Courtyard By Marriott Santa Marta Resort

“Good hotel at beach also suitable for families”

Spacious hotel with very nice rooms: very comfortable beds and a good shower (we had Deluxe room with queen-size bed). Room has a nice balcony. The rooms are very quiet and the air-con works well. Breakfast has a big variety of warm and cold local and international dishes. The hotel misses a bit a … more

Spacious hotel with very nice rooms: very comfortable beds and a good shower (we had Deluxe room with queen-size bed). Room has a nice balcony. The rooms are very quiet and the air-con works well. Breakfast has a big variety of warm and cold local and international dishes. The hotel misses a bit a warm atmosphere. The lobby has it but the pool bar and restaurant are very functional (canteen-like). Staff is very friendly. Short walk to the beach. Beach chairs and umbrella are for free. No beach beds available unfortunately. At the beach be aware to be harassed by vendors and massage ladies constantly (even worse downtown)

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“Overpriced and bad service”

It is now the third time I stayed here and will be the last since the hotel and its service gotten worse from time to time. The hotel is really overpriced for what it offers. There are many things they need to improve. Good things are The location of the hotel is ok. It doesn’t have direct beach a… more

It is now the third time I stayed here and will be the last since the hotel and its service gotten worse from time to time. The hotel is really overpriced for what it offers. There are many things they need to improve. Good things are The location of the hotel is ok. It doesn’t have direct beach access but you just need to walk 3min and you are at the beach. The rooms and hotel are clean. Things to improve They only offer one small bottle of water per room on the first day and claim it because of environmental reasons. That’s complete non sense and just a cost cutting reason to not replace it daily with one or more bottles per guest. Unacceptable especially in a region where tap water has not high quality and people then buy plastic bottles. On the beach there are just cheap plastic chairs and no proper beds. Furthermore they only offer 2 chairs per room although we paid for three guests in the room. Moreover, they only have limited number of chairs and umbrellas which is not acceptable. And several days there were not even enough chairs or umbrellas available. They don’t replace beach or pool towles and changing them is quite an act since you either need to call the reception and they just don’t act on it so in the end you need to go to the reception which is quite a pain since elevators are always busy and you need to wait a lot. Breakfast is ok but doesn’t offer much of a variety. The coffee is quite bad and they don’t offer normal coffee beverages such as cappuccino, espresso etc. Restaurant/ pool bar: in general and this might be the working attitude in the Colombian coast, service staff is not very attentive and not working very fast. So you need to order way on advance to get a simple coke or water although they have sufficient staff standing around. In Europe or Asia service is much better and faster.

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“30 minutes to check out was unreasonable”

Our credit card was charged 300,000 COP as a deposit during our stay. We believed that it would have been a hold on the funds like most other hotels we have stayed in. But it was actually charged onto the card. We only spent 66,000 COP. The reception staff member disappeared for more than 10 minute… more

Our credit card was charged 300,000 COP as a deposit during our stay. We believed that it would have been a hold on the funds like most other hotels we have stayed in. But it was actually charged onto the card. We only spent 66,000 COP. The reception staff member disappeared for more than 10 minutes during the checkout process without explanation. Upon return he asked that we complete and sign a form with our credit card details. The form was in Spanish. Astoundingly the hotel was unable to provide a form in English. We used google translate and crossed out all the Spanish words and replaced them with English words before completing the form. But we still do not have a refund – 8 days after checking out. The basic room was narrow but comfortable. We would recommend booking a higher category of room for more space and declining a pool view room. You can hear kids screaming as soon as it opens. We were served by a surly young man on our first night (see the separate review for Emile Restaurante). We did not tip him, and we got the stink eye from him for the next 5 days. We tried to avoid going to the pool bar when he was working because getting a glass of ice was too much trouble for him. Thankfully a pleasant older bartender rotated shifts with the arrogant young man.

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