Papagayo Beach Resort

We had a fantastic holiday at this resort for the second year in a row. We were welcomed with a giant fruit bowl as a welcome back gesture. We were given a villa with frontline sea view. Super friendly staff with high service level : all with 1 goal: to make sure you'll have an unforgettable holiday. They succeeded in that !

The property is broken into 2 locations. The hotel and the resort. This review is based on the resort. However the restaurants are located on the hotel side. Transportation - the hotel was able to arrange transportation for us from the airport. However transportation never arrived and had to book our own taxi after waiting for the pre booked transport more than 30 minutes. Checkin - considering we came with a group, the check in process was smooth and my villa was ready upon our arrival. The staff went through their list of property rules and reviewed the map with us of both properties. The villa - if you are use too luxury and service, this property is not for you. It is a basic island room that happens to be called a villa but it is not a typical villa. The villa we had was very dated. They still utilize actual metal keys and you need the key to lock yourself in. Walking in you can easily see that cleaning is very lacks. We spent a great deal of time wiping surfaces down. Surfaces were stained, walls needed to cleaned or possibly repainted. However in one of the bathrooms, there was actual urine on the toilet seat. I was disgusted, but I refused to clean that myself. I called housekeeping to tend that. They were apologetic but gave off the impression we were bothering them. After the cleaning was done we tried to make the best of it. We were not aware the living room and bathrooms were not air conditioned as they have the island style shutters. I was pissed because it was extremely hot and I didn’t want to deal with pest coming in as there are numerous rat traps throughout the property in plain site. That means also mosquitos can enter freely. We never turned the lights on in those spaces at night so it would not attract bugs. Yes, at night we went to that bathroom in the dark for fear of seeing a creepy crawler or attracting them with the lights. Although the worst we experienced was a frog that would not get of the sink. The best part of villa was the huge wrap around terraces that we utilized in the daytime only. It was an open air feel with comfortable chairs and a swing. We even had bird fly in one day. The master bedroom had a king size bed that was just 2 twins pushed together. It was an uncomfortable sleep as you could feel the seam. Food- let’s face it, the food in Curaçao all around doesn’t hold a candle to other Caribbean islands. There was no where on the property that anything stood out but it was tolerable and descent once you stop comparing to other places. We did breakfast everyday at the beach club. Very limited and simple options. What it lacked in options, the views made up for it. There was a restaurant we ate at upstairs from the beach club for dinner once. The food was terrible. The burgers were over cooked horribly. Poolside food was 5 options and it gets boring very fast. We tried to order bottled water (meaning pay for) at the resort check in area and the manager in a very scolding tone let us know that there fa