Nayara Alto Atacama

Location superb Staff outstanding, and always willing to go the extra mile. Allowed late check out for no additional fee to use the facilities, so long as we exited our room Offered trips were excellent and value for money

Excellent hotel , nice facilities, the staff are polite and attentive. The desert itself is amazing and the tour arrangements made by the hotel make it a lot more enjoyable. The tour guides are very well informed. The rooms are very comfortable,

After visiting the Nayara property in Costa Rica, I knew a stay at Nayara Alto Atacama would be equally sensational and amazing…and it was! My husband and I flew into Calama and were immediately greeted by our transport driver at the arrivals hall. We were given water bottles for the hour and 15 minute drive to the resort, which was a nice touch. The drive might feel a little long, but the views are magnificent. Upon arriving at the resort, we were immediately greeted by Susana and were given a welcome drink. We were also starving and were immediately offered the bar menu so we could order something to eat. Side note: the prosciutto pizza was amazing! While eating Maria came over from the excursion desk and thoroughly explained all of our options and immediately booked each excursion for the duration of our stay. We chose the full experience, which includes all food, drinks (with the exception of premium wines and liquors), and excursions. I would absolutely recommend going this route as it was nice not having to think about laying out additional money for food/drinks and activities while there. Speaking of food…every single meal we ate was exceptional. All the ingredients were extremely fresh and the chef was innovative with coming up with different meal options each day. Some of our favorites were all the different soups they offered, the potato side dishes, the braised beef, several salmon dishes, and the BBQ night. All of the excursions, including the astronomy night were top tier and each of our guides were informative, personable, and helpful, especially Carlos, Rudolfo, and Fabiola. We did the Rainbow Valley Hike, the Ckamur Sunset Hike, Atacama Salt Flats, and the Pacana Monks. The beauty of the natural landscape and the wildlife were phenomenal, especially during the Salt Flat and Pacana Monk excursions. We stayed in a Tilo Suite Room and the room was made up twice a day was also extremely clean. We enjoyed sitting out on our balcony on the day bed staring at the beauty of the desert. Nayara may not be one of the biggest 5 star brands, but they operate a flawless operation and we will continue to visit their properties as you’re guaranteed a 5 star experience!

This resort is about an hour and a half from the airport in Calama. It has a beautiful location outside of San Pedro and the grounds and facilities are excellent. It is rated as a 5 star resort, and it is. Our garden room was wonderful: large, well furnished and comfortable. It had an outside covered patio with a large built in bed to lounge on. We used in several times and just relaxed and admired the grounds. The included breakfast was excellent: many choices and the quality great. The property has several pools to choose from and an interesting outdoor rock and mineral museum. There are also llamas on the property. And uniquely to this resort, it has an astronomy viewing platform set up on a modest hill. There are installed loungers to use for viewing and they have a 20" Newtonian telescope. We were fortunate that we had a clear night for viewing and the guide did an excellent job of explaining several objects. We were particularly impressed with the sight of the Large Magellanic Cloud and surprised at how large it is! The resort offers many excursions to the numerous geological features in the area and this is the major reason to visit the Atacama. The tours were all well organized and the guides excellent. Our favorite was to the high Atacama where we crossed the crest at about 16,000 feet and viewed ranges of volcanos. The lunch the guides prepared for us on this all day trip was great, and we had wine and beer too. All of the services at the resort were excellent-from check-in, excursions, restaurant and maid service. We would definitely go again.

Amazing! Kudos to Rosario, who made us feel like we were Kings and Queens. She was superb, and what a great idea to have her there to greet everyone throughout the day. And kudos to Klauss, David, Joaquin the driver, Claudio and Anita the tour guides, as well as Alex who took us on a spectacular bike tour, and Diego, Rachel, Antuan and Gino the waiters! Every aspect of the stay was unforgettable, the clearly have it down pat how to treat guests.

We stayed at the Nayara Atacama resort for 3 nights as a family of four. Overall, I liked it enough and don’t have any terrible complaints, however I rate it a 4 out of 5 since it could be a lot better. The property is beautifully situated. It is near the town of San Pedro, and close to many excursion sites. The hotel certainly offers lots of options to take advantage of this. The rooms are spacious and well appointed. Excursions were great with the tour guides being very helpful and entertaining. Most of the time we were on our own with a tour guide for excursions. Why a 4, not a 5? We felt like there were a lot of little things that were annoying - and it added up. In fact, I would rate it lower if it weren’t for the fact that every single staff member has done an amazing job. The team just makes such a huge difference. Any request or question - they were all immediately happy to help. First, a fairly minor point -- you are essentially forced to book your excursions before you even see the room. After a long day of flights / travel, that’s not ideal. I recommend that you contact them ahead of time and figure out what you want your schedule to be - because there are many options. Second, the meal times are completely out of sync with both excursions and the spa schedule. For example, first half day excursions all end at around 12:30 but lunch doesn’t get served until 1:30. So you get back tired after a trip and have to wait for an hour to get food. The worst part was at dinner - we had to rush through our meal (only starts at 7:30) to make the 8:20 astronomy hike. We saw several other families doing the same and complaining that it was difficult to finish a meal in 50 minutes. And the spa closes at 9, which means you can’t ever go after dinner. Yes, there is a limited bar menu but we just found all of the scheduling to be incredibly inconvenient. This is especially true for kids. It would be such a simple fix to extend the meal times and create a more relaxing mealtime atmosphere for everyone, instead of adhering to a random and rigid schedule. Third - and this is the biggest negative -- my kids were utterly disappointed with the pools. These were probably the worst hotel pools we’ve seen, unfortunately. They are super tiny - and all but one are freezing cold. One of them was getting redone while we were there (and the smell from construction was strong) and the only heated pool was dirty and they kept trying to clean it… but it was pretty green. I think it is fine if adults just want to relax by the pool (in which case there are plenty of quiet and secluded spots) but if you are traveling with kids, it is just not the place for swimming. That isn’t great because kids get tired on excursions and a nice dip in the afternoon would be perfect. I probably wouldn't have booked this resort if I knew about the pool situation. Overall, definitely a decent place to stay in Atacama. I would just be aware of some of these minor issues so you ar

Lovely resort in an excellent setting with friendly staff. What makes the resort special is the quality of their excursions and superb guides. Good quality food but could do with smaller portions and lighter portions.

The lodge and location are unique and one-of-a-kind! Nothing compares to the caring and service excellence for delighting the customer!

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Nayara Alto. The location, decor and amenities were excellent for this remote location. Rosario the manager made us feel totally at home and she was always caring and ensuring that all details were taken care of. Thank you Rosario! The food was delicious…we loved the creative soups and delicious butter of the day. Wines were excellent too! Antonia was very knowledgeable about the wines and regions and introduced us to some stellar selections. The staff were excellent, friendly and truly eager to ensure that we enjoyed our meals. This was a true haven after a tiring day of exploring and touring the region.