Crowne Plaza Panama Airport by IHG — Hotel in Tocumen

I was surprised to see this quality in a Crowne Plaza hotel. There was nothing totally terrible, but I would definitely not stay here again.The detailed version:Airport shuttle: If you are an airport hotel advertising a free hotel shuttle, I think you should assume a good proportion of people staying there expect it to be easy to get to and from the airport. However it is near impossible to get information about it until you are at the hotel. I emailed twice the week before arriving (no reply) and called them over ten times over two different days to try get information (no answer). Finally the day of flying someone answers and just says that you go outside of the terminal and a shuttle will be there. There are no signs, no timetable, nothing. I called again once we actually got to Panama and was told it comes at 25 past the hour from door 17. I was lucky that my partner saw it by chance on the other side of the street at door 14. At the hotel, there is a printed timetable. Why not put this on the website or share it in the confirmation message?? Or at least tell people when they call? Once there, it was no problem taking it back to the airport, there's a timetable by reception. It runs around once every hour.Gym: was very good for a hotel, not amazing but it was clean and with a varied selection of machines, mats, medicine balls, resistance bands and weights. I was impressed.Breakfast: nothing to write home about but a lot of variety: scrambled eggs, cereals, sausages, cheeses, rice, empanadas, breads etc. But a lot of stuff was missing signs. The 'corn empanadas' were full of beef, which seems misleading.Restaurant: didn't use it because the selection is very limited if you're a vegetarian (I think there was one vegetarian dish). It also seemed quite expensive, I guess that's normal for a restaurant hotel, but the quality didn't look to match.Room: large and spacious with a comfortable bed, coffee machine and TV. But there was a very weird smell, it was damp and the Aircon looked like it was from the 70s (and sounded that way too).Bathroom: again OK. The shampoos/conditioners etc seem to be the wrong size for the set brackets on the wall, which makes them very uncomfortable to use, as you can only press down around .5 cm.We didn't use the pool so can't comment. As I said nothing really terrible but a frustrating experience and a surprise this is within the Crowne Plaza brand. I will personally...

I was surprised to see this quality in a Crowne Plaza hotel. There was nothing totally terrible, but I would definitely not stay here again.

The detailed version:

Airport shuttle: If you are an airport hotel advertising a free hotel shuttle, I think you should assume a good proportion of people staying there expect it to be easy to get to and from the airport. However it is near impossible to get information about it until you are at the hotel. I emailed twice the week before arriving (no reply) and called them over ten times over two different days to try get information (no answer). Finally the day of flying someone answers and just says that you go outside of the terminal and it'll be there. There are no signs, no timetable, nothing. I called again once we actually got to Panama and was told it comes at 25 past the hour from door 17. I was lucky that my partner saw it by chance on the other side of the street at door 14. At the hotel, there is a printed timetable. Why not put this on the website or share it in the confirmation message?? Or at least tell people when they call? Once there, it was no problem taking it back to the airport.

Gym: was very good for a hotel, not amazing but it was clean and with a varied selection of machines, mats, medicine balls, resistance bands and weights. I was impressed.

Breakfast: nothing to write home about but a lot of variety: scrambled eggs, cereals, sausages, cheeses, rice, empanadas, breads etc. But a lot of stuff was missing signs. The 'corn empanadas' were full of beef, which seems misleading.

Restaurant: didn't use it because the selection is very limited if you're a vegetarian (I think there was one vegetarian dish). It also seemed quite expensive, I guess that's normal for a restaurant hotel, but the quality didn't look to match.

Room: large and spacious with a comfortable bed, coffee machine and TV. But there was a very weird smell, it was damp and the Aircon looked like it was from the 70s (and sounded that way too).

Bathroom: again OK. The shampoos/conditioners etc seem to be the wrong size for the set brackets on the wall, which makes them very uncomfortable to use, as you can only press down around .5 cm.

We didn't use the pool so can't comment. As I said nothing really terrible but a frustrating experience and a surprise this is within the Crowne Plaza brand. I will personally...

For a business trip I stayed in the hotel for 3 weeks with 6 other colleagues. Overall I was disappointed as this hotel does not live up to the Crowne Plaza name at all. The staff does not offer you hospitality, they barely tolerate you. I do not speak Spanish, but one of my colleagues translated words I kept picking up by them as commands move on quickly. Every time housekeeping passed for cleaning the room, the bed was made differently as thought as there was no protocol. One day I requested an additional towel and next day found the entire room had all it’s towels removed as thought I had to bring the extra towel back before I was allowed to dry myself again. All of my colleagues were asked to open a different credit amount varying between USD 300 and 1.500 as maximum, none were asked how much they wanted to open as credit. When on a business trip you charge your room for invoicing purposes, yet each time you would ask to charge the room they would click their tongue, first call the lobby, and then permit you to charge your own credit line. On exit, one of my colleagues was charged twice, once the company paid and once he paid personally using his own visa card. Thank god we noticed in time and got the money paid back to his personal card. One of my colleagues asked for the cleaning service in the hotel itself, after asking every day for more than 4 days for his laundry to return to him, the staff asked him if he promised to pay for it on leaving the hotel… they kept his clothes hostage. Fyi none of us fell short of bills, all of us paid in full. The room itself could not open or tilt any window and the internal ventilation was poor of quality causing a constant moldy smell in the room. The clock didn’t operate correctly and the TV sometimes stopped, to randomly start 30 minutes later while you were sleeping. Price to quality ratio was off, everything you bought or had serviced costed x5 fold to local businesses rate. This would have been permissible if it weren’t for the bad quality of hospitality. I basically got stranded in this hotel as I couldn’t change it since it was a...