Nayara Bocas del Toro — Hotel in Bocas del Toro

Nayara Bocas del Toro was an unbelievable experience from start to finish. We were looking for an all-inclusive, adults only, tropical resort to celebrate our 10 year anniversary and Nayara was a perfect match. The staff is VERY friendly and attentive to the guest's needs and wishes. The Guest Experience team will help coordinate any logistics of your stay to make it as enjoyable as possible. The waiters and bartenders get to know your tastes and try to provide food and drinks proactively.||The resort has very clean, private villas that overlook the water. Every villa has a pool, both the standard and deluxe options, that provides a great spot for relaxation while taking in the beautiful scenery. There are also treehouses as an option that provide a different experience with the terrace views.||The food is really good, but the dinners take the cake. The chef makes a custom menu every night and it highlights all kinds of cuisine, but our favorites were when they chose local Panamanian/Bocas styles of dishes. They are also very accommodating to any dietary needs/restrictions. The chef modified some of the dishes so that I was able to enjoy them without sacrificing the quality in any way. We want to give a special shout out to Gilberto for making our dining/drinking experience above and beyond. His charming personality and attentiveness to our wishes was beyond anything we've ever experienced. We also did a private, romantic dinner one night and Gilberto made everything magical as our private waiter. Lastly, he overheard us talking about a specific table we were hoping to get on our last night at dinner, and he just put a "reserved" sign on it to ensure we got it.||There is no lack of things to do, especially if you like to go exploring. If staying on property is what you like, Nayara provides kayaks and paddleboards to explore around the island. There are daily resort activities available, and some of them are small kayak excursions to close islands to see different animals or nature. All of the excursions are reasonably priced have their own highlights. For our stay, we did the Zapatillas tour, Bat Cave tour and a 1/2 day private boat tour. Shout out to our boat captain, Esteban! We were lucky to get him on the first day for our Zapatillas tour and we then requested him for the remainder of our tours. He was so knowledgeable about the the area, passionate about the nature and wildlife, and took us to so many hidden spots. He even jumped in and snorkeled with us to show us his favorites spots!||Tours reviews:|Zapatillas - a MUST SEE if you do any excursion. We started the morning off with spotting dolphins that swam right by the boat. Next, we snorkeled on a thriving reef with tons of fish species. I was even surprised by 2 remora that almost ran right into me! We then took a walking tour of Cayo Zapatilla and it was beautiful. We walked through the jungle for a while before walking along the beach. Water is crystal clear and teeming with life. We then made a quick stop at Coral Cay to snorkel some more where the reef was vibrantly colored and had tons of fish as well. Next we circled around Isla Bastimento looking for sloths and monkeys. Esteban made sure we found them! At one point, we had a sloth hanging about 5-6 feet over our heads just smiling at us :D Lastly, we did a stop by Hollywood island (named because of all the STARfish) before heading back to the resort. Would give this 6 stars!||Bat Cave tour:|Better if done on a sunny day, but we still had an amazing time even though it was lightly raining. This tour takes you up a stream on Isla Bastimento where you can see all sorts of wildlife. When you arrive at the tour origin point for the cave, you are provided water shoes and a hard hat with a lamp to start your ~20 minute journey to the cave. Our guide was just walking barefoot the entire time and shared all sorts of anecdotes about his life growing up in the area and pointing out the wildlife we could see with the weather conditions. At the cave entrance, there are 1000s of bats! If bats are not your thing, then this is not the tour for you, but otherwise it is a marvel to see several species of bats just crowding together in the cave. You walk through the cave in water that can get up to just below your shoulders for those who are shorter (my wife is 5'1" and that's as far up as the water came on her) and explore the cave. At the end of the cave, you'll arrive at a small pool that's about 10-12' deep where you can jump in from the rocks if you so choose. Then you go back the way you came to get back to the boat to go see other points of interest/wildlife around the islands and do some more snorkeling if you choose.||Private boat tour:|This will vary based on the captain you get, however we were lucky to get Esteban again. We told him we had our snorkel gear and to tell us what we needed to see. He took us to several snorkeling spots, Red Frog Beach, starfish beach and showed us tons of wildlife. The part of this tour that was so special to us was that Esteban shared part of his life outside of captaining boats and the culture of the area. He took us up the the best driveway you'll ever see and showed us where he is building his house on his family's lands. We passed so many animals in the mangroves leading up to the farm and then we saw all sorts of farm animals on his family farm. We were a little too early in the afternoon to see the tropical birds and monkeys that came out, but we could hear them in the trees. Overall, these private tours will be customized by your captain, but we felt spoiled on ours.||Recommendations for improvement:|The resort provides each room with a tablet where you can communicate with the Guest Experience team without leaving your room. This can be anything from booking tours, spa services, general questions or ordering room service. The only issues we experienced was when the resort was full or everyone was focused on dinner service at the Elephant house (setup and clean up included), the room service was very slow. For a resort that truly does its best and succeeds at catering to the guest's every need, this is truly the only place for real improvement.||Again, we want to thank everyone at Nayara Bocas del Toro for making our anniversary trip so memorable. We hope to be back...

My husband and I visited Nayara Bocas Del Toro last week. It’s a beautiful resort, but our experience was not seamless.

The Good: The food is excellent. The staff is friendly and warm. The views from the villas are beautiful.

The Bad: Poor attention to detail: They entered my passport number incorrectly, and I had to correct it twice. When the resort updated our departing domestic Panamanian flight to the mainland, they forgot to adjust our ground transportation to the international airport accordingly. Unreliable activity bookings: We booked a fishing charter in advance and confirmed it the night before, but it never arrived, leaving us waiting at the dock for an hour. Room cleanliness issues: Our villa’s shower had hair from a previous guest, which remained throughout our stay despite daily tidying.

Overall:

Nayara Bocas Del Toro offers beautiful surroundings and friendly staff, but the quality and reliability of service fell short. If you’re accustomed to the seamless service of a Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons, you will not find that level here. This resort is not ideal if you want to rely on the staff to manage your details; you will need to double and triple-check your itinerary and confirmations. Unfortunately, it did not match the great experience we previously had at Nayara Springs in Costa Rica.

Expanded Details:

Flight and Transportation Coordination: Nayara handled our round-trip domestic flights between Panama City and Bocas and arranged ground transportation. During the booking process, they initially entered my passport number incorrectly. After I pointed it out, they corrected it and sent me a revised version to confirm. However, when they finalized the booking, the passport number was wrong again. After I flagged it once more, they corrected it, but it required repeated follow-up on my part. Later, when we had to adjust our domestic flight home to avoid overlap with our international flight, Nayara updated the flight but forgot to adjust our ground transport. We arrived at the domestic airport with no car waiting. I called the resort and explained the situation and they transferred me to the car service directly to arrange the transport. Usually this would be something that the resort would handle given that they originally arranged all transport. This oversight created unnecessary stress on our travel day.

Unreliable Activity Bookings: We booked activities, including spa services and a fishing charter, before arrival. Due to weather, the fishing charter was rescheduled to later in the week. The night before, the front desk confirmed our 5 AM pickup and arranged food for the trip. The next morning, we arrived at the dock on time, and a staff member delivered our food cooler—but the fishing charter never arrived. We waited for an hour, and despite trying to find help at the front desk, no staff was present. Later, a kind staff member tried to make up for the situation by taking us out on a Nayara transport boat with a few fishing rods, but we did not have the proper equipment to fish effectively. Since the fishing charter was meant to be a highlight of our trip, this was a significant disappointment.

Room Cleanliness: While the staff tidied our villa daily, the shower was not thoroughly cleaned. Hair from a previous guest remained in the shower throughout our stay, even after I washed my hair there. We are accustomed to daily cleaning beyond basic tidying, so this fell below expectations.

If you plan to visit Nayara Bocas Del Toro, be prepared to enjoy the beautiful surroundings and warm staff, but ensure you closely monitor your bookings, travel arrangements, and itinerary confirmations to avoid...

Here’s the low down:||The Good|Peaceful, luxurious, excellent service, quiet. About 20 rooms, total, on the whole resort. The food is really high quality. They go above and beyond. We did a fishing excursion and it the main restaurant cooked it for dinner for us. They even deliver the fine dining food to your room if you want! ||We constantly ordered room service. In a week we ate at the main restaurant, Elephant House, once and the Coral Cafe two times. Everything else was delivered to our room. Pro tip: Schedule room service delivery for breakfast the night before. It arrived about 15 minutes within the window. Lunch and late afternoon room service took 1-2 hours to arrive, so plan ahead!||The water around the resort was beautifully calm sometimes. Like picture perfect gorgeous. ||While this is in the Caribbean, it is not your typical Caribbean experience. Think dark blues (almost black) and greens instead of turquoise water. Think many green mangroves and jungles surrounding the edges of all the shores. Yes, there are some beaches (need to get there by boat), but mostly shorelines of green. Also, clouds and nearly daily rain at some point.||By far, hands down, best excursion is the bioluminescence. Apparently it only runs 5-10 days a month, around the new moon. We chose to go snorkeling in the water as well. Two types of glowing things: bacteria (“sparks”) that are activated with light and plankton that are activated by agitation. The captain would shine the light to activate the sparks, and we would snorkel about and create the plankton glitter. Gotta do it. ||Pro-tip: All of the boat captains are trained guides. Hire for a half day, get in the boat, and let the day unfold. They took us on all kinds of surprises. ||Our favorite beach was Zapatillas. Beautiful and great snorkeling.||We also saw sloths, heard howler monkeys, saw the dolphins, and 4 different types of very colorful frogs throughout the week. ||We also did the VIP transfer from Panama City. A little expensive, but the smoothest thing ever. On the way in, a gentleman met us right at our gate, took us out the back way, found our luggage, and took us to the municipal airport customs. We were the only ones there. So smooth. ||The Medium|The food arrival is slow. It is, I think, by design. It required that we think well in advance before we were hungry. As soon as you figure it out, it’s fine. Dinner is 2-3 hours and starts at 7 pm.||The villas are not sound proof. You can hear sounds outside your room. One night we heard raging music at 1:30 am. But we also enjoyed the rolling thunderstorms and pattering of rain. ||Jelly fish are everywhere. We have traveled all over the world and haven’t seen that many jelly fish. Over the week, we saw hundreds around the resort as we paddle boarded and snorkeled. (There are even the HUGE ones if you paddle out toward the island. 2-3 feet hood and 9 feet of tentacles). On the one hand, they were beautiful. On the other, we had to seriously watch ourselves when snorkeling. It’s a mine field. No jumping off the villa porch before a jelly check. ||The gym is small. Like any more than 2 people and it gets crowded.||The Bad|Bugs. Lots of bug bites. ||I could see where the weather could be a bummer, depending on the time of year. Lots of clouds and rain at certain seasons.|||Overall, we absolutely loved our stay and would recommend it for others wanting a unique, luxurious experience in...