and said I will speak to someone else in the morning this hotel is horrible and Expedia need to have this hotel removed from it catalog with all of this false information says there is a wheelchair accessible pool guess what there is no from accessibility to get into the pool not even steps they say the rooms are sound proof lies every time someone passes the door I hear them loud a clear there are so many false information that the hotel has up and the breakfast buffet is garbage. now I came to the realization that this hotel was probably a good hotel back then like years ago but now is completely garbage they need to shutdown and renovate this old hotel smh have me upset...

Well, my stay was not pleasant at all…. As I shared with the hotel staff and the managers, I faced several issues during my stay, which I was not expecting to have to deal with. I have to be honest and say it was probably one of the worst hotel experiences I’ve had…

The second day I was there the lock on my door did not work. I could not leave my room for about 2 hours until a technician worked on it. Then he had to come back the next day to continue working on the metal plate because the bottom lock was not adjusting correctly.

I had no hot water in my room first room for 3 days. I alerted the technician (after multiple attempts of reaching the reception with no one answering the phones,) and they came up and worked on my room for about 2 1/2 hours. The water issue was NOT resolved.

The last night of my stay I was offered a different room, and was assured there would be hot water. When I arrive to the room and attempted to shower in the evening, there was NO hot water again.

The multiple times I attempted to call down to the reception area, the front reception employees, or the operator, do not answer the phone, or I would receive a recorded message saying the line was busy. I must’ve called 7-8 times during my stay, and 95% of the time, no one would answer, or the line was busy. this is absolutely unheard of at a hotel to have no front staff assisting guests!!

Housekeeping at the hotel was quite good. Furthermore, room service staff were great and the food was good.

When I was in the room on the second floor, it was a very large room, but the items were very very old and not functioning properly. When I was moved to the room on the eighth floor, that room was smaller, yet much more updated and appropriate- although still no hot water. So total of 4 days with NO HOT WATER…

The breakfast buffet was absolutely great- wonderful selections to choose from, but understaffed as tables were dirty and I had to hunt down napkins on multiple occasions from the servers station.

So those are my thoughts regarding my stay, as you can see, it was NOT a pleasant stay at all. I travel quite often, but this experience has been pretty terrible to be honest.

I would like to give a very excellent review to one of of the staff members in the reception area, her name is PAMELA. She was able to assist me on multiple days with a couple of these issues. She was very receptive and listened to my concerns. She was also the only one who seemed to be answering the phones when other representatives would not…. I hope your management realizes what a gem she is.!

On the last day management did try to somewhat compensate me for the issues I faced. However, the experience was not pleasant, and I would not stay at this hotel again. It is unfortunate because the location is great and the hotel has great potential to be great again (it was 30-40...