Parador El Faro

Our first experience was tainted because the hotel was showing on Hotels.com, Google Maps and my GPS as someone's house 7 minutes away. It took us awhile to find the hotel because nothing was coming up with the location & when we tried calling the hotel it would disconnect us. We had to call hotels.com to get help. On the outside the hotel looks nice. The restaurant had mediocre food and slow service... especially for a restaurant that was empty most of the time. They didn't have set hours and we were told they close based on how many customers they have. Our room was disappointing by far. The bed felt like sleeping on loose springs and rocks with only 2 very thin pillows. Our air conditioner didn't work the first day as it kept shutting off at night and we didn't have any hot water. Even worse was our only response was we'd have to wait till the morning to look at it. The hot water was off just because 2 of their circuit breaker switches were off... that's something someone at the hotel should have been able to check. We eventually asked the front desk to just supply us with enough shampoo/soap & towels to last our trip because we no longer wanted maid service. They took our dirty towels and didn't leave us any new ones or replenish our empty soaps/shampoo. It also seemed like our room was just partially cleaned. For most of our trip you couldn't find anyone at the front desk and usually had to use the courtesy phone to call for someone.

This hotel is lovely. The grounds, pool and restaurant are wonderful. The room, unfortunately that is a different story. The room leaves quite a bit to be desired. There is no phone in the room itself. The only way to advise the front desk of any problem is by walking down. There is wifi available but don't forget to ask for the password upon check in. The beds are full size which is ok, I was aware upon check in, but they were uncomfortable. There is no elevator in this hotel. If you need assistance going upstairs, I recommend requesting a room on the first floor. I don't think I read that in the description. Possible I overlooked it. There were only 4 channels on the tv. Sadly. Granted I wasn't there to watch tv, but moments of down time made were made slightly difficult. The hotel was gorgeous and well kept. A shuttle from the hotel to nearby Crash Boat would be useful. It's one heck of a walk otherwise.

The hotel doesn't really have wifi at the moment - only available in the lobby, at the open-air restaurant and sometimes near the two pools. The restaurant at the hotel isn't anything special and you'd be better served to find somewhere else to eat for tasty food unless you're just starving and too tired to trek out and find something. The general cleanliness of the hotel is just ok, as the shower stall seemed to have a very thin layer of grey-ish deposits on the floor of the stall that was overlooked in their general housekeeping rounds, and there were a few bugs in the room but I expected that in a tropical location - nothing serious. The staff were all very friendly, however, and did a nice job accommodating us when the dryer machine broke - they refunded our money from the coin-operated dryer and put our stuff in their industrial dryer, gratis. Overall a nice value and good location.

It was a very fun experience. Had a great time, with my family.

I stayed here seven years ago and it was a better time because of the renovations of the rooms. I was expecting it to be more quieter than it was, but over all I enjoyed the non-traditional atmosphere of this Country Inn.