Another Panama Hotel Snafu
Panama Travelog #9
El Valle, Panama - Mon, 23 Dec 2024. 4pm.
After our tiring 2-hour drive in Panama today we arrived at Hotel Campestre in El Valle, Panama. This area, whose full name is El Valle de Antón, is in the caldera of an ancient volcano. There are mountains all around us.... They are the rim of the ancient volcano we are inside.
Hotel Campestre is a modest lodge about 2km off the town's main road in a lush, green area at the foot of steep mountains. There's a view across the valley to the mountains on the far side, as well (photo above). Unfortunately, as nice as it looks we've encountered another hotel snafu.
The snafu is the hotel doesn't actually have the room we booked available. We booked a king room that would have a large bed (obvs) and a table and a couple of chairs. We're here for 4 nights so having a bit of room to spread out is important. They put us in a two-queen room. The problem with the 2Q configuration is that not only is it smaller bed(s) than we reserved, there is basically no furniture in it other than the 2 beds. Also, we paid more to book the king room.
After tromping upstairs with our bags (there's no elevator here) we tromped back down to complain about the room switcheroo. It turns out all the king rooms are in the process of renovation. They don't have one to give us. Of course, that didn't stop them from selling them on their website. They did show us one king room that's available now... but it reeked of fresh paint. Apparently the renovations aren't quite done, even on that room.
The staff at the hotel were apologetic but refused to do anything different. Hawk demanded a small discount, $20/night, and they refused. Their reason was something like, "Your credit card has already been charged." Like, once they'd collected money they absolutely weren't allowed to let go of it. Nevermind that credit card credits are a routine thing that's existed for decades. 🙄
Ultimately Hawk got them to agree to give us free breakfast in the hotel restaurant for our stay. Nominally that's worth over $20/day, based on menu price, though for us the value is maybe half that as we'd normally be satisfied buying take-away breakfast at one of the many markets in town.
El Valle, Panama - Mon, 23 Dec 2024. 4pm.
After our tiring 2-hour drive in Panama today we arrived at Hotel Campestre in El Valle, Panama. This area, whose full name is El Valle de Antón, is in the caldera of an ancient volcano. There are mountains all around us.... They are the rim of the ancient volcano we are inside.
Hotel Campestre is a modest lodge about 2km off the town's main road in a lush, green area at the foot of steep mountains. There's a view across the valley to the mountains on the far side, as well (photo above). Unfortunately, as nice as it looks we've encountered another hotel snafu.
The snafu is the hotel doesn't actually have the room we booked available. We booked a king room that would have a large bed (obvs) and a table and a couple of chairs. We're here for 4 nights so having a bit of room to spread out is important. They put us in a two-queen room. The problem with the 2Q configuration is that not only is it smaller bed(s) than we reserved, there is basically no furniture in it other than the 2 beds. Also, we paid more to book the king room.
After tromping upstairs with our bags (there's no elevator here) we tromped back down to complain about the room switcheroo. It turns out all the king rooms are in the process of renovation. They don't have one to give us. Of course, that didn't stop them from selling them on their website. They did show us one king room that's available now... but it reeked of fresh paint. Apparently the renovations aren't quite done, even on that room.
The staff at the hotel were apologetic but refused to do anything different. Hawk demanded a small discount, $20/night, and they refused. Their reason was something like, "Your credit card has already been charged." Like, once they'd collected money they absolutely weren't allowed to let go of it. Nevermind that credit card credits are a routine thing that's existed for decades. 🙄
Ultimately Hawk got them to agree to give us free breakfast in the hotel restaurant for our stay. Nominally that's worth over $20/day, based on menu price, though for us the value is maybe half that as we'd normally be satisfied buying take-away breakfast at one of the many markets in town.