Pato Canales Hotel & Resort

It's only 10 minutes from the airport and the front desk calls a taxi for you. They charged us $5/person. They have 3 different pools and a lazy river for kids. They were clean. They also have about 7 monkeys for you to see and a playground. There was no hot water to shower.

Comfortable and easy eaccess to the airport. Staff were very welcoming and attentive to ones needs. Great place for families with young children as it has lots of play equipment. Grounds are well kept. Restaurant has a good choice of meals and drinks. Room was clean upon our arrival.

We arrived at the hotel ahead of check in (it’s near the airport, so obviously we went nice we landed) and was shocked at the response from the reception staff. We were told that we could have the room, however it would cost 7USD per hour! We said, can we just wait by the pool then and they agreed. Then the second blow - 5USD per towel. They did eventually wave this cost, but they gave us bathroom towels with holes in them, almost like they had taken them out of lost property. The Hotel has four pools, yet only six sun loungers that can’t be moved - they are bolted to the floor (and four of them are broken) The rooms are large, and come with a good AC unit. However, the shower only works went it wants to and the fridge will almost freeze what ever you put in it.

The garden is well maintained, the rooms are outdated but clean and the beds are very comfortable. The AC is quiet and efficient. The water in the shower however is not able to maintain constant temperature and I had to constantly move it otherwise it becomes too hot/cold, the water pressure isn’t great as the shower head. The towels they gave us, had holes and although smelled cleaned had marks and clearly need updating. Now for the negative… we arrived at 10am (check in is at 2pm) we asked if we could check in early to which they said we could but they will charge us 7$ per every extra hour. We decided not to spend the money since we were going to spend the day by the pools anyway. We asked if we could have three towels and they tried to charge us 5$ for each towel! After some discussion they decided to give us the towels but told us that these are the only towels we will get until tomorrow (we were staying for 2 nights). This wasn’t great but we agreed nevertheless. Then we asked if they can prepare us sandwiches for when we check out (breakfast was included in the price) as we had to check out at 6am and breakfast starts at 7:30am. They refused so we enquired if we could have the breakfast at the time of check in (10am and they serve until 10:30am) since we have paid for it within the room rate. We were told no again! On the positive, breakfast was nice. We asked about airport shuttle (I knew they didn’t have one but were offering taxis, the Airport is 3km away) we were told it’s 15$ for the 3km, when I laughed and said this is ridiculous price for this country, they shrugged. They didn’t however inform us that they are busses that stop right outside every 15-20 minutes and that cost 0.60$ per person, they start at 4:20 am. Nor did they recommend we try Uber which is around 4$ for the journey, at the time we checked. When it was time to check in they gave us bungalow number 1 (closest to the noisy road) even though in the reservation I had asked for number 7 (having read other reviews), after some discussion AGAIN they finally have us number 8 (furthest from the road). The following morning (after the first night) I asked if I could have coffee with my breakfast instead of orange juice, they agreed but later told me since I asked for the large rather than small Americano that they would have to charge it separately! I said I was happy to have the small one since I wasn’t made aware that I have to pay extra, they said it is too late now since they have marked it 😂. Obviously I had to say OK since they left me no other choice. I also asked if I could swap the hash brown for fried plantain and once again the answer (yes you guessed it) was a NO! Although the place is nice, I find it overpriced for the overall quality. There were only 6 loungers (tied down to the ground so can’t move them for the need of shade), for the 4 pools!!!! There were no towels for the pool area or access to chairs to sit outside of our bungalow. The staff were