Bambuda Santa Catalina — Hotel in Hicaco

Let's start with the good. The location of the resort is beautiful. If you have an ocean view room on either of the upper 2 stories the sunsets are amazing! The beach is lava rock, and the sun setting next to the island offshore makes the light play on the tide pools. The grounds are very nice, with a good pool, rolling grass areas, and a number of spots to sit. The rooms are new, the AC is powerful, and the showers have great pressure. There is no refrigerator in the rooms. There are no elevators, so if you have heavy bags, be prepared to schlep a bit. There was no baggage handler that we encountered.||The resort is at the edge of town, and the walk to outside restaurants is long. There is no shuttle service with the hotel, taxis are rare. If you're there for diving, plan on some long walks with your gear.||Next door is a surf hostel. Be prepared for their guests to come over and clog the pool and bar area.||The brochure suggests you can SUP or ride horses at the hotel. There is no sandy beach there, you'd need to go elsewhere for that.||They push the breakfast add-on. It offers a small discount over ordering from the restaurant, but if you miss 1 meal in 5, the benefit evaporates. Every other place we stayed in Panama included the breakfast.||Now the could-be-better. The customer facing staff could be better trained. The desk manager told us 2 things that weren't true at checkin. First that we'd be able to have the kitchen keep a few things cold for us, and second that coffee drinks were included in the breakfast price. Neither of those turned out to be right. The kitchen was slow and disorganized. Several mornings we showed up at open (6:30) to get food before the long walk into town for diving. We were seated and order taken promptly, but the food took 30 minutes to show up. The dinner on the last night was pure chaos. We shared a table with 3 girls from Germany, and when the waiter came to take their order, he had to be prompted to take our order as well, even though we'd been seated before them. Our food came out 10 minutes later, but theirs took an hour. It did taste good when it arrived. There was no rhyme or reason to who was served and when. The bar seemed overstaffed, but only two junior members (a young girl from Germany, and a tall fellow with dreads) seemed to be doing anything. Finally, the bar had been running a tab for us, but eventually we were told that it couldn't be settled with the rest of our bill, we had to do that separately, despite being asked for our room number and name. Weird. One of the advertised "drink specials" was unavailable for our stay, I think because they ran out of cachaca, and didn't restock.||Would we stay there again? Probably, the property is stunning, but we'd be better prepared for the oddities, and maybe bring a cooler. I hope they can iron out the issues with...

Let's start with the good. The location of the resort is beautiful. If you have an ocean view room on either of the upper 2 stories the sunsets are amazing! The beach is lava rock, and the sun setting next to the island offshore makes the light play on the tide pools. The grounds are very nice, with a good pool, rolling grass areas, and a number of spots to sit. The rooms are new, the AC is powerful, and the showers have great pressure. There is no refrigerator in the rooms. There are no elevators, so if you have heavy bags, be prepared to schlep a bit. There was no baggage handler that we encountered.||The resort is at the edge of town, and the walk to outside restaurants is long. There is no shuttle service with the hotel, taxis are rare. If you're there for diving, plan on some long walks with your gear.||Next door is a surf hostel. Be prepared for their guests to come over and clog the pool and bar area.||The brochure suggests you can SUP or ride horses at the hotel. There is no sandy beach there, you'd need to go elsewhere for that.||They push the breakfast add-on. It offers a small discount over ordering from the restaurant, but if you miss 1 meal in 5, the benefit evaporates. Every other place we stayed in Panama included the breakfast.||Now the could-be-better. The customer facing staff could be better trained. The desk manager told us 2 things that weren't true at checkin. First that we'd be able to have the kitchen keep a few things cold for us, and second that coffee drinks were included in the breakfast price. Neither of those turned out to be right. The kitchen was slow and disorganized. Several mornings we showed up at open (6:30) to get food before the long walk into town for diving. We were seated and order taken promptly, but the food took 30 minutes to show up. The dinner on the last night was pure chaos. We shared a table with 3 girls from Germany, and when the waiter came to take their order, he had to be prompted to take our order as well, even though we'd been seated before them. Our food came out 10 minutes later, but theirs took an hour. It did taste good when it arrived. There was no rhyme or reason to who was served and when. The bar seemed overstaffed, but only two junior members (a young girl from Germany, and a tall fellow with dreads) seemed to be doing anything. Finally, the bar had been running a tab for us, but eventually we were told that it couldn't be settled with the rest of our bill, we had to do that separately, despite being asked for our room number and name. Weird. One of the advertised "drink specials" was unavailable for our stay, I think because they ran out of cachaca, and didn't restock.||Would we stay there again? Probably, the property is stunning, but we'd be better prepared for the oddities, and maybe bring a cooler. I hope they can iron out the issues with...

DO NOT BOOK THIS HOTEL. I am hoping my review can help others not have the terrible experience we had and book somewhere else instead to avoid potential risks to their safety. Customer service is absolutely appalling and I would say non-existent.

To summarise our experience: Contact details for the property listed on the third party website given were incorrect. No response to message centre on third party booking site. No response to my email. When getting contact details from their website and calling reception they refused to answer the phone and only respond via text on WhatsApp because “it’s complicated” to speak on the phone. No email, WhatsApp message or message on booking site regarding check in information, getting to the property before arrival. Unable to book a transfer from Panama City to the hotel. Finally at 3.21pm the day before check in with several hours between WhatsApp message responses with no solution or options provided we were told the reason a transfer could not be booked was due to “threats of road closures from local people” and recommended us to get a public bus. We then researched online further information and found this was due to protests. If no driver would want to be on the road, how would a public bus get through potentially leave us stranded on the 6 hour journey with protests happening and putting customers safety at risk. It is a hotels duty of care to provide clear communication and information regarding this. No reply on WhatsApp or email, offer for any compensation following this event.

I had read a few bad reviews about customer service with food and staff on other google reviews for this hotel, but in all my travels have never experienced anything so bad and putting customers safety at risk and not providing them with information regarding safe travel to their hotel. The lack of communication was absolutely appalling.

If you want a stress free and enjoyable holiday I would suggest booking somewhere else. I really hope this review helps others not make the bad choice we made by booking this hotel, them taking our money with no refund for a service they didn’t provide and just completely ignoring the situation. It is a...