HOTEL MINCA - LA CASONA is a hipster hotel in Centro Historico in Santa Marta. This place has 100 reviews and an average rating of 4.1 of 5. This is a good rating.
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Reviews from visitors:
I gave 4 stars because the location is quite beautiful, relaxing, food is very nice as well.
Rooms are big enough for our needs but really could use some Tender Loving Care. Also would recommend better coverage for the window. You can see into the rooms with minimal effort.
Great location in a beautiful historic building! There was hot water and mosquito nets. Air conditioning wasn't really totally necessary. The breakfast was really good and the hummingbirds on the balcony were always a great sight in the morning. Rooms were simple but clean.
We called ahead because we were going to be late - arriving around 8 or 9 pm or possibly later as there was a block in the road that cost us several hours.. But when we arrived at 8:30 no one was at the reception and it was closed. There was no note or email message explains what to do. So we started calling other hotels since we thought we could not check in. As we were doing that, someone arrived to check us in. Would have been nice to have a note that explained someone was coming back.
Birdwatching while having breakfast is great plan. Lunch options are ok, but be careful with caneloni option.
Hotel rooms are ok, bathrooms could be improved. Extra points for hot water availability.
Where to start..... this is a difficult review to write. My advice - look elsewhere. We were scheduled to spend 13 nights at Hotel Minca - La Casona at the end of our 3 month adventures in Costa Rica and Colombia. We only stayed 2 nights.
First: rooms were clean enough with a fan, breakfast was included, patio with hummingbirds was nice. This is a marginal place to stay for one or maybe two nights while passing through to go up further into the mountains.
We booked the best room in the place - the Superior King Room. The cleaning person does her best, but the room was dark, dank, and the towels were so stiff and scratchy that you could almost stand them up. I thought some scrub towels had been forgotten in the room, but these were our hand towels. There was no cross-ventilation, so even though it got cooler in the night, the room stayed hot.
I tried to find a pleasant place to sit outside, but the sitting area was on the other side of the building and uncomfortable. The view of the ill-cared-for grounds was unpleasant. There were no fans except on hot side by TV. Beer bottle sat on chair in garden the whole time
The pool - ugh - even though it did not look clean, the first day there I put my feet in, and the water felt slimy. Really gross. No one swimming. Ever.
First day there, went to restaurant during lunch hours, and Sergio told us he had a group of 15 coming in and we needed to wait until he took care of them. We thought this odd since we were guests at the hotel. The group did not arrive. We were served our lunch, but it gave us a feeling of not being a priority for this business.
The included breakfast was a small plate of fruit, eggs, and toast. It was ok, but the juice tasted like Tang, and for Colombia being the home of "Juan Valdez", coffee was definitely in short supply here! A teacup size cup was brought to the table, less than half full. The second morning, the wait person never returned to our table. We got the message. It seemed to us that this message was that they would do only the bare minimum for us. We paid $76 per night, in advance as they requested, and were planning on being their guests for 13 nights. This was not a good message under these circumstances.
We wanted to like this hotel! The reviews had some warnings in them, but not too bad. We should have listened to the warnings.
Minca itself sounded like a relaxed small village in a mountainous natural area with vistas, birds, and some interesting restaurants. Instead, it appears to be a stopping off place to get on the tour jeep, or hop a moto, and go somewhere else. So, I think most people only stay a night or two at the hotel, which is probably bearable.
We knew staying 13 nights was impossible at hotel, but especially being in a remote area in a foreign country, we did not want to offend people there by complaining about the hotel to them. We decided to pack up and just say that we had friends in Santa Marta. The owner assumed we were invited to stay with them, and we just let him assume that.
After we left. I checked to see if the Superior King Room was listed as available on booking websites. It was. Almost every day, it was listed as available, then listed as sold, sometimes for two days at a time. The reason I was checking was that I didn't want to request a partial refund if they hadn't been able to re-sell the room. Since they did re-sell it, and now had double the price, I wrote and asked for them to consider a partial refund. The response was that it wasn't being re-sold, it was being used by a friend of Sergio's. This was not true as I could clearly track the room being posted each day on multiple websites and the room being sold and the hotel being sold out most of the days we paid for.
It was our decision to leave the hotel. The hotel was not required to refund anything to us, but the fairness and courtesy of a partial refund, since they re-rented the room for the 11 nights we paid for, would have made us feel better about the whole experience. Please learn from our sharing of what we know about this hotel.
This hotel is tucked up in beautiful Minca. I’m unsure on whether to give this place a 3 or 4 star. It’s has a lot of pros: beautiful setting, beautiful outdoor spaces with hammocks, lovely gardens, the deck where you can view upwards of 40 species of hummingbirds is amazing (although it needs some maintenance). The restaurant is very nice and they serve a simple yet delicious breakfast. The service was very good. The only con is really the rooms. They are quite run down and the rugs looked and smelled like maybe someone had recently wiped faeces on them. Yuck. The bathroom was basic and could use a facelift and some shelving. It was clean, we think, but it needs some love. The ceiling fan was ok, but we did find it hot as we are not used to the heat. It wouldn’t take much to make this place really fantastic. Also, the pool could use a clean. We had an overall good stay here but highly recommend that some work be put into the rooms.
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